Collaboration with Toby

Collaboration with Toby, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

So Toby drew me, and then I drew Toby - and this is the result :) Toby says this is the angry-bird version of me :) He actually looked at me a lot while he was drawing it - which I was impressed by. I cheated and took a photo of him to draw from - I didn't think I could get him to hold that facial expression for long enough ;)

Clay Creations

Clay Creations, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

Drew some of Toby's clay creations. This one was made years ago - he might have been 3 or so - it's an ocarina. I helped him a bit ;) The other is a pumpkin he just made at school for fall.  I tried using a watercolor pencil for that one.  I really don't get those things.

One-Eyed Monsters

One-Eyed Monsters, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

This was a fun one. I drew 3 monsters the first without using the prompt words - the second (this one) by selecting prompt words at random and the third by picking and choosing my favorite prompts. Fun one.

Toys

Toys, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

Drew some of the kiddo's' toys. I was surprised to find that it was a lot easier to draw the soft toys than the hard plastic one. This is Jonas' favorite hippo that he sleeps with at night. I love this guy.

Scribble Drawings

Scribble Drawings, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

I have my very own once a week art morning now! Which is amazing. To warm up before I did some painting this week I did the scribble drawing exercise. It was fun, but certainly not something I've never done before. I drew a shell and a pile of bowls and my old film camera in it's case. (whatever happened to be on the shelf in my studio)

Dr. Suess-y

IMG_9390, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

I wanted to be inspired by the Dr. Suess project - but after weeks and weeks of putting it off- I realized that I wasn't. So the other day I was on the porch with Jo and decided to just bang it out in sidewalk chalk on the top of the porch wall. There you go - it is done - onward and upward :)

Inspired by Amedeo Modigliani

Inspired by Amedeo Modigliani, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

I'm very "meh" on this one. I like Modigliani's stuff - but I don't think his style is particularly suited to expressing older people - so the assignment to draw our parents seems a little strange to me. My mom would be better depicted with no neck at all - so drawing her with a super long neck didn't work out - this really doesn't look anything like my mom. But - eh' - I did it. Onward to the next one.

Klee Transfers

Klee Transfers, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

This project was a ton of fun. I was unsure about the process at first - rolling paint onto tracing paper? What? But after a few screw-ups it turned out to be really neat.

The first time I tried it it came out way too light - so I attempted to re-roll paint onto the same tracing paper - and it came out WAY too dark. I considered it a failure and kept trying, but when it came time to add color I remembered that I'd just purchased some cheap oil pastels from the school supply clearance at Target so I pulled those out and tried it and it worked great! Usually oil pastels and I don't have much to say to eachother - but this was fun :)

I'm a little dismayed by how much my pictures ended up looking like christmas cards - but I guess it's just the subject matter. And the lines I drew in the sky that look like a christmas star.  I was just trying to break up the space like Klee - but oh well.

This one was inspired by a photo of the interior of a cathedral.  A little less festive. :)

I also got a few more of my 100 faces done - click through to flickr to see those.

Jonas Jumping on the Sofa in the Morning

Jonas Jumping on the Bed in the Morning, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

I liked Miro's titles "Lark singing in the moonlight with the morning stars" or something like that - so I titled my drawing too. I liked making the drawing. I found the coloring boring. :) And yes - that is me he is jumping on.

Picasso Dogs

Picasso Dogs, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

Another fun week - these were easy and amusing. Toby did it with me - click to see my other dog and Toby's dog too.

One liners

One liners, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

These were really fun. Toby and I sat together on the couch and did them together. I will say - I never drew so much with sharpie markers before this book - I've learned to like them a lot - just not the smell :) Click the photo to see the rest of my one-liners and Toby's too.

Tracing Leo

Tracing Leo, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

Nice and simple drawing lab this week - I traced this picture. I make an effort to follow the instructions - so despite my deeply held hatred of mechanical pencils - I went ahead and hunted one down and used it - who knows - maybe I would discover that they were more wonderful than I remembered. But no - I still hate them. A lot. I suppose that's valuable to know as well :) I also got some more faces done - I'm up to 25 now. I painted one of my state representatives (referencing from her reelection campaign postcard) with Toby's Crayola washable watercolors. Luckily I took a photo right away - because the next morning I found that the cats had knocked a glass of water on her and she'd washed away completely. Kinda crazy.  It was a wonky painting anyway - her right eye was floating away weirdly.  That's what I get for diving in without doing a pencil sketch to start :)

100 Faces

100 Faces, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

Next up in the book is the drawing from a live nekkid model - which, while I've done a lot in the past, I'm still happy to do again - but what I really want to do is go do Dr. Sketchy - and the Kansas City Dr. Sketchy takes a break in the summer because their space is unairconditioned. So I'm just going to put those 2 weeks on hold for now and come back to them in a few months when Dr. Sketchy starts up again. Cuz, yunno - why pay lots of money for a live drawing class when you could pay a tiny bit of money and see burlesque! So this week I began my 100 faces. I think I only got about 15 done - but she says you can take a few months to get through it :) I find that I'm almost always disappointed when I'm just drawing out of my head, but I can be pretty happy if I'm looking at a photo or a real person for inspiration. We have a huge photo book, darn, I've forgotten the artists name, but it's full of faces - so I've been opening to a random page and drawing whatever I find. That's been fun. Now I need to get more into the mixed media business and get away from just whatever pen I have lying around :) I've been really wanting to play with watercolor lately. so that will probably be the next set. click the photo to see more faces on flickr.

Ink Dropper Drawings

Ink Dropper Drawings, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

The night I made these I really didn't like them, but by the next morning I'd begun to warm up to them. At first the toilet paper blobbing seemed to be just messing up an already mucky process - but now I enjoy the texture. It almost looks pixilated where the ink picked up the texture from the toilet paper. These are the six that I have deemed successes. Click the photo to see the ones I was less happy with and how I altered them. (btw - this is taken from a photo of Gary Oldman from an old ad for Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy :)

Four Eyes

IMG_8711, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

I've been avoiding this drawing lab for a long time. I felt like I'd payed my "copying photos out of magazines" dues in middle school and this eye in particular bothered me. I hated the way the lighting made the pupil look square. Finally, inspired by this guy, I decided to dedicate no more than 45 minute of my life to it and get it done (after all, if he can do all that in 30 minutes, I can draw a silly eyeball in 10) So I drew my basic eye outlines in 5 minutes, put on some peppy music set a timer for 10 minutes each and cranked these guys out fast. I'm glad to have them done and I'm pretty happy with them too. I did end up giving the colored pencil one an extra few minutes. All that color blending takes longer than I thought. The other two eyes are here.

Drawing Lab: Cheater Blinds

IMG_8560, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

Dragged my sketch book and pens and an old photo album out to the playground and got my cheater blinds done. These were fun. They ended up being very caricature-ish. Especially this one. Jason isn't really leering at Jessica as much in the photo as this looks - but it makes for a kinda fun drawing :) I also drew my brother and I with a snowman and my sister holding a cousins new baby.  You can see those ones on flickr.

Drawing Lab: Drawing in Coffee Shops

IMG_8544, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

I dreaded this week. I forced myself to go ahead and do it anyway - because it's good to do things that make you uncomfortable sometimes. But I ended up hating doing it as much as I feared I would. Drawing animals at the zoo is fun. They are used to being stared at all day. Drawing people in a coffee shop makes me feel like a Creepy Person. And not just drawing - Blind Contour Drawing of all things. So I'm not even looking down at my paper. I'm just staring at a stranger and drawing in my little book. CREEEPY PERSON. So ya - I just have too many social anxiety issues to enjoy this project. But I did it.
To avoid being too much of a creepy person I mostly drew people's backs and people who were sitting outside (foolishly I chose a seat with a bad view of the people outside - so those drawings are kinda cramped) Anyway - It's done. I don't have to worry about it anymore. Moving on to next week - drawing from photos - nice and comfortable!

Click the photo to see the rest of my drawings on Flickr.

Drawing lab: Left Handed Faces

Jesse Sleeping, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

This begins the "inspired by people" section - which is more challenging than animals, because I have to do this when I'm around other people. I finally found a time when Toby and jesse were around. First while Toby was eating breakfast - his eyes are looking down at my drawing on the right. His mouth got strangely enormous so I drew him again today while he was watching Star Wars and I also got Jesse while he was sleeping through Star Wars. Left handed drawing is fun. It's a lovely excuse for imperfection.

Drawing Lab Week 8 - find the creature

Maltese Cat and Bird, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

Better late than never - We painted random red, blue and yellow lines then looked for the hidden creatures.

Click the photo to see the rest of my creatures on Flickr

4 media monkey

4 media monkey, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

The assignment for this was to draw a monkey using only 4 preselected different media. I chose a pink sharpie, a green fine point sharpie, a pencil, and crimson watercolor applied with one of those chinese bamboo brushes. I hated drawing my monkey with a sharpie to start with. As you can see by the random line going through the middle of his head and that mess on his hand, I clearly needed something I could erase while I was feeling out my proportions. but I did enjoy the process of mixing the different drawing media. I like working in a lot of different media- but I rarely mix them together so this was fun.

A Bunch of Dogs

IMG_8382, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

Drawing Lab: 20 Dogs
We were supposed to draw the same dog 30 times. I didn't really like my dogs much, but then I tried drawing a mouse and I like that even less.
Click the photo to see the rest of my drawings on Flickr

Zoo Day 2

IMG_8432, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

Drawing Lab: Zoo Day 2
Went to the Nature Center instead of the zoo :) This Barn Owl was my favorite. So I drew him a lot. Found out I actually like hard pencils for sketching better than I thought. The super soft ones made me commit to a line before I was ready :)
Click the picture to see the rest of my drawings on Flickr.

Zoo day

Zoo day, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

For Drawing Lab this week we went to the zoo to draw animals.
Sleeping meerkats - and Toby wanted to be in art club too - so he drew a monster dreaming about a robot. :)
Click the picture to see the rest of my drawings on Flickr.

Gesture pets

Gesture pets, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

Drawing Lab: Drawing our pets in motion.
Fed the cats some cat nip, armed Toby with some string and pipe cleaners and went to work
Click the picture to see the rest of my drawings on Flickr.

Expanding on contour giraffes

Expanding on contour giraffes, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

Drawing Lab: Contour Drawings of Giraffes
I'm having paper issues. I hunted and hunted for a nicer piece of paper, but in the end, settled for the hideous pink card stock. I clearly need to get to the art store. Nevertheless, I'm happy with how this came out.
Click the picture to see the rest of my contour drawings on Flickr.

30 Cats

Expanding, a photo by Steph Toth Kates on Flickr.

Drawing Lab Week One : We drew 30 quick cats - then expanded our favorites.
This one is my favorite - a collaboration with Jo. I think he adds a lot of movement to the drawing :)
Click the picture to see the rest of my drawings on Flickr.