My husband has a chronic illness and frequently spends weeks in the hospital. I have been doodling each day while sitting with him and many of them reflect my thoughts at the time. Often appearing are desperation, hope, frustration, sarcasm, fear.
After 1.5 hrs of experimenting...
It wasn't easy to decide on what body shape my character should have. Through an "intuitive approach" of shifting anatomical proportions, it was still decided to remain on an avian's concept instead of a wyvern's. Wyvern can be kept to the wyvern... The phoenix needs something more like an bird's, after all.
p.s: I also have to remember to keep the neck shorter...
DAY ONE OF INTENSIVE ART TRAINING! Okay, back up, calm down... So! A little background. I am going into INTENSIVE ART TRAINING because I'm not the best at drawing humans. I want to get better so I can draw people, characters, and find my style. There will be 50 days, and this is day one. This drawing came from an old sketchbook from middle school. I won't post the original drawing (it's...less than ideal...), but you can see this redraw of the character. Thanks for reading this!
What a wonderful Kirkus review!
(Paired here with my favorite improper contraction.)
"A thoughtful look at life, in all its beauty and strangeness.
...
This delightfully deadpan musing on life urges compassion for others. Howden’s straightforward text is on the philosophical side, though also rooted in the absurd. Hahn’s spare black graphite pencil watercolor, mostly set against a white background, are imbued with humor and empathy for the pickle, with the foodstuff’s expressive eyes conveying many emotions at once. "
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/sarah-howden/the-wise-pickle/
THE WISE PICKLE
by Sarah Howden ;
illustrated by Sabina Hahn
RELEASE DATE: June 23, 2026
Last spring we had nineteen canaries. I must tell you, once and for all, that canaries are very virulent birds.
It starts with the mother bird and the father bird.
They have babies. And before the babies get a single feather on their bodies they have to leave home and the father bird sings again and the mother bird lays new eggs. That's how things go with canaries.
- Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson
#dailydrawing #tovejansson
Look I give my cats when they pee or break something. It's like why? You have boxes and why you need to be breaking things? Half the time you don't want me. I don't own cats...they own me. I should have known this.
Continuing to consolidate the colour profile of the White Bird. Even if the photo fails to capture it, those pale shades are actually a sophisticated mixture of grey, sky blue, pink, and purple shades, managed with eraser and finished with white.
Have been working on my ability to manage lighting, softening the shades and contrasts. Colouring white things are actually not easy, because you will notice all the minute colouring differences much more easily.
Words something so simple but yet so destructive. They become your inner voice, your torment they become the demons you try to appease. But when there is one that shines brighter than the others. It becomes charming, alluring, but yet the most destructive one of all. All you do...is feed it.
#28 - A collection of ballpoint pen sketches drawn on printer paper & scanned. This is what my lines look like when I'm not using a stabilizer in digital software to get the nicest clean lines. I tried to separate my scanned lines from the various shades of off-white that the scanner picked up. I adjusted the brightness and contrast levels in photoshop but I'm not very knowledgeable on how to achieve the best results.
For some reason, I had to prove to myself that good art does indeed take time. Anyways, this is an angel character (they're not real angels, they're a fictional species of mine) in my "spacefluff" style. I think I want to name her Mosambi, because she's sweet.
