School Days

Oh, the memories!

I only rode the school bus from kindergarten through second grade and a very short time my freshman year of high school, but what an experience!

This piece was a challenge, but so much fun! It was mostly drawn in the Procreate App on my iPad. A few of the faces I scanned from recent sketchbook pages, (children's expressions I've been practicing) popped them in and colored them. I'm going to set the image aside for a while and come back to it in a few months when I can look at it with fresh eyes and see adjustments that need to be made. This piece will most likely be the month of AUGUST on my calendar.

Below is the piece I did for MAY. I'm not sure it fits with my other images so I may end up changing this one completely.

"July" (titled "Summer" three previous times)

Hi! I'm Tracy Oñoz - an artist who does the same thing a hundred times.

There is a good reason, however. First, I'm working on a project that calls for a square format and not many of my older pieces can simply be cropped. Second, each year my illustration skills improve. I look at my so-called finished pieces with a more critical eye. I've picked up new digital techniques, figured out how to do things better and more efficiently and I've gotten closer to being able to achieve what I envisioned in the first place.

This is how "Summer" looked in  2014, done with watercolor and acrylic paints. It has, in my humble opinion, a lot of good stuff - bright colors, energy. etc. It's a pretty doggone happy piece. Maybe the fact that I've liked it so much has something to do with why I keep going back. I'm hoping, though, that you agree the revisit was worth it.

You can link HERE to a couple of my other "Summers" that brought me to this last one.  Really.  The one at the top is my last one.  Really . . .  For now.