Doggies

While going through a stack of books about the history of animation, I found these cute doggies. I decided to draw them. I hope one to be able to actually make an animated cartoon. Still trying to learn the Pencil Animation freeware. I will get it one day.

Nova's Bakery and Urban Sketchers

Well, one of my inspirations for beginning this blog in the first place was another blog called Urban Sketchers. It's a remarkable blog where many wonderful artists contribute their artwork from all around the world. They are simply sketching their city surroundings. It all looks all so easy until you try it.

One afternoon I was going to try on location drawing. Instead of standing there drawing, I just took a picture of Nova's Bakery and decided to sketch from that instead.  So this is the sketch that resulted.

Originally I thought that you needed to go to cities like Charleston and Savannah to find gems to sketch, but that's not true. Charlotte's got a lot!

Hopefully I can get more into sketching on location. Stay tuned!

It's Time to Wake up the Blog!

Well...it's been a long a time...too long since I've posted on this blog. I was inspired to dust off the sketch books and start over again after receiving a very nice comment about my handwriting style. So thanks to you dear commenter, you've lit a fire and I thank you for it.

The other day, I found an old National Geographic magazine at work and inside were these lovely photos of roosters. I sketched from the magazine while watching TV one night last week and this drawing is the result. I also had some fun playing with all the different effects in Photoshop to add a really textured look to the second sketch.



Original Rooster Sketch



Rooster with Photoshop texture 

So stay tuned, I have many projects brewing! In between dreaming of baking the perfect cookie and finishing a quilt for a baby that's walking now, I have decided that I need to make time to draw as well. You know, just squeeze it in somehow.   

I love Trader Joe's!

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I love Trader Joe's! I especially love their sign art. One day, I dream of become a Trader Joe's Sign Artist.

I found these really great Crayola Dry Erase Crayons ($3.49 at Walmart) that work really well on dry erase boards and on chalk boards too. So for now, I can keep practicing my lettering over and over again. Who knows, maybe one day maybe I will be good enough to produce signs at TJ's.

I have the cutest drawing book called "How to Draw Fairies and Mermaids" by Fiona Watt that I bought a few years ago. This darling book is for kids but I love it for its simple drawing instructions. I have always loved children's picture books and thought that one day I could maybe be an illustrator. So I was playing around with copying some of the cartoons and coloring them inPhotoshop.

Late Night Drawings

Last night before drifting off to sleep, this is an exercise from the book "The Little Book of Drawing: A Friendly Approach" by Dr. Mary McNaughton. I've had this book for a while and thought I would try some exercises out of it. One of the exercises suggested drawing your signature over and over again while looking away from the paper. That was tiring after a while. It's suppose to create a neat background. Flipping through the pages, I decided to draw some flowers and a pumpkin. Then I fell asleep.

Fly Robin Fly

This morning when I was going to work, I saw this robin flying across the road. So I wanted to share this sketch I did way back in 2002. In the springtime we have tons of robins in the backyard just hanging out. I love to watch them worm hunt.