Fairy-topia

A design on one of my daughter's nightgowns inspired this drawing. I have had the idea for a few weeks. Yesterday and today I took the time to sketch it out. Once I finished, I realized that her hair should be up (like the other fairy images I looked at), because have long loose hair makes for bad wing movement! :P

Anyway, let me know what you think!

Update: The wonderful Kathy Hare has enlightened me to qualities of fairy hair, and let me know my drawing was fine the way it is. Thanks, Kathy! I do, now, remember looking at a few figurines whose hair was down.

Inspiration is everywhere...

Went for a walk yesterday to get the mail, and interrupted a turtle doing his business, thus this sketch. Plan to color it soon!

Wide Load color

Quick color study done in watercolor. Any suggestions/critiques welcome!

Wide Load revised

Here is an updated sketch for the "Wide Load" image from yesterday! Any suggestions you have on composition, etc., would be most helpful! I am going to try to paint it tonight. Click the image for a larger version.

UPDATE: Well, didn't get to paint it yet. Good husband that I am, I had to help my wife with some stuff for her preschool class. Attempted a color study in Photoshop, but it came out wrong; used too much texture (gotta learn to K.I.S.S. on these things!) Hope to do a small watercolor study sometime today!

Wide Load

This will be my entry for IF: Wide. It is my version of an illustration idea Bee had, and she asked if others might take a go at it. So here it is, in rough form of course. I am going to color it, along with some other of my drawings, hopefully this week.

Days 19-21 of 21... I think!

Well, according to my calculations, Saturday should have been my last day for this challenge ( I didn't count Mother's Day). Not sure where I went wrong, but don't really care! What was important was the work I did during that time. I think I made great progress and improvement, and have definitely developed a true habit of wanting (needing?) to draw everyday! And it has been great seeing everyone's progress as well. Hopefully each of you gained something! And thanks for all your comments. They are a big encouragement to me!

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Inspired by another blogger's post, I challenged myself to do some different nationalities. Well, a busy weekend kept me from doing much if any drawing. I did manage to squeeze in two heads last night. The girl was my attempt at an Asian, and the boy was my attempt at an African-American.



This was a huge struggle. With the facial style I use, I found it difficult to modify it to represent other nationalities' unique facial features. However, I didn't get to get much practice in either.

Does anyone have any suggestions for creating convincing nationalities in stylized facial features! Or is that something that is really important or looked for in an illustrator's portfolio? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Days 16-18 of 21

Wednesday left me no time to draw as I had a magazine to get to the printer. Finished that up Thursday morning. Managed to get a bit of drawing done Thursday afternoon, and finished it today. The challenge I gave myself was character consistency.

I started with Billy, below.

The middle sketch was the first drawing, and based the others on that. Billy is a bit rambunctious, and loud and likes to step on bugs just to hear'em crunch.


Katie was my next character.

A sweet girl, she loves nature. Very happy and tenderhearted.

(The bottom left sketch of Katie was supposed to be her brushing her teeth in the mirror, but it ended up being to close to the larger sketch; will try that again later!)

These are the traits I used for each, trying to both convey their personality and have each drawing be consistent with the character's look. I think you can tell I spent more time on Katie than Billy. Still working on slowing myself down when I draw.

Love to know what you think.

Days 14/15 of 21

Not counting Mother's Day in this challenge since it was a holiday, and I was, of course, busy visiting the mom's and grandmas!

Been drawing but deadlines with the magazine I am working on keep me from posting every day. Monday, mostly did rough pose sketches for practice; nothing worth posting.

Tuesday, I did the three shown above. The first is my version of Deadeye Blacktooth, a pirate from an exercise in one of the cartooning books I picked up from the library. The second is my cartoon version of me, and the last I did just before I finished up today's work.

A few of you have asked to see color versions of some of my stuff, so at the end of these 21 days, I am going to challenge myself to color many of the sketches I have done using various mediums.

Day 13 of 21 IF: Electricity

Eli was mortified when it was found out his true source of energy.

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Managed to squeeze out 2 drawings tonight, one I'll share, the other I won't (don't like the way it turned out, but keeping it in the archive to look back on).

When I first saw the IF topic for this week, I immediately thought of electric eels.
Here are a few neat facts:

– Electric eels can put out a charge of up to 500 volts

– they can grow to 8 feet long

– the eels use their "power" not only to stun their prey, but to communicate with one another and to orient themselves in the water

– the electric eel is not a true eel, but part of a group of electrical fish, which include electric catfish and the Asian knifefish

Have a good weekend, and Happy Mothers Day to all you moms or moms-to-be!

Days 11/12 of 21

Didn't get to draw yesterday, and will probably only get the one shown here up today. Started this boy with a enlongated kidney bean shape for his upper body. Might be a tad too bent over, but I tried to compensate by putting his front leg out enough to balance him. I am happy with him.

Day 10 of 21

Stepped away from people for a bit and decided to see how well I would do just starting out with basic shapes for a head, and let the character evolve based on what I saw as a drew it. Above are the results. The dog I named "Howard," mostly because he looks like one. The dragon has no name... maybe "Buddy," now that I think about it. He looks kinda friendly!

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On another note, the wonderfully talented Linda Sylvestri of Sketched Out fame has graciously awarded me the Pico Award. I am honored to be so highly thought of at such a young (blogger) age. Thanks, Linda!

Now I have to pick 5 bloggers to pass the award along to. This may take a while to narrow down. There are so many great blogs and artist out there, I don't yet know where I would begin!

Day 9 of 21: IF Seed

Did a little bit of sketching today, but I wasn't really in the mood... too tired I think. Anyway, here is my 15 minute sketch, please an extra I did yesterday. The bottom drawing came as a result of wanting to try my hand at doing a illustration that my be used in a textbook or instructional article. I consider it a bit more finished, so I watermarked it (not that many people looking to steal art come to my blog, but ya never know!).

Days 6 – 8 of 21

Well... didn't get any drawing done over the weekend. My son turned 7 Friday, and we had his party Saturday. I did manage to squeeze in a bit of art just before the party, though! I decorated the cake. My wife and I decided that doing the cake ourselves would be the most fun and least expensive route for this birthday! She baked two sheet cakes, stacked'em, and I did the decorating. As in most art, getting started was the hardest—you know... you don't want to mess up your kids birthday cake. However, as is always the case, it was easier than I made it out to be, and came out pretty good if I do say so myself, as shown in the photo.



Sunday, no drawing. Being too tired and having a headache almost all day didn't help.

Today I had jury duty (fun :P). Anyway, I took my sketchbook along and managed to get down some sketches between directions and my courtroom assignment. Took a bit to get over the "stage fright" of drawing in a room full of about 100-120 people, though. They came out pretty good, though the necks are a tad long! : )



Once I got in the first courtroom (a holding area until the real courtroom was ready), my final sketch of the day was this:



In the end, the attorneys said something to the judge, and the judge announced that our group would not be needed, and we were free from our duty (yea!!).

Day 7 of 21

One week down, 2 to go, and I already see an improvement in my drawing! This has been the most fun. Thank you to everyone who has commented! Having you guys to do this with has been a real encouragement. I can't wait to see what the next 2 weeks bring.

I did some more faces and a few full characters (and a tomato, sun and moon for good measure!) One thing I discovered is I need to draw my characters larger. The top image shows faces and characters the way I usually draw them. The bottom image shows the two heads I did larger, about 10 times as large as I usually draw!! I think I had gotten in to the habit of trying to get the most drawings on one page, thus unknowingly forcing myself to draw smaller. Anyway, I am excited about the last two drawings, and will draw larger from now on.

Day 5/6 of 21

Well I did draw a bit yesterday, but didn't have a chance to upload anything. Drew some more faces today, and here are the best. Need a lot of practice with hair (as you can see from the bouffant hair girl at the bottom!). Another challenge is to get the eye style I like to portray emotion without always looking surprised (wide open), or depressed or sad (when an eye lid is present.)