First page First Pearl

     The little guy in this painting is Nac. He's an oyster and he's being awakened by the moon. I've known him for about 18 years now, so he's well overdue for the work I'm about to put into him. He has been patient.
      With my art studio back together after a refreshing paint job, I am able to use my oil paints again and spread my work area out a bit more. I think oils are my thing. I've said that before but then get distracted with digital work and play around with other media. That's all fine, but I lose focus. Focus, Tracy! Focus!
   

Celebrate

     I did this for the monthly SCBWI bulletin contest with the word prompt - Celebrate.

     I started digitally, which you can check out 2 posts ago, then decided I wanted switch to a loose pen and ink with some watercolor washes. I am so used to being able to paint over a mistake or hit the "undo" button, (how did humanity exist before there were undo buttons?) that it's very stressful to work on paper like that. When I had the pencil drawing done I was so terrified to mess up the ink, my hand trembled at times. While I applied the first layer of watercolors over the ink drawing, which was not messed up yet, I provided myself a steady stream of pep talk, a few coffee breaks, (decaf) and some yoga stretches. 

     The trouble is, I'm out of practice with that kind of thing. I've been an artist for many years but I've become too reliant on "undo".  Does anyone else out there ever expect autocorrect to help you out with spelling when you're writing with pen and paper? Is it just me? 

     

Illustration Friday - Ice Cream

     This one is thrown in just for fun. On Friday I was under doctor's orders to lay on the couch!!! I had two wisdom teeth removed so nothing serious, but when a doctor tells me to stay on the couch, on the couch I stay. Yay!!!! I sat there with a book to read, my sketchbook and my ipad and it was pretty heavenly. I thought it would be a good day to purchase the Procreate App and view some tutorials on how it works and do some playing. The Illustration Friday word prompt this week is ice cream so here's some ice cream done on my ipad with Procreate. (I'm a vegan so this ice cream is almond based, or coconut, or cashew).

Celebration - work in progress

     This is not done, but this version may be as done as it ever gets. Yesterday, using this digital version as reference, I started over on bristol paper. I'm going to try to do it in pencil and pen with some watercolors thrown in to liven it up. I have the habit of getting things to tightly rendered and losing some of the image's energy. Case in point, the little girl in the pink dress in the center of the drawing (she's looks like she's made of plastic). Also, because I'm drawing on a bamboo tablet while looking at my computer screen, I'm losing that flow of drawing directly on my image. I'm not complaining (too loudly), but a Cintiq tablet is going on my Christmas list this year.

     Check back with me next Wednesday. I'm hoping to have a finished version of "CELEBRATION".

    Also, before I go, I want to tell you that I reached 10,000 hits to this blog. I know it's not 10,000 followers, and I know it's not 10,000 hits to one image. But, I also know my mom has not viewed my blog 10,000 times. It's so nice to have a place to share my works and talk about them a little. Thank you to everyone who has taken an interest!

Puppies! - etc.

    As Jake Parker over at SVS Learn says, the important thing is that it is: "finished, not perfect." I'll put this aside and maybe revisit it down the road. I'd like to add more puppies and make them more stylized (more like cartoons in this case).
     I am a creature of habit. The more routine my life, the more creative I seem to be. These last few weeks have upset my applecart and I won't get them all picked up and put back in the cart for a couple weeks more. There's been some household renovations, including an art studio fix-up that's still in progress, a mild mid-life questioning of what the heck I'm doing with my life, a garage sale over the next couple of days, and wisdom tooth removal next week. That'll be fun. The important thing is that even though I've been distracted I've still managed to draw a little bit every day.
   
    Last week the elementary school I attended was demolished and it made me a little melancholy.
I did this drawing:

It kind of made me feel worse. Haha! When I drew the eyes I made myself cry. I'm ridiculous sometimes.