Pet Portraits that I've Received

I've already received a couple of my Pet Portraits - and they are to gorgeous not to share!!

Bella & Deco from Jeanne (Postcard size in Colour Pencil)

 

Deco from Jenny (ATC Size in Graphite)

Pepper from Judy (ATC Size in Colour Pencil)

Deco from Catherine (ATC Size in Watercolour)

Pepper from Lola (ATC Size in Acrylic on Canvas Paper)

ATC Exchange

Wow!! So it's been a whole month since I've posted anything...
I've been so busy trying to keep up with everything!!

Here are the first two that I've done for the Pet Portrait Exchange

Friday for Jeanne & Phoebe for Judy

Friday for Jeanne

Phoebe for Judy

My first two cards for the Zentangle Exchange - I decided to send them together with the Pet Portrait exchange to Jeanne & Judy - Double Wammy!!

Dedicated to Jeanne & husband Bill

Judy Doodle

Days of My Life

So I've signed up for ..... wait for it ...... TWO ATC's on Wet Canvas.
The first one is the Pet Portrait Exchange & the second one is the Zentangles Exchange
The Zentangles one is going to be lots of fun and i'm excited to start that one, the Pet Portrait one i'm a bit nervous about because I don't want to disappoint anyone with my drawing - but we'll see how it goes.

Either way i'm going to start them this weekend because Brandon is going riding with the boys on Saturday and so i'll have the whole day for my art....

Another thing I'll be doing is starting "The Complete Draw & Paint In Your Pyjamas Certificate Course" on DrawSpace with the incredible Cindy Wider - it's a 42 week course, basically a whole year, Cindy assists you every step of the way, and I'll be getting a certificate afterwards.  This I am SUPER EXCITED about and can't wait to begin, it officially starts on the 20th August 2010, but i'm going to start doing the first exercise (a self portrait) this weekend.

Lots of activity for me at the moment, but it's good I guess - keeps one out of mischief!!  :) LOL!!

Lost & Found

Last year I bought an A5 Sketchbook that I started using - But then all of a sudden I couldn't find it anymore.... I thought I had left it at Brandon's house and made him search for it like a million times (shame, and he did each time).  Did a major cleanup to our study at home and ..... I FOUND THE SKETCHBOOK!!

Here are the drawings from that book.

Weave Sketchbook - The beginning

I bought a new A4 Sketchbook which has a grass woven like cover - here is a picture of it - i liked that earthy look about it and so i bought it.

The first picture is of Penelope - what a gorgeous face!! (WDE, Pic by Artmutt at WC)
The second picture is of a Ladybug which i only drew part of the whole picture (WDE, Pic by Signchick at WC)
The third picture is of a Little Toy Clown, i only drew the face. (WDE, Pic by Signchick at WC)
There is a gap in the page I know - I am going to write something, just haven't decided what.

All of them were done with:
Derwent Inktense & Aquatone for the 'under painting'
Derwent Coloursoft Pencils for more colour and intensity
Pitt Pens for some of the details
All in all it took me about 4 hours to do.

Little garden ornament - Picture ref by DonnaD at DS
Mushrooms - Picture ref by katdyd at DS
I have started drawing something in the space & will post the update when it's done.

Derwent Inktense Pencils (Wet & Dry)
Derwent Coloursoft Pencils (Mushrooms)
Derwent Aquatone Pencils (Mushrooms)
Pitt Pens (Mushrooms)
All in all took me about 2.5 hours

Under the Sea ~ Clown Fish

This is my forth card for the Drawspace ATC - Under The Sea - June 2010

Clown Fish

Under The Sea Drawspace ATC - June 2010

ATC Size on Watercolour Card Stock

Derwent Coloursoft Pencils

Took me about 2.5 hours to complete

Clownfish are native to warmer waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans, including the Great Barrier Reef and the Red Sea.
The clownfish feeds on small invertebrates which otherwise potentially could harm the sea anemone, and the fecal matter from the clownfish provides nutrients to the sea anemone. Clownfish live in small groups inhabiting a single anemone.

Under the Sea ~ Sea Cucumber

This is my third card for the Drawspace ATC - Under The Sea - June 2010

Sea Cucumber

Under The Sea Drawspace ATC - June 2010

ATC Size on Watercolour Card Stock

Derwent Coloursoft Pencils

Took me about 2 hours to complete

They are marine animals with a leathery skin and an elongated body. Sea cucumbers communicate with each other by sending hormone signals through the water. Sea cucumbers have no true brain. Sea cucumbers have inspired musical composition.

Sketchbook Habit - Day 9 - 12

Day 9 - Design (we had to draw little frames & just let ourselves go and come up with different designs) I quite enjoyed this... it's like doodling....

Day 10 - Abstract (this was a interesting one as we had to draw 3 things from around the house, just the outline, and then corner a piece off - ABSTRACT ART) i decided to colour each little section in a different colour and i'm quite pleased at how it came out... this was lots of fun!!

Day 11 - Colour & Negative Space (we had to layer colour by colour only colouring the negative space) I must say this taught me allot about colours and how they blend together and how you can accomplish a picture like this with doing the negative space first... awesome exercise!!

Day 12 - All Media No Plan - i just decided to try every kind of paint, pencil, pastel that i had - so yeah... this is what happened!!

Day 13 - Be a Kid (on this one you had to dig out your cheap kids art supplies and just go crazy) so i used wax crayons, pencils, felt tip pens... also lots of fun....

LOVE

The dictionary defines it like this.....

• a strong positive emotion of regard and affection
• any object of warm affection or devotion
• have a great affection or liking for
• get pleasure from
• a deep feeling of sexual desire and attraction
• be enamored or in love with

..... but what does that actually mean???


I don't think you can truly know love until you have experienced it or missed it or even lost it.  It is like a magnetic pull that keeps two people together, families together.  Without it, we would have nothing.


The bible says this about love:

4 Love is long-suffering and kind. Love is not jealous, it does not brag, does not get puffed up, 5 does not behave indecently, does not look for its own interests, does not become provoked. It does not keep account of the injury. 6 It does not rejoice over unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

They say it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all - i'm not sure about that so much... unless you loose someone to death, but the pain and heartache of loosing someone who you love and have invested so much emotion & feeling in is surely heart wrenching. 

I am in love with someone & the thought of loosing him kills me.  If I had not found him, I wouldn't know what I would be missing out on, so for me to have loved Brandon & then to have lost him would be like murdering my soul.

I may not know completely what love means, but I do know that I like the way that I feel when I'm around Brandon and I wish I could spread that with everyone that I know and have them feel the same way.  He fulfills me in every way and makes me happy and I feel secure when i'm around him.  When I think of Brandon a song comes to mind... You may know it form a movie... it goes a little something like this... 

Dedicated to you Baby Love:

I wanna make you smile whenever you're sad 
Carry you around when your arthritis is bad 
Oh all I wanna do is grow old with you 

I'll get your medicine when your tummy aches 
Build you a fire if the furnace breaks 
Oh it could be so nice, growing old with you 

I'll miss you 
Kiss you 
Give you my coat when you are cold 

Need you 
Feed you 
Even let ya hold the remote control 

So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink 
Put you to bed when you've had too much to drink 
I could be the man(woman) who grows old with you 
I wanna grow old with you

Under the Sea ~ Nudibranch

This is my second card for the Drawspace ATC - Under The Sea - June 2010

Nudibranch

Under The Sea Drawspace ATC - June 2010

ATC Size on Watercolour Card Stock

Derwent Coloursoft Pencils

Took me about 2.5 hours to complete

A Nudibranch (pronounced nju-d-brae-k) is a member of what is now a taxonomic clade, and what was previously a suborder, a soft-bodied, marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusks which shed their shell after their larval stage. They are noted for their extraordinary colour and striking forms.  There are more than 3 000 described species.

The word Nudibranch comes from the Latin nudus, naked and the Greek brankhia, gills.

Habitat: Life at virtually all depths of salt water, but reach their greatest size and variation in warm, shallow waters.

Feeding: Most Nudibranch's are carnivores. Some feed on sponges, others on hydroids, other on bryozoans, and some eat other sea slugs, or on some occasions, are cannibals and prey on members of their own species. Other groups feed on tunicates, barnacles, or anemones.

Colours: Among this group can be found the most colourful creatures on earth.

Sketchbook Habit - Day 4 - 8

Day 4 - Dual Hand Drawings - Object is to draw pictures with both hands at the same time. I'm right handed (not that you can tell by these drawings) and i discovered that when i draw with both at the same time, my left hand draws the mirror image of my right hand. It's absolutely bizarre and my work diary is filled now with words and shapes drawn with both hands because i've never really drawn anything with both hands - so here it is (left page = left hand, right page = right hand)

Day 5 - Learn to Observe - Object is to draw what ever is around you. So i drew this tiny teddy whose been living in with all my pencils & pens etc. and then the next page is the TV & the unit/colomn things that it sits on. i used this 'magic pencil' with contains the 3 primary colours in it and when you draw it combines the lot - it's quite fun to use.

Day 6 - How do I Feel.... AGAIN! - it was quite fun to do this again i must say, even though i wasn't all that keen at first.
Day 7 - Synetics - The object was to right down a series of words and then draw little pictures next to it associated with that word. (used the magic pencil again)

Day 8 - Value - The river rocks.... i was nervous at first because i don't really enjoy the pencil shading thing, i'm not patient enough. but this was quite nice to do and it definitely helps you to see the importance of value!

Sketchbook Habit - Day 3

Day 3 - Line = Value

Today we have to again divide our page into little frames and then using either a pencil, ballpoint pen or marker create lines in each block and explore how this affects the value (drawing lines closer together makes it darker whereas further apart looks lighter).  

So here is what I came up with.

Scavenger Hunt #182

I'm a little behind in the latest hunt, but tried to catch up a little last night.
It's been a tiring past 3/4 weeks and there have been times where i just want to be a couch potato and DO NOTHING... but that can't last forever.

1.  Animal - Bella sleeping (not to happy bout this one, but it can only get better... I hope).
     Pitt Pens straight on paper no pencil first
2.  Spoon - Tiny Teaspoon used for Esspresso Coffee (Challenge : Crosshatching)
     Pitt Pens straight on paper - no pencil
3.  Vegetable - Chilli Pepper (Challenge : Crosshatching)
     Staedtler Triplus Fineliner Pens straight on paper - no pencils
4.  Fluffy - Tiny little Teddy, fits in my palm
     Staedtler Triplus Fineliner Pens straight on paper - no pencils
5.  Fork - Small Cake Fork
     Staedtler Triplus Fineliner Pens straight on paper - no pencils

Sketchbook Habit - 21 Days

So, after seeing a couple of people doing this, i decided to join myself on The Artist Studio with Suzette Morrow.

I've done Day 1 & 2 and today is Day 3 (still busy with today's).

Day 1 - How Do I Feel
We were encouraged to draw little frames in our sketchbook, repeatedly ask ourselves "How do I feel?" and then just randomly doodle in each block, in pencil.  Once every block had been completed, we had to go back and try bring out pictures from this.  I think i struggled a little bit, but by the second page I could feel my creative juices were flowing a bit better.

Day 2 - Part To Whole
This project meant we had to cut out designs from a magazine - there were to have no shape or form, just a design or pattern which we had to randomly stick onto a page in our Sketchbook and then create a page based on those cuttings.  Also a bit of a struggle, but once your mind is open, you almost feel like there isn't enough space for you to continue - VERY COOL - I liked this exercise very much.

Under the Sea ~ Seahorse

I'm hosting the ATC for June 2010 on DrawSpace.
It's been so interesting looking for things to draw and how vast our oceans are.  I'm fascinated by Ocean Life and this was a great opportunity to take a dive into the deep waters (without getting wet of course - although, given half the chance I'd love to be a diver!!)


Here is my first card of a Seahorse, known as a Ocean Rider Seahorse, latched onto a branching sea sponge which is what helps it to retain it's beautiful colours. The purple in the background are other sea corals painting the reefs.

OCEAN RIDER SEAHORSE
Under The Sea DrawSpace ATC - June 2010
ATC Size on Watercolour Card Stock
Derwent Coloursoft Pencils
Took me about 1.5 hours to complete
(Don't have a scanner so this is a photograph and allot of white shows through, but it's not so bad on the real picture)

Scavenger Hunts

I bought myself a TINY little sketch book and i've just loved using it.  These are a selected few of my Scanvenger Hunt Items.
Scavenger Hunt# 179
no.4 - Feathered Animal - My Parakeet "Pepper" (i'm sure you've seen her pics on my blog)
no.5 - Flower - Decor in my Room (Flower in Vase)

Scavenger Hunt# 180

no.1 - Primary Colour Still Life - Dolphin & Winnie the Pooh in Lady Bug Suite

no.6 - Teeth

no.7 - Something Old - my mom's statue, been around since i was crawling

no.9 - Something that keeps you cool - Ceiling Fan

or Warm - Hot Water Bottle

no.10 - Shoes (Challenge: Row of shoes) happen to be the primary colours again.

no.11 - Salty - Prawn Chips

no.12 - Lock & Keys

no.13 - Earbud

Not sure why the two that i've rotated are not coming through the correct way - it happens to me all the time.
I'm going to try and load it again, otherwise you'll have to turn your screen - LOL!!

All done with:
Faber Castel Pitt Pens
Derwent Inktense Pencils
Derwent Coloursoft Pencils

Glass Bead Keyring

Wow!! it's been a very long time since I've posted here hasn't it.

Brandon's Great Grandmother passed away on the 6th June 2010 - she almost saw 96 years old (missed by a few days).  I drew this true in memory of her, just like a tree that is beautiful & green, at some point it looses it's leaves and all that's left are it's seeds to continue the legacy and hold on to her memories.

Ilene Blackler (1914 - 2010).  

The coloursoft pencils are really stunning to use - i must admit that i have only used them once to do this keyring for the Scavenger Hunt on WC.  I am hoping to use them allot more as i hope things will calm down in the next couple of weeks and i can focus on doing something grand with these pencils.

New Supplies

Wow!! It's been a while since I've posted.

Anyway, It's been a fabulous week - I've bought quite a few art supplies.

On Saturday I bought Derwent Inktense Pencils (24) - they are stunning to use and it's all the in the name, the colour is rich and intense.

I also got Derwent Coloursoft Pensils (72) - I haven't used them yet, but i'm rushing home to try them out - i'm so excited.

I also bought Faber Castel Pens Pitt Pens - I know I sound repetitive - but they are really awesome and what i love is that i can use my inktense over them and the Pens are waterproof - it's awesome!!!

Tomorrow I'll post some of the stuff I've done using my new supplies!!

Lilly's Money Bank

Last night I didn't know what to draw for 'broken' in the Scavenger Hunt, so I asked my Parents & little sister for ideas, my sister (13yrs old) runs off and comes back with this little money bank that she loves, but the girls foot broke off and insisted i draw it.

Disney's Desperate Housewives

Received this today on email... thought it was quite cute!