Yes, art has been happening!

I've been doing tons of art--it's been great. I haven't been great about blogging about it, though. Here's what I've been up to.

I've had three pieces accepted in the last two "BIG Arts" juried art shows on Sanibel Island. I'm batting 1000! These were my first attempts to show things at art shows since I was a kid and submitted things to children's art shows. I know that rejection is in my future and will be good for me, but it's nice to have success early on! The most recent show is going on right now, until the end of April at BIG Arts. If you're in Southwest Florida, stop on by! My piece is called Sunset Shadows. Here's a photo.

One thing I like about this is that it's a black and white sunset picture. It really gets you to focus on the shadows and not the brilliant colors that you might ordinarily see in a sunset. There is a tiny bit of red Conte' crayon in the sky and the reflection, but it's barely visible in person and hardly at all in this photo. Also, I love the ripples. I'm a big fan of ripples.

Another thing I've been doing is the 100 Days Project. If you've not heard of it, the idea is just to do the same activity every day for 100 days. By the end, hopefully it's a habit, if you want it to be a habit, and hopefully you've improved at whatever it is. It can (and should) be pretty simple, so it's something you can keep doing every day without too much trouble. I heard about it on a blog in early March and started it on that person's start date, but I'm not following along with anyone officially. I decided to focus on comics. I've always wanted to be able to show a person or a place or a scene without having to take photos and work forever trying to get all the details right. I'm not a casual drawer, but I'd really love to be. Kate Beaton, of "Hark, a Vagrant" fame, occasionally does little comics about things that happen during the day, and I love them. They're just little sketches and they tell exactly what they need to. So that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to take one thing from my day, even if it's just a thought, and put it in my little 6"x6" sketchpad. I've been having a ton of fun. The drawings are at times absolutely terrible, but I do feel that I'm getting better at drawing from my imagination. And, to keep me honest, I'll put them up here. I tried to put up the lot from March 6 through last night, but I think it was too much for Blogspot to handle. I'll do a few of posts of several comics each. I know it's a lot today, but there won't be this many in the future. I'll only do one or two a day, and I'll try to post pretty regularly. I hope you enjoy!

Thanks for reading!

Tennis

EDM #71  Draw something representing your favorite sport. Tennis is by far my favorite sport. There are others I enjoy watching, but tennis is the only one I really understand, and the only one I really enjoy playing (besides Ping Pong, which is fantastic and I wish I had a table!). The dog is nothing to do with the sport--dogs are generally not welcome on the tennis court--but I do love how excited dogs get to pick up and carry things, particularly large sticks. This is something that always makes me smile. At first I just drew the tennis ball, but it needed something else to save it from a completely boring exercise. Enter the dog.

I have been doing lots of art, and it feels great! I've got all sorts of projects in the works and I'm having such a good time practicing different skills and feeling improvement. I have been neglecting the EDM list, however, and I don't want to do that anymore. My husband is a composer and he has a system for doing small compositional exercises to get warmed up in the morning. He rolls a die to tell him how large the ensemble is, then he rolls dice for which instruments are in the ensemble. Then he'll write a little thing--maybe it will be thrown away, maybe it will be used for something someday--that gets the creativity flowing. So I've made myself a little chart for some dice rolling, too. One roll tells me whether I'll do an Everyday Matters subject, a Julia Kay Portrait Party portrait, or a Virtual Paintout landscape. I might add illustrated recipes, too. The second roll tells me whether I'm doing it in pen, watercolor, charcoal, pencil, or colored pencils. I'm not letting myself spend more than 30-45 minutes or so on it, reminding myself that it's an exercise and it's just for fun! So far I have done two of these exercises. The first is a little watercolor (and ink, because why not?) of cows on the Isle of Wight. I didn't send it in to the Virtual Paintout website because I'd like to spend a little more time on something I send there, but I think it's a great idea for finding random landscapes. The second one is this ball and dog. We'll see how long I'm able to keep this going, but it's great fun for now!

My first landscape!

I haven't done any EDM Challenges for a bit, but I have been drawing and painting. Here's a little landscape I did - my first! It was a stormy sunset at the beach -- breezy and gorgeous -- and the little guy had a ball running around in the wind! I have been more interested in drawing people than scenery lately, so this is a nice combination. I do want to be better at landscapes, though. I feel like I don't know where to begin. There are so many tutorials online -- I'll start looking through those for tips, I guess, and then just start practicing.  I saw a blog yesterday where people paint scenes from Google street view. Some of the scenes they find are quite beautiful and interesting! If you're looking for a reason to do landscapes, you should try doing a painting and sending it in! I might have the guts to at some point....

Scary!

EDM Challenge #70  Draw what you're afraid of.  This is a brown recluse spider. Spiders are useful creatures, I know this. They keep other insect populations in check, they tend to keep to themselves, they spin incredible, beautiful webs--all good things. But still, they give me the heebie-jeebies. As I wrote on the drawing, we recently moved from Chicago to Florida, where spiders, snakes, and other creepy crawlies live year round. Now I imagine them popping out from every crevice! When I have recurring scary dreams, they tend to involve spiders or driving. Honestly, I'm much more afraid of scarier, more sobering things, but I draw for fun, mostly - so here's a spider!

This is the second drawing I've done since we've moved. I went to do a watercolor yesterday and couldn't find my brushes, so I grabbed the pens instead. It's been fun! Yesterday I did a portrait for the Julia Kay Portrait Party - someone's childhood photo. I've posted that here, too.

I do need to find those brushes, though....

Ginger Ale

EDM Challenge #69  Draw a beverage.  Here's another one of these recipe drawings. This ginger ale is so good. It tastes exactly the way ginger ale ought to, I think. Ginger ale is the only soda I really like, and being able to make it at home on a hot day is just fantastic.  The ingredients are ones that we tend to have on hand (and we keep a mason jar of the syrup in the fridge during the summer), so that makes it even more convenient. You could use less or more of the ginger syrup when you make the drink. Sometimes I'm in a sweet mood, but other times.... And do not leave out the lemon juice! Without it, it's just ginger syrup and sparkling water; but with lemon, it's ginger ale!

I really enjoy drawing recipes! When my husband and I got married, our wedding favor to everyone was a cookbook of our favorite recipes. I drew the cover from a photo of the two of us cooking. We've been wanting to do a "Wedding Cookbook, part II" for years. Maybe I can make an illustrated book to send out to our friends and families.

Bright, Shiny Off Button

EDM Challenge #68  Draw your computer.  When my son was very young, he often played around me while I worked with my computer on the sofa. Eventually he would make his way over, see that luminous off button calling to him, and reach out and push it. Supposedly hand-eye coordination and small motor skills aren't up to snuff yet when children are that young, but that didn't stop my little one from pushing that off button before I could get to him. He's much better now. I think he's realized that the payoff isn't awesome enough to keep making me crazy. That's what I hope, anyway.

This is just a 5B pencil and a tiny bit of blue pencil to make the "off" symbol more luminous and alluring!

Goldenrod

EDM Challenge #67  Draw something "Mom".  This is an illustrated recipe (I love illustrated recipes!) for Goldenrod, the delicious breakfast my grandmother made up for my mom when she was little.  My mom made up a different breakfast for me, which is called "Egg Brekky with Yogi and Bread" (that's what you get when you let the kid name the dish).  Egg Brekky is a soft-boiled egg (still warm), a piece of bread torn into small chunks, and a dollop of yoghurt (cold).  Then you mix it all together in a bowl and you get mush that has hot bits and cold bits and it's kind of bready and yoghurty and I absolutely love it.  I admit that Goldenrod is more classically delicious -- it's a white sauce, after all -- but Egg Brekky is dearer to my heart.  Goldenrod is a very "mom" thing to me, though, because it involves both my mom and my grandmother.  My son hasn't tried Egg Brekky or Goldenrod.  He tends to have unsweetened applesauce mixed with yoghurt (which is delicious, by the way).  I think I'd better come up with a comfort-food breakfast for him, though, to continue the tradition.

As I said above, I love illustrated recipes!  I've been wanting to do these for ages and I finally started a couple of days ago.  I've done two now, both with pen and watercolor, and I'm having a ball!  Be prepared for more to come!

A word about scanning.  I actually took this to a scanner and emailed it to myself from that, and it wasn't terribly good!  This recipe fared better than the other one, but they were both missing colors and details, despite my selecting proper settings for a drawing (I think).  I'm not really sure what to do about that.  For now, here's another dark, blurry photo.