A very small automobile

EDM Challenge #60  Draw an automobile or a part of one.  We have a car, and I like our car, and I even think that it's a good-looking car...but I just didn't want to draw it.  This car, though, this car is adorable and I loved drawing it.  This is a little wooden Wegmans (officially there is no apostrophe) truck that my dad and stepmom got for my son last year.  You can take the top off and take the little drivers out, and there are three of those canisters for the back -- a blue and a yellow one to go with this red one -- but they're currently hanging out under the sofa with about 10 board books, 5 crayons, 3 pieces of chalk, 12 bits of other toys, a few things that will make me say, "oh, that's where that went!", and one or two complete surprises.  Last time we lifted the sofa, we found a couple of forks and a packet of lobelia seeds.  There might even be a few Cheerios under there, too.  Anyway, this is a fine little truck which holds snacks like a champ and even came with its own homemade book, full of photos of beloved people and animals.  And I think it's hilarious that it says Wegmans on it.  I nice remembrance from our time living in Ithaca, NY.

I used watercolors!  I got a small travel set (great for plein air use, if I ever get comfortable with them) and a Koi waterbrush.  I still have the same problem I had when I was a little kid, where I use way too much water and can't get any details (I marvel at beautiful, detailed watercolor paintings), but that's where waterproof pens come in very handy--instant details.

I've been remiss in updating this blog, but I have done lots of drawing during naptime.  I've been very much enjoying the Julia Kay Portrait Party group I'm in and have been improving my people-drawing techniques.  I'll post some of my portraits soon.

A Sign of Fall

EDM Challenge #59  Draw a sign of fall.  We were going to go apple picking, but the weather was horrible, so we wound up at Trader Joe's picking through their selection instead.  It's a shame, because I really enjoy apple picking and I think it would have been a fun family activity, but apple season is basically over now and we missed our shot.  However, Trader Joe's apples will make delicious pies, I'm sure.

I've been wanting to try some new styles and mediums, so I ordered a set of pastel chalk online.  It arrived in the mail a couple of days ago and I've been having fun experimenting.  I've found that working with white paper, even white paper that says it's good for pastels, is frustrating, so I've been trying to do things on colored paper.  This red paper was from a little book of assorted-color construction paper that I took out of the diaper bag.  There's plenty left for toddler art, don't worry!

Old Hat

EDM Challenge #58  Draw a hat. This hat has been in my husband's family for years, probably since he was in high school. His brother got it originally, but somehow we wound up with it. It comes out at Halloween and other similar occasions. A little while ago, I put it on my son and snapped a photo.  So when I saw the challenge to draw a hat, I thought about this photo.  It's not that the hat has any significance, the photo is just adorable.

I used oil pastels, which I've struggled with in the past.  This time I drew on a large piece of paper, thinking that I would be able to get more details than if I tried to draw on something small.  In general, I think it did work better.  I struggled with the colors, though -- they don't mix the way I expect.  Drawing the fake hair was fun!

Tempting the Highlander

EDM Challenge #57  Draw a picture frame and the picture in it.  I can't believe I drew this.  This is the silliest picture in our house, but it is a very nice frame.  Here's the story:  My mom wanted to give Shawn and me a nice frame to put one of our wedding photos in, and rather than keep the photo that comes with the frame, she replaced it with a photo she had cut out of a newspaper.  The article was about romance novels, and the photo she cut out was the cover of the novel, "Tempting the Highlander."  She thought it was particularly appropriate and hilarious because Shawn wore a kilt at our wedding and I wore a white dress, and the cover shows a man in a kilt and a woman in just enough white cloth to cover the important bits.  She thought it would just be a funny little thing that we would throw away as soon as we had our wedding photos developed.  Well, here we are seven years later, and the clipping is still in the frame!  We liked it and kept it, and then we got used to it, and now I never want to change it.  Even funnier is that this picture has apparently been something that our friends are kind of afraid to ask us about!  When I showed my drawing to a friend this evening, she said, "Oh!  I'm glad to know that story!  I've always wondered about it."  She had even asked another friend about it while we were out of the room and that friend admitted that she had also wondered but had never asked.  If anyone else who has wondered about this odd little picture is reading this blog, I hope this clears some things up!

I used colored pencils today.  Usually I find myself wishing for bolder colors when I use colored pencil, but this picture was so muted to begin with, it kind of works.

More Portraits

Okay, I'm having a really good time doing portraits.  It's amazing -- in the few I've done so far, I've gotten quicker and more confident.  It's true that there's nothing like drawing every day to make you want to draw every day.

The first portrait is charcoal, but the second is charcoal pencil!  See?  I can branch out.  The second portrait was also done very quickly, which was quite fun, actually.

Portrait Party

It looks like I'm allowed to post the portraits I'm doing for the Julia Kay Portrait Party (JKPP) group on Flickr.  It's been great fun so far!  Here are the three portraits I've done.

Self Portraits

EDM #56  Draw a self portrait.  It's been a narcissistic few days.  I was excited to draw a self portrait because the last one I had done was years ago and it made me look like a scary Emily Dickinson.  So I started in on these self portraits and I just couldn't seem to get them right, so I kept going and did three of them!  Maybe I'm pickier with these than with portraits of other people because I know what I look like pretty well, so any little deviation is noticeable.  For whatever reason, though, I am not happy with any of these self portraits I'm posting.  I'm not posting the one that I didn't finish where I looked like Lindsay Lohan (seriously!  I have no idea how that happened).  Anyway, here are my three failed self portraits.  I'm going to keep working on it at some point, but I'm going to take a break from staring at photos of myself for a little while.

Also!  I just joined the Julia Kay Portrait Party group, so I'll be doing more portraits of other people.  I'm not sure if it's okay to post them on my blog.  I'll check that out.  I'm hoping that doing more portraits will help me get better at likenesses.  And I'm sticking with my old friend charcoal for now.  I like it.

Digging in the Sand, and a Doorknob

EDM Challenge #54  Draw someone or something you love.  I love many people, but this is the guy I wanted to draw.  Someone told me that the drawings I do of my son will be more meaningful to me than photographs.  I can already feel that -- I love having photographs (many, many photographs), but there's something about taking the time to draw a person that ever so slightly alters a relationship, in a good way, I think.  I've spent hours--days--gazing at my son's face and hands and feet, but it's not until I see them with my artist's eye that I notice certain tiny things about him.  In college, I drew my roommates a lot (they were so patient and kind!), and so I feel that I know them in a particular way, that I never would have felt if they hadn't sat for me.  I plan on drawing my son many, many more times as he grows up, and I know that it will help me notice tiny changes in him as he matures.  That is an exciting prospect.

I used charcoal because I've been feeling really comfortable with charcoal portraits recently.  At some point I'll need to branch out, but right now, I'm having a really good time!

EDM Challenge #55  Draw a doorknob.   I'm not sure how legible the text on the drawing is, so here's what I wrote:  This doorknob is on the nursery door, and it's the loudest doorknob in the world.  It's so difficult -- you finally finish the bedtime routine, tiptoe away, try to shut the door quietly, and "clatter, thunk!"  It also doesn't help that we have a cat who has a "thing" about closed doors, and he knows just how much noise he can make by hitting the doorknob.
These keyholes always make me think of Alice in Wonderland.

I used gouache.  I was going to put pen on top of it, but I wound up liking it with just paint, so I left it as is!