Just Art Stuff

2012-02-13T14:01:00.000-08:00

Another attempt at marker. The color is a little off in the sky (the real drawing is brighter and lighter) but I love the blue trees!
11x14, Prismacolor Markers

Marker and Pen

2011-10-30T16:11:00.000-07:00

Over the last year, I have been experimenting with Prismacolor markers. I like how it can look somewhat like watercolors when combined with black ink detailing, though I'm still learning how to blend different colors with the markers. My gray and peach are done with the Copic brand marker, which I love for their paintbrush-like tips, on wider brushwork . They're just super expensive! I also experimented with adding Prismacolor pencil in the details. Each of these drawings is 11x14".

Finished in October 2011

August 2011

Spring 2011. This one has pencil in the detail of the faces.

February 2011. I didn't plan out the drawing in pencil before doing the pen, or else the girl's hand wouldn't have turned out so awkward!

I really enjoy this medium, though I could use a wider variety of colors, and more practice. If I were to pursue illustration, I think this is the direction I would go.

Daughter portrait

2011-03-21T12:49:00.000-07:00

This is a recent portrait of my daughter, who is five years old. It is 5x7, drawn with prismacolor pencils. The color on the scan is close to accurate, though the paper is actually a light blue.
I loved the light in her hair!

Relatives

2011-02-25T13:13:00.000-08:00

Both of these drawings were Christmas presents for relatives, and both are 8x10 Prismacolor renderings. This first one didn't turn out that great, because I didn't have a great photo to start with. First off, it was just a small file downloaded from Facebook, so when enlarged to see detail, it was very pixelated and hard to make out. Also, the lighting wasn't ideal for a portrait. The shadows were very dark, and the highlights were very white. I actually softened both for more of a middle ground, but again, it was hard to see any detail under those conditions!

With this second drawing I was much more pleased! This is the youngest child of the above couple. The photo I had to work with was excellent, showing a lot of detail, good color, and good lighting. The background hills and field were not in the original picture, but this is the view from their home so it seemed appropriate. This boy turned out great!

Watercolor

2010-09-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

Watercolor is definitely not my forte! I love watercolors by other artists and am always impressed by them, probably because I don't have that much skill in this category yet!
Maybe once a year, I'll try to do a small one, and occasionally I'll like it. These all scanned lighter than life, and measure approximately 5x7 ".

I love how the cat and grass turned out here.

I like watercolor with pen; this was one of my most recent attempts. It turned out okay, except for the black lipstick look on the man!

In the photo reference, the people were very backlit and dark. I wasn't sure how to render the skin to reflect that lighting, and I wasn't patient enough to figure it out and try again!

This is very recent. The grass looks better than I've done in the past, but this still turned out very heavy-handed.

I love the left-hand half of this painting, how it is fresh and light. If I were to frame this, I would consider cropping the right half off completely.

This is from a cruise I went on in 2003. Eh.

This would have turned out better if I'd have spent more time on it. I didn't even bother to sign this one.

Wedded Couple

2010-05-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

Colored Pencil, 11 x 14. I don't like how the building turned out so much, I guess I should have planned it out better? Oh well, the poeple are still cute!

my two boys

2010-03-01T16:48:00.000-08:00

These are my two boys! The sketches are about 5x5 in size, done with Prismacolor Verithin pencils.

Cousin Portraits: an addition

2010-01-14T09:11:00.000-08:00

Last year I did a series of a big group of cousins for a friend of mine. Now he has more grandkids and its time to add to the group! Here is the latest addition:

This is an 8x10 pencil drawing. The color is slightly off in the photo, and it doesn't catch all the subtle variations in the face, but you get the idea.

Cartoon Family

2009-12-03T12:00:00.000-08:00

This family has 11 kids, 11 spouses, and the parents, for a total of 24 people! Just perfect for a game of Guess Who. Cartoon portraits are definitely not my best area, but I tried. Some turned out better than others, but at least they don't all look the same!

The Happy Couple

2009-10-09T15:28:00.000-07:00

11x14 Prismacolor. The parents of the last two girls I worked on, and the first adults I've drawn in a while! This photo has a slightly greener cast than the original.

Neighbor Girl #2

2009-07-19T18:52:00.000-07:00

Second in a set of two, 11 x 14 Prismacolor.

Photoshop Fluff

2009-07-04T18:57:00.001-07:00

This drawing was completed in 2002, I colored it just recently. Obviously, I didn't spend too much time on it!

Neighbor Girl #1

2009-06-27T10:16:00.000-07:00

An 11x14 portrait of my neighbor's daughter; I had a great photo to work with!

Portraits for coworkers

2009-06-04T18:52:00.000-07:00

My cousin's buddy and his girlfriend:

A strange guy at work that got fired soon after I drew this:

A drawing of a missionary who liked farming:

A coworker's three children:

These were all completed when I lived in the Seattle area, between 2001-2004

Photoshop coloring #3

2009-05-18T16:01:00.000-07:00

This is my most recent banner for my other blog. The original drawing was a small pen sketch finished around the summer of 2003. It is an area near the Montlake Bridge in Seattle, WA where I used to hang out a lot; my husband and I also went on a few dates there. The only difference is in real life you would be able to see a big bridge scanning the water in the distance, and downtown Seattle would be off to the left.
Oh, and sometimes there were giant rats swimming in the water in the evening.

This is the original drawing before any photoshop manipulation:

Two Siblings

2009-05-09T16:11:00.000-07:00

This was a large format pencil drawing, 16x20'' in size. What cute kids!

Four siblings: #4

2009-04-26T11:48:00.000-07:00

Four siblings: #3

2009-03-07T19:08:00.000-08:00

The third portrait in a family series of four. Cute girl!

Oil Paintings

2009-02-24T12:27:00.000-08:00

My senior show in college included these large oil paintings. They really are large too, the length is at least four feet on each one. These three are a series of symbolic self portraits, for which I used a photo of myself as a child, as a college age student, and a photo of my grandmother for the final piece. I'll let you decide what they mean.
One skill I never quite perfected was the art of taking slides of my work. These are all from photos converted from slides, and they don't show detail well. (Plus, some of them aren't very straight.)

This first one had some purple mist swirling around the girl's legs, which doesn't show up here.

This next piece was the first one completed, and definitely the best in the group...probably because I spent the most time on it. The black on the left side isn't part of the painting, I just didn't have the painting perfectly aligned with the camera so the shot included some of the frame behind it.

The photo of this painting is slightly blurry, unlike the painting itself.

Four siblings: #2

2009-02-19T13:16:00.000-08:00

This is the oldest of the four siblings I am currently drawing. The freckles really made the portrait! The scan is a little light, but shows detail well enough.

coloring with photoshop

2009-02-16T16:13:00.000-08:00

Both of these drawings were sketched with a ballpoint pen in my spare time. Later, I scanned them into my computer and colored them with photoshop. These have both been used as banners for my other blog, and I love how they turned out! I will definitely be using this technique again. Although in this first one, that camera flare does look suspiciously like a will-o-the-wisp.

Four siblings: #1

2009-02-16T06:55:00.000-08:00

This is the youngest of a family of four kids that I am currently working on. Isn't she cute?

Watercolor

2009-02-15T17:54:00.000-08:00

I have always wanted to take a class in watercolor, but unfortunately it always conflicted with other classes in college and high school. I've tried the odd painting, but want to learn more! A few years ago I made a postcard for a friend, and liked it so much that I painted another for myself:

Still Life

2009-02-15T16:40:00.000-08:00

This is a still life of some chairs set up for a party by my room mates, before I was married. The camera didn't completely capture the color and texture of the chairs, but I love how they turned out. If I were to redo this drawing, I would change the background wall so that it wasn't so distracting from the nice chairs. I started this in 2003, then forgot about it and finished it later in 2005.

Self Portrait

2009-02-14T07:11:00.000-08:00

Throughout high school and college art classes, the self portrait is the ubiquitous assignment, I must own at least a dozen. So far, this is by far my favorite. Unfortunately, I have yet to get a good copy of it. It is in prismacolor on 11x14 paper, completed in 2003. The original is much more subtle in color, and the paper texture isn't as obvious as in this copy, but you get the idea.

Just for fun

2009-02-14T06:25:00.000-08:00

These are just some fun sketches; most were completed in high school (12-15 years ago), some in college, and a few just after. Most of these in this post have a fall theme: don't you love Autumn?
I don't do these very often anymore, but I love looking at them for ideas. I"ll try to put them in a general chronological order... if you're interested, you should be able to find a year on each of them when you view the bigger version. Sorry some of these aren't scanned that great.

(I love trees, especially those in the previous drawing!)

Pencil Portraits

2009-02-13T20:40:00.000-08:00

These are some portraits I did from my high school yearbook. They were drawn in a 11x14 sketchbook, and I loved how they turned out at the time. These were completed around 1997-1998.

This final drawing was actually drawn in 1995...but its interesting to see the improvement in just a few years time! In 1995, I was a Junior in school.

Cute Husband

2009-02-13T19:00:00.000-08:00

Awe, isn't he cute? Of course, his teeth turned out a little large in this drawing. And maybe his nose is a little small. Oh well. This was completed in 2006.

Sketches of My Daughter

2009-02-13T18:40:00.000-08:00

Cousin Portraits

2009-02-13T18:39:00.000-08:00

This was a series of 13 kids that were all cousins! I was rusty when I started this group, but by the end they looked great.

(one of my favorites!)

(All of the following drawings were scanned on a different scanner, which captured less detail and color.)

Sisters x 4

2009-02-13T18:32:00.000-08:00

These four portraits are sisters. The first two were completed several years ago (2004), the last two were done this last Christmas (2008). The first two were obviously on much more textured paper, which the scanner had a hard time reading.

The smooth paper works much better, don't you think?

Sketchbook: Portrait Sketches

2009-02-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

These are some portrait sketches of a few teachers I had in college; most were done around eight years ago, except the last which was just finished last year. They were all done from photos.

Small Sketch

2009-02-13T18:04:00.000-08:00

This was a small ( 3x5 ) sketch of my son, from about a year ago. I think its time to do a new one soon..he's changed a bit in the last year!

close up

2009-02-13T18:03:00.000-08:00

Family

2009-02-13T06:53:00.000-08:00

These are some small pencil sketches I did of my sister and brother. The one of my sister was a study for a painting I would be doing later.

Sketchbook: Bainbridge

2009-02-13T06:04:00.000-08:00

These are sketches I did on the ferry during the year and a half I lived on Bainbridge Island in Washington. Okay, most of them were done in a short few weeks period, as after that I got tired of it. Literally: I started taking naps on the ferry instead. Oh well. I suppose I could've been more brilliant and gone outside, huh?

These last two are of my work spaces in Seattle. Exciting.

more photoshop games

2009-02-13T04:24:00.000-08:00

These are just some fun pictures I made by inserting a photograph into a drawing- those of you familiar with Layers know its not too difficult. These first three were done around halloween, thus the slightly spooky themes:

This next one was inserted into a pastel drawing I did as a junior in high school. I then intenionally blurred the background as well as the photographed figure, to add some depth to the final image.

In this one, I covered the figure with a canvas texture to blend it with the background texture. This was a still-life in pencil found in another post.

This one was inserted into a photoshop-colored sketch. I should have worked on it a little more to reduce the sharp edges on the figure, but I didn't have the time. I still like it though.

Color Illustrations

2009-02-12T19:16:00.000-08:00

I did these when I was trying to build a portfolio of illustration work. Since then, I don't think I would want to use this style for illustration, I got tired of it much too quickly. Still searching for that perfect style.... These were done around 2001-2002. Again, the texture is really funky in the scans- sorry!

Giant portraits

2009-02-12T19:04:00.000-08:00

These color portraits were done in an 11x14 notebook...which may not be too large in itself, but I got a little carried away in the scale of the faces in relation to the paper! They are done in prismacolor pencil, with some experimenting with paint thinner to blend it in spots, generally the background. These didn't scan that well in terms of color and texture. They were all completed in 1999.