Illustration Friday - TIME

     In my misspent youth, I thought I had plenty of time.  I had time to kill and sometimes even too much time on my hands.  As I grew older and (I hope I can safely assume) wiser, I realized that my elders had been correct in warning me that time flies.  There's never enough of it.  

     It does great things like healing all wounds, being a great equalizer, and of course it's money but, it's forever running out.

     Funny how, in my opinion, quality time comes from disregarding time entirely and being present.  Be present.

- Don't count every hour of the day.  Make every hour count. - Author unknown

Illustration Friday - REFLECT

The weekly word for Illustration Friday is REFLECT.  I do a lot of that as New Year's Eve approaches.  I reflect over the year and my accomplishments.  I look over the goals I set for myself at the end of 2012 to see how I've measured up.  I think January 1st is probably my favorite holiday.  I like setting goals and even making resolutions that are always broken by mid-February yet never fail to get me excited by the possibility that this may be the year I do a sketch a day, avoid sugar, exercise more, become fluent in Spanish, and finish a children's book manuscript with illustrations included.

Where does the time go?

Happy New Year Everyone!

Illustration Friday - SHADOW

It's a busy week but I wanted to work with this image for the word SHADOW.  I did something very similar in college that has been thumbtacked to a wall in my studio for many years.  My 2014 goal is to begin to familiarize myself with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.  I'd like to pull this illustration out again when I have some more experience with one of those programs.  For this one, I used ink with a pen and some brushes on Bristol paper, (shown below) then put it into Corel Paint and added a little color and some detail highlights on the tree.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Illustration Friday - TAIL

     This is a quick lesson in placement and perspective.

     I had some fun with this one.  I drew directly onto the computer with my Bamboo tablet.   It's sketchy and has some of the energy that I too often end up overworking out of my images. 

Flori Isabella

     On October 18, I posted an acrylic study of a flower shop.  Here is the finished product. It's a 12 x 16 oil on clayboard and I've been working on it here and there for the last four weeks.  I haven't done an oil like this for quite a while and, I have to say, I'm pretty happy with it.  I haven't posted for a couple of weeks mostly because I've been busy with this painting and several others that I'll be happy to share soon.

     I attempted to participate in Illustration Friday last week. The word was ENERGY and I worked up an idea of kids playing in leaves.  I spent about six hours on it.  My sketch had energy.  My first version in Corel Paint still had energy. But, as I tried to fine tune the details of the drawing I zapped all of the energy out of it and ended up trashing it.  Oh well. As I've said before, art (like life) is a journey and I learn something new every day.  I don't beat myself up too badly when I have a bad week.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope to finish another painting this week, and I'd also like to work on the new IF word for the week - TAIL.

Illustration Friday - SECRET

     This is an illustration I did earlier this year.  Grandma's "secret" ingredient is . . . love. It's acrylic on bristol paper.
     I am currently working on some paintings from recent vacation photos, so I was happy to have something in my archives to submit to IF.  I should be able to start sharing my paintings in the next week or two. Thanks for checking in.