Reflecting on the Dunes

This will be a short post, just thought I'd post up a little painting of mine from a couple of years back. This is a watercolor that I discovered in my portfolio...one that I painted in my watercolor class.
I remember wanting to be done with it so badly, but my teacher would peek her head over my shoulder and say, "why don't you make those bushes darker..." Oh goodness! Darker!?!? I had already been dabbing the liquidy green paint over and over again for at least 30 minutes..wasn't it dark enough? Apparently not ;) So, I sat there just dipping and dabbing... until I became to tired of repeating that and decided it was dark enough.

The one thing in this picture that makes me cringe every time I see it is the tree....I don't know what happened there, but it came out a bit wonkey! ;) I was pleased with the bushes though...although they took me a very long time to complete.

A Special Request

Since school had started up again, I had sadly abandoned my papers and pencils...a tragedy indeed. Spending most of my time finishing up projects and papers was what most of my semester consisted of, until I was commissioned to draw a little something.
One day at work my boss realized that I could draw and decided that she wanted me to draw up a special little someone as a Christmas gift for a fellow co-worker. Without thinking, I said yes...not taking into account that it was near the end of the semester and I was loaded with work to do. Either way, I got the picture and placed it on my desk, that is where it stayed for a while until it became rather close to the due date. About a week and a half before the picture was due I decided  that I was going to get the picture out of the way (not to mention I was getting rather antsy!)
So I finally sat down and drew her, she took me about three days to complete all together. I was very satisfied at the outcome. As I have mentioned before, I am rather bad at drawing people, so for her to come out looking the same as in her actual photo was a great relief! ;) My little model is a doll and was a pleasure to sketch.

Beginning Stages

Coming along...

Now, even though I was rather stressed and freaking out about this drawing, I finally got it done, and the reaction on the grandmother's face when she saw it was priceless and completely worth all of the stress and freaking out ;) A success it was...and I will say...I would do it again if someone asked me to!! I guess I never learn...

Finished!

Quilling

Well this post is a little different from the rest, not ink, pencil or paint on paper...nope, it's paper on paper! These here cute little paper flowers are made by using the quilling technique.

You make everything with thin long strips of paper. You take the paper and twirl them around something long and skinny (I use tooth pics). While you're rolling the paper you want to shape the paper into whatever shape you want i.e oval, round, long oval... When you have gotten the shape you want, carefully snip the excess paper, put a little glue and let it sit for a bit to dry. Once you have all your pieces ready to go, you can create your picture!!Once I actually have my flowers down and glued on the paper, I like to accessories with ribbons and make it all pretty :)

The Jazzy Fay!

This little painting was a fun impromptu project of mine. As I walked through our little art store one day, I noticed that this canvas had a hole punched right through it...knowing that they wouldn't be able to sell it, I went ahead and asked if I could have it, somewhat to my surprise...they let me have it for FREE!! :) I, as you can imagine, was so excited, a free canvas!?!

So, once I got home I set to repairing this sad canvas and make it ready to go. I cut a little piece off of the extra canvas in the back and glued in with some wood glue, let it dry, and it was all good again. Because it was all patched up (the hole was still a little evident), I decided to paint an abstract piece on it. I figured that if the painting was busy enough, no one would see the patchwork.

This is what came out of that sad little canvas...a totally jazzed up painting!! ;)

Musing...

Hi! Long time no post, I know. I have been much too absorbed in my school, and haven't found much time to do anything but school. But...the other night I had an urge to draw so I placed my business books aside and pulled out my sketch pad and pencils.

Didn't have anything in mind really, just felt like doodling. As I started (with a girls face...of course!) I decided I wanted her to have some seriously bodacious hair, then with her expression I decided to make it a relaxed sort of feel, just sitting pretty. This is what I came out with.

Musing

It isn't much, but I thought it was something to post! :)

Brand Spanking New!

I know I have posted this picture of an old fashioned car before, but this time I am posting it a little differently. The other day I found myself with a lot of free time (which is a rare thing when school starts up again!). So I decided to re-draw the old car and see how much I have grown in my drawing in the past three years. This was fun!

Car 1, drawn in 2008

Car 2, drawn in 2011

Well there you have it! I had to control myself from looking at my older car drawing till I was done with my second attempt. I was honestly very surprised when I later compared them! I always love going back and getting to see the difference. Fun little project that kept me entertained for about two days :)

Drawing in Nature

Though there are thousands of different things to draw...I have always loved drawing flowers. They have just always been a very interesting subject for me to replicate. So through these three pictures, I have drawn in nature. I haven't just scribbled a few things on my sketchpad...no, no. I have actually brought nature from the outside in to me! :) And that is far more than just drawing a flower.

Bearded Iris #1

Bearded Iris #2

Bearded Iris #3

The Oldies

I love coming across some old drawings of mine (brings back good memories)...these few here are some I stumbled upon the other day when I was looking through my art portfolio.

Flowery Hair Bow

Old Abandoned Truck

Foxglove

Little Colt

Some of these are pictures I drew just to pass the time, and others I drew for my art classes.

El Corazon de Espana!

It has been quite a while since I have posted last, so I apologize for that, but this next post should be able to redeem me ;) If you all are as into dancers as much as I am, you will fully enjoy these next few pics. But I am not talking about just any regular dancers, not ballerinas, or jazz dancers...something with more soul and passion. A type of dancer that can show such deep emotion through just one simple yet precise hand gesture...this dancer is a Flamenco dancer. And for me, those women are the heart of Spain, El Corazon de Espana!

I have for quite some time now wanted to visit Europe and be able to go and see some wonderful sights; including the well known and loved flamenco dancers. The human body has always intrigued me and has served as a wonderful drawing topic, especially those in motion. I have always thoroughly enjoyed sketching dancers. I think it is just the liveliness and emotion that they convey into a picture...as they say "A picture is worth a thousand words", and this means even more so when that person is a flamenco dancer. There is just something so captivating about them. Captivating is just the word that these special Hispanic women have on me....so I decided to paint one up.  This is an oil on canvas.

This painting let me get a small glimpse into what part of Spain must be like...full of passion! 

OLE!

This is What I Want to be When I Grow Up....

I don't know about you all, but since I was little I have always loved those old black and white movies. Now, everyone knows that in those movies there is always a stunning woman right? I think this is why I have always loved the oldies, the ladies in them were always so beautiful...the ones that were even better where the movies in which there was a......you ready......Fruit Lady!!!! I mean come on...who wouldn't love watching a pretty island lady walk around with fruit piled up on her head? Classic!  So I have always liked that...but what got me pumped one day is when I was visiting another artists blog and saw her little paper cut out of a fruit lady. I was stoked! I loved it...and she inspired me. I then set off to try and copy this cute fruit lady.

One cute Fruit Lady!

So here she is....I love it! this was a really fun project, it took me all day to just measure and cut all those individual pieces of paper out, but it was so much fun!

Now along with the fruit lady there was the Snake Charmer...those are pretty cool as well, so  I decided to go ahead and try and do a replica myself

Snake Charmer

Oh..you know you got charm when you can charm them snakes...she has some serious skills...but it's all in the eyelashes ;)

A Happy Memory

As I was searching through my art portfolio, (tying to organize it!!) I came across an older piece of mine, one I had totally forgotten about. This will happen to me quite often, I will have painted or drawn something when I was much younger,stashed it away and then soon forgotten about it and that it ever even existed. I am always excited to once again find one of these "lost and forgotten" pieces of mine when I come across them, this was exactly how I felt when I stumbled across this watercolor painting of mine.

This painting was a project that I was summoned to do with my dad. My dad (I think) is a great artist, he has always loved doodling and he is rather good at painting and drawing caricatures. Though he doesn't practice his artsiness as much as I do, he is very gifted. I'm not sure what prompted him to do this project, but I'm glad he decided to drag me into it!  It was a very good father daughter bonding time ;)

 He found a photograph of these flowers in a magazine and decided he wanted to paint them....so he called me over and told me that he was going to teach me how to paint watercolor! I was all for it. I had never really painted with watercolor before, so this was all new to me. He was my tutor and I was his little apprentice (or as he called me "young grasshopper"). I remember sitting next to him at the dining room table, I had my paper with the flowers drawn on it, and he had his, we both painted our individual paintings. For each step I would look at what he did and try and replicate it, I remember thinking to myself sometimes "What! what are you doing!?", because he would just go for it and drown his paint brush with water and paint then just SPLAT! blob the paint right on the paper, he knew what he was doing though ;) I just ended up doing what he said, and low and behold! the painting came out alright. I am usually very careful about my paintings, things can't bleed into each other...and this was my dads favorite technique..."just let the colors bleed into each other". Once the painting was finished, I loved the product, It came out very relaxed and chill (very much like my dad). 

Since then (2003) I have been telling my dad that we should do something like that again, I love doing art projects with him, it is always good time spent :)

Symphony of Grays

For quite some time I have just "doodled" little pictures here and there, it has been quite a while since I have actually sat and put a large amount of time into a picture. Every now and then I will get this urge to really use my artistic efforts and draw something that takes me a while to complete.

One of my graduation presents from a good friend was a sketch pad. Yes! I was thrilled to get a new one... an artist can never have to many sketch pads ;) But I didn't want to just draw or doodle a quick unimportant sketch in it's new fresh crisp pages...what sort of way is that to start a new sketch pad?!?! No, no it had to be something special, something interesting that when people look at it they would say "Wow! that is so cool!" That is what my intent was with this new pencil drawing of mine.

Symphony of Grays

I got the idea for this picture from another picture I saw. Although you can't tell what it is, it is pretty fun to look at :)

Here are some close up views

Close up view

Close up view

This picture was really fun to draw, it took me three days to complete. Now I have a decent picture to start up my new sketch pad ;)

Sweeter than Pie!

Through my many years of drawing (that is quite a few!) I have always loved to draw people. Now, that doesn't mean that I am any good at drawing them ;) I have always had the hardest time getting a person that I was drawing to actually look like themselves! It just never worked out for me....something was just always off. It could have very well been that I never carefully sat down and drew out a grid so that every feature was just perfectly in place, or that I just always got far to frustrated to ever finish one...whatever the reason is, I have never been that great at portraits. So I have always just stuck with cartoons, animals and flowers. If you mess those up a little, it's o.k. Not like anyone is going to look at the pencil sketch of my flower and say, "Man....that petal is just a little twisted compared to the real thing" so I have always found drawing still lives and such a safe subject ;) I had decided to accept the reality that I was no good at portraits until my little adorable nephew came along...he just changed everything. 

My beautifus nephew!

The time came for my nephews baptism. I wanted to give his parents (and him) a gift for this special occasion, but what could I give them? I wanted it to be something special that they could all look back on and remember, something that you can't buy at a Hallmark store or buy off of Ebay. I went on thinking of what I could do for them...instantly I thought, "well why not just draw them something?!" A talent I had been given, why not share it with them? This got me very excited, I had decided to draw my sweet little nephew and give his parents his portrait. Instantly I started to get all of my drawing tools out, I had my board, pencils, paper, tortillians and the picture I had chosen of my nephew that I was going to draw. I was all set, and then I remembered that I was no good at drawing real people!!! AH! That didn't stop me though, I was determined, I was going to draw this cute little munchkin no matter what...and he was gonna look real too. To make sure my finished product looked like the babe, I went ahead and actually measured the picture out and made a grid! This is big...I never do that. This picture of my nephew took me two days to complete, he had to look like himself ...it had to look good, so I really took my time with him and was careful that every square had what the real picture had. Finally! I was done. I stepped back and looked at him. I was so pleased! He looked like himself. So after all, all that grid work and careful calculating paid off. I then signed it and placed it in an envelope. The parents loved it, and now have it framed  and hanging in their house. :) I am so glad I was able to do something like that for them! I loved drawing my nephew..best subject ever!

Bored and Inspired

This should be a rather short posting, I only have two pictures this time. And the theme is.....crazy, random abstract ink art! Now one of my favorite things to draw.

Just a few weeks ago I had to do childcare all week long. I soon found myself, most of those days, just sitting at the table watching the one child I was caring for sleep! After about five minutes of just staring at the kid nap, I decided I was bored and went to find some drawing materials. I set off to look for some tools...this proved to be harder than I thought it would be. Who thought that looking for a plain sheet of paper and a pencil would be so difficult? Well, after a bit of searching I stumbled across some paper and found a thin Sharpie ink pen...that would just have to do. So I sat..started at what I had, and was inspired! I decided to go ahead and create a totally random abstract ink picture. I had seen some ink artwork before and loved them. The detail and uniqueness of them has just always caught my attention, so that is what I set off to do. 

Abstract ink art creation # 1

After four hours of just doodling, this is what I finished with. The quality really isn't all that good just cause I only had a Sharpie (which frequently decided to run out of ink!) but I like the outcome of it. 

Abstract ink art creation # 2

This here is another ink art drawing I drew up on another one of my boring childcare days. Once again, four hours work. It kept me entertained! Just hand me a paper and pen, and I will come up with something!

Memories...

Well, since I have slacked so very badly on my blog, I am having to cram another post in the same night! This one is far from mermaids though. At the college I attend, one of the first classes I took was an art class. Drawing I. I loved that class! It was wonderful. I was so bummed when the semester was over, but looked forward to the time where I would be able to take Drawing II.

 The semester came and I enrolled in Drawing II! I can't tell you how excited I was. To get back in the Arts department was a great feeling. It was a bit challenging, but it was completely worth it. The class really helped me grow as an artist, I learned so much in just those few weeks. The picture below was my first Conte Crayon-pastel picture of Drawing II. It was a small class, and the teacher was busy with her other class, so she had us drawing II students (4 of us) put together our own still life. And this is what we decided to draw.

Drawing # 1

The glass bottle and goblet as well as the racquet were my favorite to draw.

Our second assignment was an abstract one, which I was very excited about. I have always loved abstract art, yet I had never really "drawn" one, so this was a fun picture. We had to pick our colors, so I went with some vibrant and lively colors, colors that represent my character! 

Drawing # 2

Our third assignment was by far, one of my favorites. We had to draw a self portrait...yet a different self portrait. I had to compose a picture that would be able to tell any random person who I was. From this picture, someone was supposed to be able to read into who I was, yet I wasn't able to draw my face. How was I supposed to draw a self portrait without drawing my face? This whole self portrait yet no self portrait thing was a little too abstract for me!! This one had me stumped for a while. I was stuck in the mind set that a self portrait was a picture of my face...that was getting me nowhere. After searching and searching: looking through magazines and surfing the web and getting some great advice from my school mates I finally figured out what I was going  to do! 

Drawing # 3

Tada!! I decided to incorporate my life into this picture. Most of who I am is depicted right there. My nationality, music (cause I love music) art..of course ;) These are my hands in the painting. I drew my hands drawing the picture. One hand is holding a Conte Crayon and the other is holding another drawing tool. I was very pleased with the overall outcome of the portrait.

Drawing # 4

Drawing numero cuatro! (I know..there are quite a few!) This picture was a very fun one to draw. It was an interesting assignment, nothing I had expected at all. My teacher came in with a 8x11 piece of paper, and on that sheet of paper was a little sketch. On the left side (edge of the paper) was a straight line that made a column. Then around the middle of the paper was a line that came out from the column, dipped down in a elongated "U" shape then back up and finished the line. It was the outline of a sink. What we had to do was create a picture from that little sketch. This one didn't take me long to come up with, I was very excited about it. I envisioned an outdoor garden, just blooming with lush flowers and plants. This is what the outcome looks like. 

Drawing # 5

Ok, we are almost done, just one left!! This one here was probably one of my favorites! It just exudes who I am as a person. Bright, loud, and funky ;) Like I had mentioned before, I had never really drawn abstract, so this other assignment was extremely fun for me, even more so than the first because we had to cut out our pieces and paste them on to another surface. I first got a large and rather hard sheet of paper then divided it into four parts. Then I painted those four parts with black and white acrylic paint in a bubbled checkered pattern. Bubbled to create an illusion of depth. Just painting the sheet alone took me about a week. Once that was done, I started drawing my individual pieces of paper to then later on cut and paste them to the large checkered sheet. I had so many different perspectives I could have taken with this, but I decided to stick with my first creation. And WALA! A masterpiece was born....ok maybe not, but I like to thing so ;)

And that is it! Those are all of my Drawing II creations and their stories (the shoes up top are also mine). I will forever remember that class, I learned so much and had a wonderful time!

Under The Sea

This is one lucky sailor!

Ever since I was little, I had taken a great interest in mermaids (every girls' dream is to be a mermaid...right?) For as long as I can remember, I have loved the underwater world and all things in it. Now that I am older, I have found that what I enjoy to draw or paint most are those underwater things that I haven't even seen before(such as mermaids)!

This love of mermaids drew me to another artist's blog. Just like myself, Brittney Lee has a love of these fantastical creatures as well, and is wonderful at drawing them! These watercolor sketches of mine are copies from some of her work. 

Her love will revive him

This Mermaid is watercolor as well as paper cut

More Mermaid kisses!

No one messes with her little friends 

These mermaids give a little insight as to what I have dreamed about since I was a little girl. My love for them has only grown as I have gotten older. They are such fun!