Yesterday I saw my good friend and I went to the park(I see her all the time but this time our mom and little siblings came) and it was just like old times we played laser tag with the littles, and talked, and swung on swings and climbed trees and it was so fun so I drew us afterwards. I also drew our masks halfway on so we could see our faces. I HATE COVID! I also really dislike wearing masks and distancing and stuff so this is a way of getting around that. Idk if that makes sense.
I got to drop into an outdoor class with my beloved teacher from the studio. A space had finally opened up two weeks before everything in SF shut down again. Well, it was good to see her and my fellow students and be in that setting on a beautiful sunny day. I was also negotiating my next job salary and getting phone calls during class, so I wasn't entirely present. The class topic for the day was palm trees. This is in front of the De Young, another place I was so glad to have visited indoors on another afternoon before the latest lock down.
I just got a drawing tablet this is the first thing I drew on it. I wanted to share it to show the progress I make in the future. It feels a lot different from drawing on paper. I clearly have a lot of improving to do.
An illustrated map of Costa Rica featuring the Arenal Volcano with some of the country's most iconic wildlife species: toucan, tree frog, and hummingbird.
Outside my drawing table window are straight and weeping birches. We lost one of the birch trucks and, tragically, a beautiful OLD Japanese maple during an ice storm a few years ago. The third trunk is still in my mind's eye.
My half of the art trade with OptimisticJerk (https://www.deviantart.com/optimisticjerk). The trade was to draw a monster as made up by your counterpart without seeing a reference image, based only on the description. Here is her half (which is awesome): www.deviantart.com/optimisticj…
For mine, I had to draw a monster called a "niter" based off of his description:
"Niters communicate in whispers. Nocturnal. Shy away from light. They’re black and oily and emanate a bluish glow. Large, looming 6 foot shadow things with massive hind legs, clawed for climbing trees and they have ‘maws’ instead of arms, claw-like appendages they stab people with and only one gaping blue eye. Their mouths open up and they swallow their victims whole."
What's funny is that I didn't see the fact that they emanate a bluish glow until now. So, the glow from the eye is purely by coincidence. Figuring out the hind legs of this creature was difficult, and so I sought reference images, and of all things, the koala turned out to be a pretty good reference.
For a while, there, it was looking like Carnage from Spiderman, but I toned down the reddish-hue a bit. The intention was to give the appearance of motor oil.
So, now to find out how badly I failed at drawing this...
This art trade was fun, though, and I would do a similar one, again. But I am le tired.
This little book had several tiny squares/rectangles per page. At first I didn't know how to fill it (2017). Eventually I sketched trees, scenes, birds, animals I'd seen during a days walk. It accidentally became a diary of seasons! Not all my art is nature sketching, I'm a watercolor artist as well. But line and pen drawing, halftone is what I've been up to for a while.
