Sketchbook Challenge-Shelter

The topic this month for Sketchbook Challenge is "shelter". I almost immediately thought of an ancient, though solid, stone barn in the rugged Yorkshire countryside. I've never been to England, but I have vicariously lived the life of a country vet while reading most of James Herriot's novels, lol! So I found a picture of a beautiful old barn, which is actually located in Swaledale.

I did this colored pencil drawing in a relatively short period of time, but even with LOTS of time I could never replicate the wild beauty of this country. So many shades of green, thousands of individual stones placed one atop another to build the seemingly endless stone fences. The barn itself must have taken a great deal of skill and patience to erect! These old barns often had just a few tiny windows which I imagine helped to keep the fierce winter winds and snow at bay, while still allowing some ventilation and light. Any animal finding itself caught in a blizzard would feel truly blessed to find this shelter and to wait out the storm in its dim interior.

By the way, this sketch is the first one in my new sketchbook! I just finished filling my last sketchbook and this will be my third sketchbook since beginning this blog, though I also have some random drawings in other books. It's been a fun journey and hopefully I'll find some drawing time after school begins!

Shalom!

A journal and some pen and ink...

Well, after about eight hours of babysitting my little Odj Podje (as we sometimes call Audrey) I found myself in an empty house and decided to do a little something. (I did get in a long nap after daughter Micah came home from work and found the house empty upon waking. Hubby wasn't home yet, so...)

I've been wondering what to do with the exquisite cover of my 1904 copy of  "A Child's Garden of Verses".  I had removed the pages and lined the cover with some flannel material and was going to use it as a "folder" to put stuff in. But I decided to make it into an actual journal.

I'm not very complex when it comes to these things, so I took all of the watercolor and bristol paper I had left in my tablets, folded them in half and they are now residing in the cover. Next, I will poke some small holes along both sides of the spine and thread some sort of cording through these to hold the pages, which will have corresponding holes in them. I know I "should" sew all of my pages into signatures, etc, but I'm just too lazy, and, after all, there ARE NO RULES when it comes to having fun with art, right? So now I feel better that this cover will actually be used as a journal instead of sitting forlornly on the bottom shelf of my slant top desk. I love this idea of using old books for journals. They are just too charming to leave on the bookshelf and I'll NEVER run out of drawing paper, lol!

The Sketchbook Challenge for this month is Urban Sketching, which is a challenge in itself since I live in the country!  But after reading their definition of urban sketching I'm thinking it really means drawing from your own natural environment, so that's what I'll be doing. This is a sketch of some art supplies on my art desk.

I think it will take some time and practice for me to get the hang of drawing over text so that the drawing shows up better. I know I can gesso over it, but I don't like working on top of gesso. Besides, I've seen others do it without gesso and theirs looks great. So experimentation is in order. I may get it figured out by the time I fill this journal. I anticipate lots of fun in the mean time! :D

Well, hubby arrived as I was beginning this blog post and has promised me chicken strips at Dairy Queen if I ride along with him to pick up some hay. It's a date! :D 

 Four hours later: My trip to town bore even more fruit than expected. Besides the dinner at Dairy Queen we stopped off at Wal-mart, and on a whim I went in to look over the drawing pens in the office supply aisle. Seventeen dollars later I emerged from the store with this small stash!

I've seen commercials on TV about the Ink Joy pens and hope they live up to the hype! The little bottles of acrylic paint cost 53 cents, except for the black and white which were 97 cents. Probably not the best quality, but good enough for me to mess around with! The sketchbook was too neato to pass up. It's made in England. Does that mean it's wonderful? Once again, good enough to play in! So I'm a happy camper. Oh, and besides that I sketched the Wal-mart garden center while I was waiting for hubby in the truck (before I was struck with the whimsy to go inside...).

Then I took this photo from our front yard. I may use this as my header over at my Backwoods Crazy Quilt blog.

Have a wonderful weekend. Ours has been sunny and beautiful and promises to stay that way. Maybe we'll plant some flowers tomorrow.

Shalom!

29 Faces-Day 22 and Sketchbook Challenge

Okay, a real person this time! But I couldn't help fixing her hair a little. I call this...

GIRL WITH HIGHLIGHTS

This was fun! I worked and reworked her features, smeared the ink a bit, fixed it a little, and then chose the colors for her hair. I felt like a hairdresser!  The girl in the photo I used was probably in her twenties. This gal looks about 13, but I like her a lot.

Everyone have a great time drawing those faces!

To see more go to the Ayala Art blog!

For The Sketchbook Challenge I drew some corn and found a couple of poems to go with them.

Lots of fun today!
Shalom!

My first tomatoes...

I'm trying to combine painting and poetry, lol! I'm not sure why. I guess it's something to add to the painting. I need more practice on tomatoes, but I have a problem with doing things more than once. ADD? Possibly.

Shalom.

Sketchbook Challenge-Fruits and veggies

The challenge this month for Sketchbook Challenge is to paint fruits and veggies. You have to admit that God created and used some of the most spectacular colors in the world when He created veggies and fruits!

This is quite a coincidence! I don't have any farmers markets nearby this time of year, but I just ordered a catalog from Burpee for the sole purpose of finding some painting models. I'm beginning with asparagus because it's such an interesting looking vegetable! I recently stapled some bits of watercolor paper together into a booklet, so it is now my fruit and vegetable book, lol!

This is an odd angle for a photo, but when I tried snapping the picture straight on it didn't look nearly as interesting.

This is the updated version. Wonder if I can find a poem for each vegetable?
I'd better run over to Flickr and post this photo!

Shalom!

Open...

That is the theme at Sketchbook Challenge this month. I decided to paint apple blossoms opening up to the sunshine. This is the first time I've tried this loose, almost impressionistic type of watercolor painting. It was fun just plopping paint on without being strict about staying in the lines.Which do you like better? This...or this?

I'm crossing my fingers. I'd sure like to win that colored pencil set they are having a drawing for! I'd better go submit my painting right now!
Shalom!

Stormy Weather

The theme for Inspiration Avenue this week is "Stormy Weather". I thought of doing a new painting, but I remembered this sketch I did for Sketchbook Challenge last summer and I thought it would be good for this challenge. You can't get much stormier than this! (Not brilliant drawing, but a lot of action going on.)

I was kind of going for the contrast of the calm above the clouds and the storm beneath. Mostly a good excuse to draw lots of pen lines! :)


Sketch on!
Shalom!

Two challenges in one!

The challenge on Inspiration Avenue is to create art featuring a doll. The first doll that sprang to my mind was a colorful Babushka doll. I've always liked these wooden nested dolls. So here is my rendition of a doll I found online.

I will also use this painting for the Sketchbook Challenge: flowers. I really enjoyed making the flowers on this doll!

Shalom!

Close-up for Sketchbook Challenge

"Close-up" is the February theme for Sketchbook Challenge and I thought this would be a good subject to paint. I haven't done a horse for quite some time and this was copied from a quirky, off-center photo I had seen in someone's Facebook photo album.Off to add it to my Flikr photostream. :)

A doodle...

Not sure this is finished. I did fill in the bottom of the volcano in black ink. I may do more doodling in the rest of the page. It was fun, but it takes a lot of thought for me to come up with ideas. Even shapes are hard for me to come up with! I hope I get more relaxed at this over time!

My Pom Pom sketches are complete!

I'll be looking for yours, Pom Pom. :D I finished my little veggie picture and now I will put it on the Sketchbook Challenge website!
You know, I almost like these little paint testing pieces as much as one of my intentional paintings! The colors are so pretty! I photographed them sitting on top of my watercolor notebook that I keep finished paintings in.
And I also finished my little "Cottage of Content" painting. I kind of like it though it looks very different from the picture I copied it from! :)
Now I'd better take care of some book ordering for school! Bye for now!

Grappling with ideas...

I've been poring over the Sketchbook Challenge blog site. There is so much to take in! I've read numerous bits on the various artists who are the "experts" who keep the whole thing going. I'm very impressed with their creativity and originality, to the extent that I'm feeling very UNcreative and original! :( I know they all started in the same place I'm starting. I realize it takes years of practice to get good at this stuff. I'm just wondering if it's worth years of practice?!?

Where am I headed with this? (Thinking out loud, which is, of course, what blogging is all about, eh?) I'm also reading a book about professional artists who go to work each day and paint 8 hours a day to produce saleable art. Yuck! It's interesting to look at their studios, but I can't imagine doing art as a business. SO, I know I'm not headed there. At least not in the sense of artists who fill large canvases (canvasses?) with big splashes of paint that look like nothing I recognize, so others will buy it because their name is well known in artist circles. Nah.

On the other hand, small illustrations for greeting cards, picture books, that sort of thing...possibly.

What gets me is how many of these artists (on the Sketchbook Challenge website) can draw or paint something fairly simple, then they take it to a whole new level by adding really beautiful details that came from their imaginations. I just draw what I see and it can look pretty boring when I'm finished. So, I'm going to continue to try to ENJOY drawing and experimenting and I'm not going to worry about where it's going. I'm also going to keep reading and looking at what others are doing. Maybe eventually something will spark some originality and creativity that's "in there" somewhere!

In fairness to myself, I also see that many of these artists are drawing from photos or models and are taking classes from other people to get ideas, so maybe I'm not the only one who needs some help! :D

Just needed to vent, self!

BTW, this is a video called The Doodle Game. I've noticed that several of the people posting drawings on The Sketchbook Challenge like to do extreme doodles. This looks like fun! Come on Pom Pom! You're a doodler! I'm going to try this...

Another for the sketchbook challenge...

"Elemental" brings to mind such things as wind, rain and lightning. Not an excellent use of cross-hatching, but I'm still at the stage of recklessly drawing without the experience necessary to plan ahead. Still lots of fun!

The Sketchbook Challenge...

I'm joining in the July challenge to draw something "elemental". What could be more elemental than a cheerful group of toadstools wriggling their toes into the dark, loamy, woodland earth?
I look forward to being inspired in my sketching through The Sketchbook Challenge. I only recently dug out my hoard of art supplies and have begun an art exchange with my pal Pom Pom who has been such an encouragement to actually begin creating! This sounds like another facet to the great adventure we've begun. :)