#DRAWtoberfest Begins With A Kiss

October has begun and the creativity from artists on Twitter continues to awe and inspire. If you haven't already, check out the hash tags #DRAWtoberfest #thedailysketch, #printoctober and #draw2live

I finally got around to drawing a piece to submit for the first week's theme for #DRAWtoberfest which was entitled "The Kiss". The first thing I thought about drawing was the kiss of a dog, so went on an internet search for a photo to draw. I found many with people being the recipient of the kiss, but the photos I liked best were all dogs kissing other dogs or cats - then I came across this one lol:

I don't know who to credit for this wonderful photo, but just love the expression on the cat's face and the far off, dreamy look in the dog's eye, so decided to give it a go. I started working on it just after dinner and wanted to submit it last night before the weekend when the theme would be changing, so it was a quick drawing (for me) and I took a couple of work in progress photos along the way:

And below is the final drawing - a little rough, but was a fun piece to work on. I quickly realized what is needed in my art supplies are more graphite pencils with varying degrees of softness (used a 2B pencil) and a smudge stick, seeing as a piece of tissue paper is not at all precise while trying to blend shadows:

The Kiss

I may give this one another go for the practice and because I love the subject so much - maybe as a color pencil drawing. The next theme for #DRAWtoberfest is Paris. Not sure what to do for that yet, but there will surely be lots of interesting art by others submitted to be inspired by.

Thanks for reading, have a great Saturday everyone! :)

#PaintSeptember's Final Contribution

September has come to a close.  I only painted one more for the month - a water color painting from a photograph of a flower (I think it's a dahlia), growing in a neighbor's garden. The piece started out using water color pencils, but I was unhappy with the way it was progressing, so switched to actual water color paints about two thirds the way through.

That just made the piece saturated with water paint and didn't necessarily make me any happier about it lol. I was going to post some work in progress photos, but decided to just post the finished painting because it ended up changing so much from how it started.

There is a reason I usually work with acrylic or oil paint, because I tend to try for too much detail using the paint instead of allowing the water to help create the final image.  Perhaps I can learn how to chill about it - keeping the 'less is more' attitude for the next water color painting I attempt, or maybe staying with acrylics and oils is a better match for me and the style I'm most accustomed to.

There are a couple more hash tag groups starting this month - #thedailysketch and #DRAWtoberfest - both of which are a great way to keep moving forward producing new artwork, while also continuing to meet and support other artists which has been so inspirational and fun.

Regular color pencil drawings and water color pencil drawings/paintings would both fall into those hash tag categories, so this might be a good opportunity to keep practicing with them more - or maybe getting out the graphite pencil and keeping the artwork dry for awhile is a better idea.

Thank you to anyone who may read this :)