The sketchbook doodle that turned into something special. To this day, it’s still one of my favourite drawings.
Pencil, Charcoal Pencil, Pastel Pencils on 9” x 12” Strathmore Archival Sketchbook Paper.
"And I Can't Get It Out of My Head"
Watercolor
I feel like I may be cheating since the song I was inspired by is not so simple, but I'm pleased with the result. To be completely honest, this was the piece I needed right now.
The past week has been interesting for me, I've found myself in a peculiar slump. There's not one thing I'm thinking or worrying about, it's a constant buzz of thoughts streaming through my head. Sometimes I can get the buzzing to quiet down, other times it gets overwhelmingly loud.
I've always found art to be a release, it fills in the blanks when I can't figure out how to make my words work. Lately, it's been more of a challenge than usual, but I think this piece says all I've been wanting to say.
"There's a North in us all, but my North can't hold me anymore." Oh man, what a day/week/month it's been. Today was the end of first semester, a bit hard to believe half the year is gone, a bit hard to believe we still have half of a year left. The past 24 hours have been nothing less than mental chaos (maybe my coach was foreshadowing all of this when he asked if I was ok last night...) Anyway, here I am, here we are. Llemette on the left (name credit to Josefina), February journal on the right.
Really enjoying experimenting with soft pastels. This piece was the first time I used Pastelmat. It's an amazing surface to use with pastels as it takes loads of pastel, the colour stays vibrant, and there's minimal dust
Doodles and notes I started at a regional NJ chapter of SCBWI conference this past weekend. Then just kept adding stuff to the page this week. I learned a lot and met some great people. Looking forward to June!
Hand and drapery sketchbook drawing. This combo never gets old for me. Faber-Castell PITT pastel pencils, charcoal pencils on 9” x 12” Strathmore Toned Grey sketchbook paper.
This is the second oil painting I have ever made, and the first time I have attempted to create mountains, trees and bushes. I used just 3 colours for this: Raw Umber, Phthalo Blue and Titanium White. I learned a lot and had tonnes of fun at the same time.
I gravitated towards the fony baobab, a real type of baobab. Sadly, all baobabs are in decline, which informed my composition. I used pastel earth tones and a lot of blacks. Digitally hand-drawn in Rebelle 6
From a snap of me sitting in the waiting room. Pencil, Charcoal Pencil, Pastel Pencils and white Prismacolor pencil on 9” x 12” Strathmore Toned Grey sketchbook paper.
The source reference image was from an impromptu photo shoot I did several years ago. The available light in the room was magical and the model was just sitting there meditating.
Pencil, Charcoal Pencil, Pastel Pencils on 9” x 12” Strathmore Archival Sketchbook Paper.
Poppies are among my favorite flowers---vibrant AND delicate. Great swaths of "bread poppies" garnish our garden. We harvest seeds for lemon-seed cake and poppy-seed rolls. (No, we don't harvest that other stuff.) They reseed generously and we have beautiful crops of red and purple flowers each year. I've been working on this colored pencil drawing for the past week. Enclosed are some images of the progress over that time.
