Illustration Friday - TRAVEL

This is my submission this week for Illustration Friday.  The word is TRAVEL.  The woman traveled here by boat, or maybe by book, or maybe, like me, by imagination.  The tiger is frivolous but if you're gonna dream - dream big.

I'm also including my 2 sketchbook pages that I used for this idea.  The first is my thinking page - a bunch of words and scribbles.  The second page focuses a little more on the idea.  I love seeing into the sketchbook of other artists, so I'm sharing too! One of the most inspirational books I've ever read is "An Illustrated Life" by Danny Gregory which I would very highly recommend.  It's a peek into the sketchbooks of MANY artists along with their sketchbook experiences and recommendations.

I looked up the tiger and the boat on the internet for reference but the rest is from my imagination.  That is what I've been working on for the last couple of years - drawing as much as I can from my imagination!!!  It's much more liberating and come on . . . setting up this scene with models would have been extremely expensive.

Illustration Friday - PROTEST

My husband and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary this weekend so I didn't have as much time as usual to come up with something new.  This is an illustration I did a year ago for the word INTENTION.  She did have good intentions after all.  I'm making it work for this week because I'm pretty sure that fish is PROTESTING.

Illustration Friday - EQUALITY

I started this as a colored pencil drawing, then uploaded it to my Corel Paint program and played around with my Wacom Bamboo Tablet. I still need a lot of practice!  That is one of the areas where my knowledge and experience are sorely lacking.  When I was in school the only students using computers were actual computer majors.  I'm dating myself but, so be it.

This is my weekly submission to Illustration Friday,  I'm going to try to do as many of these weekly  submissions as possible.  I was doing them last year on my own in my sketchbook and was enjoying it so much.  I couldn't wait to be online and play with the big kids.

Clayboard

One thing I want to do in my blog posts is share my experiences with different surfaces and mediums.  I have been using clayboard quite a bit recently and want to share a couple pieces I've done.

This is a 5" x 7" portrait of my dog, Ellen.  I started by dripping watercolor over the surface of the clayboard and allowing it to dry.  I had to do this a few times to build up the intensity of colors. Then I scratched her image in using scratchboard tools.  I touched up a few shadowy areas with more watercolor, and sealed it all with Kamar Varnish.  I'm sorry that I don't have the steps along the way.  I'll start thinking in terms of sharing and will start recording my process as I go along.

Another 5" x 7" clayboard.  This one of my friend Elois's grape arbor.  I started this the same way by dripping watercolor on the surface.  Instead of scratching this one, I lifted the color from the beams with water and a brush.  I then began painting with acrylics, scratched a few small areas for the highlights, and sealed it all with Kamar varnish.  

I like adding my highlights last.  Clayboard is great for this. The color lifts with water or can be scratched off.  I like the smooth texture of this surface.  Its very slick which may not be great for everyone.

Thanks for visiting.