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.

Illustration Friday - CREATURE

My submission to IF and a tribute to Stephen King, who has created a great many humanish creatures in his career.  I've been a fan since I started reading his work in the early eighties and just finished reading "Doctor Sleep".  The main character is Danny, the little boy from "The Shining" who is all grown up and still shining.  Thank you, Mr. King, I had a blast.  Since this illustration wouldn't look so creepy with Danny sneaking up behind him, I went with the clown from "It".