This was painted shortly after the peregrine painting. The peregrine was given to a raffle, and the winner of that painting purchased this one when it was finished.
One of my favorite things about being a parent is listening to the stories my daughter makes up and really trying to encourage her imagination. She has named a bunch of the cacti which line our windowsills, while our cacti are very accustomed to their suburban lives they also like a bit of adventure, this is a group of them taking a family vacation to the desert.
In an attempt to be much more consistent with my drawing practice (and to tackle my insecurities about showing people my drawings) I am hoping that posting some of my sketches online will help keep me accountable. So day 1 sketch, I managed to find a very cheap used college set of Rotring Rapidograph pens online, when they arrived today I was delighted to see that they had NEVER been used! After a bit of a happy dance I got a couple of the pens assembled and started to figure out how they work. This is a quick sketch on tracing paper not that I was tracing anything I just need to invest in better paper with less tooth to be able to use these pens without having ink flow issues.
i had become so bored of reading the articles in this hate-mongering newspaper that i decided it was a better use of my time to start doodling over the pictures.
