Hooray~ Here's my Sketchbook Bus for the 'Doodle Caravan, Drawing Challenge'. We're stocked with art supplies, good music, lots of coffee and creative friends! Let's enjoy this artistic adventure together! :)
Customarily, families give their homes a thorough cleaning in the days leading up to Lunar New Year’s Day. Windows are scrubbed, floors are swept, and furniture is dusted in preparation for the new year, sweeping away away the bad luck of the past year. In addition, dusting is avoided on New Year’s Day, for fear that good fortune will be swept away.
New Year Shopping (办年货 bàn nián huò) the Chinese believe that buying new items in the new year symbolises welcoming new things and getting ready for a new start. The traditional shopping list includes meat, vegetables, fruits, candies and nuts are popular items which are later seen on the dinning or coffee table of every Chinese household during the Lunar New Year
The observational sketch was done in ink. One of my few urban sketches. The grandeur of the entire cathedral was too large for me to capture in my drawing but here's a little of what I did.
Romping through the woods, I happened upon a faerie ring of Slenderman and his acolyte children. I stepped back slowly. I didn't want crunching branches to give me away.
One of my girls with lots of patterns. The girl keeps in blue and purple and the background and sunglasses is kept in green, orange end yellow tones. I have always had a hard time using less color and this is my practice in keeping a more stringent color theme.
India ink on tissue paper. I had never used ink on this kind of paper before; I really liked the results! There are some folds and wrinkles on the paper that give the pattern some interesting details. The paper is also super absorbing, which plays nicely with the quantities of ink. Since it's very thin, there can easily be overlays between textures. And finally, when trying to use less ink (so that it wouldn't seep through and cause a big dot - the absorbing quality is nice, but it was also somewhat of a challenge!) I used very little ink on the lettering, causing a scratchy, dry look.
An old-style doodle, with many parts to look at! This took a few days, from the initial drawing, to inking, to uploading to my computer and digitally coloring and adding textures and detail! Lots of fun, and definitely different from my normal doodle-style. Thanks for viewing!
When I was a teen, my grandfather had alzheimers, a failing heart, and half of one lung. He was covered with scars and sometimes muttered at walls.
I was asked to keep an eye on him, briefly, one afternoon, while my grandmother did something else. While I was alone with him, he looked at an empty space right next to me, and whispered: "Mom? Dad? Is that you?"
With the exception of getting hit by a car, that was the most terrifying moment of my life.
