#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! :)

Inspiration and Motivation are back!

Well, here we are again, it's been ages since I've posted anything. It's time to catch up with this creative journey I've been on and for anyone who reads this, thank you for visiting my very sporadically updated blog.

Since my last post, much has changed in my life - at least in the material sense. I am no longer working at the job I previously mentioned, unfortunately the company downsized the division and laid off staff - me included.  Since then, I've been looking for employment and recently found new inspiration to be an artist once again - on Twitter of all places - lol.

Since activating my account in the twittersphere recently, I am finding myself embracing the social network platform in ways I never knew were possible. I've met so many talented artists and inspiration absolutely abounds there.

There was a fantastic happening among a group of artists called #drawingaugust last month, where artists were drawing every day and posting their new art or works in progress daily.  Better late than never, I discovered it just in time to contribute this eye, drawn specifically for it on the 31st.

Since then, a new happening called #paintseptember has been taking place. It is the same idea except for painting and so far I've completed three new works. The first one isn't really to my liking in it's entirety (you can see it on my twitter page), it was painted using water color pencils and I'll post a detail of it here.

Cropped from a photo taken on my phone:

The next two are both water color paintings and were scanned:

So, there you have it - on the social media site I used to resist getting involved with, thinking it was only a self promoting bombardment of narcissistic tweets, inspiration and motivation have both been found - along with a real sense of community.

I'm lovin' it in the twittersphere and if you do too (or like it a lot), give me a follow - I follow back (unless you seem to be crazy, obnoxious or rude - then I probably won't).

Find me here: https://twitter.com/OnlineBy_Design :-)

A Golf Ball and Tee Drawing For Dad

My father just celebrated his 80+? birthday (any time I ask, the answer is always 29 - which I know is impossible, but I let him think I believe - lol).  Golf is one of his favorite activities and he still plays often so I decided to draw this golf ball and tee for him.

I discovered drawing a golf ball is a lot harder than I originally thought - those little craters are very specific and about half way through I began to regret not mapping the ball out more accurately first instead of just eyeballing it.  Oh well, lesson learned for the next one and I'm happy enough with the way this turned out regardless :)

I glass framed the original drawing adding a dark green matte which cropped the sky and grass down to frame the ball and tee nicely and signed it for the occasion, but forgot to photograph it - doh!.  Here it is after scanning and maybe I will add a photo of the framed image to this post later.  

One of the groups on Red Bubble is hosting a Father's Day card challenge so I added lettering in Photoshop and entered it.  I don't know how well it will do in the challenge, but I do know that golf has been synonymous with my father in my mind for as long as I can remember. I love you dad! xo

First Color Pencil Drawing & other 'News'

I pulled out my Prisma color pencils a couple of days ago and drew a rose from a photo I took in my garden.  It has been years since I've used color pencils to draw anything in a realistic style having really only experimented with drawing grapes that way in the past.  Even though it was fun and the grapes looked pretty good, I didn't continue to develop this medium's potential.

Now, after seeing so many (and I mean LOTS and LOTS!) of really amazing drawings by artists who do use them on the sites I've joined, I am inspired to try again.  My technique is underdeveloped (I don't really have one - lol!) and I made plenty of 'mistakes' as I went along, but here are a few snaps of the process until the completed drawing scanned.

First I drew the rose out lightly in pencil then began adding a mid pink tone to define the shapes and shadows:

I began adding layers of darker shades of pink and I think that was my first mistake in not choosing all of the colors carefully right from the start as I had to go over the darkest areas a lot before completion (I think people who are really good at this medium don't have to do that but I am not sure yet what is the best approach)

Then I added some leaves and a background to define the edges of the rose and see the perspective more clearly to begin more detailed shadowing and color blending:

This photo is after many more layers of varying shades of pink and purple on the rose.  I added a touch of brown to the leaves and stems to give them more definition and another layer of dark green to the background:

And here is the final drawing - I decided to use the same brown from the leaves to add another layer to darken the background further, added a little more green highlight to the leaves and to the rose I added many, many more layers from very light pink to white and dark pink to purple tones to create more definition and depth:

So there it is, my first color pencil drawing of a flower. It was a good exercise and I did learn from it how I might better proceed right off the top for the next one I attempt. I think I overdid it with the layering simply because I didn't have a clearer grasp of the overall shadows' color/tonal qualities of the art as a whole when I started so was correcting that as I went along much more than not.

In other news, my Zazzle store is up and running and can be found here: http://www.zazzle.com/onlinebydesign

I don't have a lot of designs uploaded to it yet but it sure is fun creating all the products, please visit if you are so inclined - also, if you have your own Zazzle store and 'favorite' mine, I will return the favor ;)

Red Bubble has been fairly active for me this past week, 'Boats In Sunlight' has been featured 3 times since I wrote here last and 'Two Tulips' received it's first (links to feature groups under artwork detail on Paintings page).  So far I have only been adding pics of my older artwork to this blog when it gets attention elsewhere, since my intent is to move forward from where I am now in my journey as an artist. 

As well as the cultivation of inspiration and motivation, another great thing I enjoy about blogging has been getting to know other blogging artists, some of whom I feel a wonderful like minded connection which is very rewarding and exciting!

Thanks for reading and visiting! :)

Second feature for 'Bono' and 'Silhouette Glow' chosen to be a group's avatar!

My drawing of Bono has been featured again in another group on Red Bubble called Photo Realistic Artwork and Silhouette Glow has been chosen to be this week's avatar for a group called Beautiful BC!

:)

'Bono' is featured in a group and it's not U2!

It is very validating and exciting for me that my pencil drawing of Bono has been placed this week in the 'featured artwork' of a Redbubble art group!  I have no idea how long it will be there, but while it is, anyone visiting the home page of the group will see it.

That is pretty significant because otherwise the art gets mixed in with hundreds, if not thousands of other work submitted into the group from it's members.  I am very honored to have my drawing selected for the feature page, especially so soon after joining red bubble.

Here is the link: http://www.redbubble.com/groups/art-at-its-best

Or link directly to the image: http://www.redbubble.com/bono 

I'm thinking the next art I work on might be another pencil drawing of a famous person. I haven't decided who yet, so if anyone has any suggestions, let me know k? thanks ;)