Which pair would you wear?
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This fun doodle is in response to the latest weekly drawing prompt to draw a pattern, in red, with a pen. If you want to play along, sign-up on the site and a new quirky prompt will be delivered to your inbox every Monday.
I asked my husband (who is our Covid-period grocery shopper as I am high risk) to bring home a fruit to draw. He came home with a dragon fruit. For those who don't know this interesting edible, it's from a cactus. There are two species: the Asian species is white inside, the Central American variety is shocking pink (see photo). Great in smoothies or when nicely ripe (as this one was) it's tasty eaten out of the skin with a spoon.
Congrats to anyone else who took part in inktober this year! I focused on combining witches inspired by different types of teas and I had so much fun! I’m conquering my irrational fear of side profiles and I think it’s working, I’ve been really liking side profiles lately and finding them easier to do. I experimented on this piece with adding freckles (they’re a feature in all of my inktober sketches but I haven’t liked how freckles have looked when I’ve dotted them in with a pen or brush) and uh, I guess it was kind of a success? Next time I’ll use my lighter shading colour for them, as I used the ink I use for my lines and it turned out really dark and concentrated, but I think they’re cute! (and I have ink sprays everywhere)
"Say hello to these rabbits & they'll say hello right back,
Just don't offer them carrot flavored jello as a snack.
'Cause it's more than they can stand, and they're likely to attack,
And when a rabbit bites your hand then you'll have to bite it back!"
In the Finnish mythology killing of a bear was followed by a great feast in honour of the bear (peijaiset), where a substantial part of the celebrations consisted of convincing the bear's spirit that it had died accidentally and hadn't been murdered. Afterwards, the bear's skull was hung high upon a pine tree so its spirit could re-enter the heavens. The bones of the bear were then buried under the pine. Reference for this work is my old drawing of karhunkallopetäjä/bearskullpine in the Riisitunturi. Also practice sketch of bear skull and at last photo i took of pine.
"Flying in the sky with a lady in its arms,
The Platform's heading fast out to the farm.
She was harmed unknowingly and now she will become a seed,
From which the platforms now will feed until they breed." -- Drawn with fountain pens, colored with my iPad using Procreate.
My first ballpoint pen person. This was a lot more time consuming than I expected, but I'm glad I hung in there and finally finished it. The reference for the drawing was a Getty Image.
"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.
White and sanguine conte pencils on toned paper. These ruins captured my drawing itch with the quality of the light filtering brilliantly through the tangled growth outside, and the open shade within. At a metaphorical level, the image is about the sense of having a laborious path set in stone for me by custom, convention, and culture, while way is wide open to the chaotic fertility of nature, should I choose to follow my own feet and heart.
I was tired of carrying around a bunch of Microns. I want one or two refillable pens so I started with buying a new Lamy AL-Star Fountain Pen. I love it. I got the medium nib and am able to get a nice range of line width from it. This and maybe a fine nib and I'll be all set for a travel kit. This is the first page I drew with it.
Drew this for a professor that mentored me on my first research paper! You can also find me on facebook www.facebook.com/sonialaiart for WIP and updates!
I've been so impressed with the ball point pen art that I have seen on this site, that I decided to give it a try. This is a Betta fish (Siamese fighting fish) done in red, blue, and purple ball point pens. Obviously, I have much to learn....but it was great fun and I have ordered some more colors since I plan on experimenting more. I've enclosed a photo of the work in progress and the various reference photos I used. The colors are more true to the final scan than in the flash photo of my drawing table.
Finally finished! This project took many long hours (about 8-9) and reduced my brand new 6B pencil to nothing but a tiny stub... “Black Gold” is done in graphite on 80 lb drawing paper. If you are interested in prints please contact me via my website.
More ballpoint pen experiments. This was trying to "blend" colors, using ball point pens in a similar way to colored pencils. I found Layering evenly to be pretty difficult, esp with the pens blotching and very very limited burnishing. The interesting thing is that the paper doesn't seem to get "tired" the way it does with pencils. This is just cheap printer card stock.
Morning sketch. So I was waiting for a go ahead on a 20 illo project. One of the illustrations in the project is a pair of “Chucks” so in the meantime I did a much crazier than they will be wanting version. Sometimes you just have to please yourself without all the boundaries.
Seemingly trapped indoors and inside your head indefinitely, the possibility of living a normal life after COVID seems like a fevered dream. Still one of my favourite drawings from 2020 and a technique breakthrough. Ballpoint Pen on Archival 8.5" x 11" paper
