Christmas Day at the park

A fairly accurate depiction of how I was feeling yesterday

Backyard tree

Waiting for the 4 year old

Jonas was cranky while we were out walking so he decided to lay down and be grumpy in the grass. I wasn't in a hurry that day - so I just let him lay there as long as he wanted and scribbled this sketch with the pencil in my pocket. 

Eyes

Today's secret of drawing heads was about drawing eyes. Which I already feel pretty strong on, but practice never hurts.

Mandalas

When left with kids art supplies to work with (crayons, sidewalk chalk) my favorite thing to draw is mandalas.

Pizza west table paper:

More heads

Next in my head exploration, I made more basic head maps. I looked at photos from my old high school year book to explore different head angles

Head maps

Continuing my attempts to learn the secrets of heads. I started with som maps from the book

The edge of the Parkville water fall

Spent the beautiful day outside. Went for a hike and painted the water fall. I'm not sure it really captures what's going on - but I like it as a sketch anyway. 

And these roots were twisty and wonderful

Science room animals

I'm a substitute teacher for 7th grade science today. The room has all kinds of animals that the kids are free to take out and play with. So cute. 

Backs of kids heads

Drawn with a mechanical pencil - which someone had left behind in a previous class - so I thought I'd give it a try. And I didn't hate it like I usually do. Then another kid stole that mechanical pencil. So now I dont have one. The circle of writing implements flows on. (Cue dramatic music)

Heads

I've been trying to sketch people and they are still frustrating me. I grabbed a book at the library: secrets to drawing heads. The first secret is to do it a lot quickly to practice proportion maps and get it really second nature. This was surprisingly fun :)

Cd listening party from July

Listening to music at Coda

Bass player from Them Pickless Fools

Toby listening - he doesn't sit still for long :) makes sketching tricky

Jesse playing pinball

I bought myself a new pocket watercor box!! The smallest one I could find so I can have it in my purse always. So excited :)

Sosa's Late night diner

7/13/14

Tree

Tree out the window at fric and frac - waiting for game 3 of the World Series to start.

Goats

The kids had the day off so we wandered around the Deanna Rose Farm this morning. I drew the goats while the boys fed them acorns. They were not holding still :) tricky.

 

New goal

My camera broke. So it's been months since I've updated. But I'm very excited because I've finally joined the 21st century and got an iPhone! 

So my new goal is to post a sketch a day. And to make my life easier, I won't go back and catch up on old posts, I'll just pepper them in on days I don't get around to sketching :) 

But yes - I was still sketching these past few months :)

Outside fric and frac at night. July 2014

Washy Watercolor Animals

I love doing these so much.  They are pure fun.  I always feel like a little bit of a cheat because I'm totally looking off a photo from one of my kid's animal magazines, but what the heck :)  I refuse to start with a sketch, so the proportions are always a little wonky.  Like I said, it's just for fun.

Alligator

Skunk

Bear

Improvements in Architecture

I think I'm getting a tad better at straight lines and angles!  Though I still have a far, far, far way to go :P

A hand-car train thing from Science City.  

Got to Toby's school too early, so drew a house across the street while I waited in the car.  I know a lot of sketchers draw from their cars - I haven't done it a lot, but I enjoyed it more than I expected.  I get to simultaneously be in a space that I feel comfortable in, while also being out observing the world.  Best of all worlds :)

Tattoo parlor across from Fric N Frac.  I draw at Fric a lot.  It's because my husband and children abandon me to play pinball while I hold down the table, order and wait for food to arrive.  But since it gives me a chance to draw, I'm happy with the arrangement.  And drawing doesn't suck down quarters :)

Kids

I've started working again recently.  I'm a substitute teacher. Unfortunately, as much as I'd love to sit around drawing the kids all day, most of the time I have to actually interact with them and, you know, teach ;)  But this day I was instructed to show them movies for their music class.  This group was quietly absorbed in the Wizard of Oz, so I took the opportunity to grab some sketches.

Drawing Lab: Pile of Books

This drawing lab took me FOREVER.  Which is why I haven't posted a drawing lab in so long.  The instructions were to go to the library and grab a pile of books and spend some time there flipping through them and drawing whatever caught your fancy.  Now every time I go to the library I always have a 3 year old with me, so I do not have the luxury of sitting around for an hour or so flipping quietly through books, so I checked a pile out and took them home - and spent WAY more than an hour on it.  I spent several nights on this - mostly because I grabbed books that were actually interesting to me, so I couldn't just flip - I had to stop and read and scan and absorb the juicy tidbits - I wish I had time to actually read the whole books - but I've had the pile now so long that they are officially overdue and unrenewable.  oops.  So back they go tomorrow.  I didn't even get to sketching on some of them - but here are the ones I did.

I love those bears.

In a nice moment of synchronicity, when I began this project I was also reading The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp - and I'd just read her description of "scratching" which is a very similar process she uses when she is looking for ideas - except instead of sketching things in a book, she puts objects, notes, cuttings etc into boxes, a separate box for each project she's working on.  That really appeals to my disorderly-yet-ordered packrat nature :)  I will resist though.  i could quickly fill all available storage space that way.

Adding some color

Some of these I added color onsite - some I tried to rescue an unfinished or unfortunate drawing with some color - I think I'm going to try to go back in on unsuccessful drawings with watercolor more often.  Because, yunno, paint is fun.  ;)

Loose Park - during soccer practice

The trees in my neighborhood get hacked at mercilessly to make way for power-lines.  I want to draw them and draw them.  I added color later with this one, only had a few moments to sketch some quick lines while the kiddos piddled around on the sidewalk with something during a walk.

One of the Fric N Frac drawings that I didn't consider a success.  I'm not sure the color helped much though :)

Antioch Park, walls and trees.

Loose Park for soccer practice again.  I drew this little tree in pencil and the little sister of one of the soccer players said, "that's a pretty good tree." And I said, "thanks, what would you do to make it better?" And she gave the question some serious thought and said, "I would color it green" and then she produced a green colored pencil for me, so I colored it green :)

Found!

Huge thanks to Gram and Dun for calling me when they found my sketchbook!  I'm super happy to have it back.  It's funny though - while it was gone, in my memory the book was filled with nothing but the most amazing drawings I've ever done. Once I got it back I realized that, actually, they weren't as fabulous as my memory led me to believe.  But there were still some gems that I'm happy to have back. :)

one of my favorites - Playing Plants vs Zombies on the iPod kept him still long enough that I could really get into those curls

Near Loose Rose Gardens - combined thick and thin sharpie markers.

Jonas in the sand box

Jonas at Fric N Frac

Other people enjoying tacos out the window at Fric N Frac

Another Fric N Frac patron - drawn through the window.  I like drawing people out the window - if they were sitting inside the same distance away I wouldn't feel comfortable staring at them enough to draw them, but the pane of glass creates a soothing barrier.  :)