Worried girl. . .

She was striving to keep her unnecessary worrying under control.

Today I decided to give myself a challenge - use ONLY Stabilo pencils on a girl.

This makes for a limited palette since they only come in gray, black, red, orange, blue, brown, yellow and green.  I use these pencils a lot since they are water soluble and great for little tweaks on my pictures.

Yellow may not make for an ideal skin tone but once the water and more layers were added she turned out  better than I had anticipated.  Although it was a big temptation to add some highlights with a white pen, I kept only to the 7 pencils and 2 paintbrushes. 

Finished up by collaging her with some old ephemera on a book page.

Linking to Sunday Sketches,

Creative Every Day, and

Mandarin Orange Monday

Picnic girl. . .

Are you much of a picnicker (doesn't that word look weird?) - I'm not although I do enjoy picnics.  

DON'T ENJOY - Making all the food, cleaning up the kitchen, packing up the food and traveling to the picnic site.  

DO ENJOY - Opening the basket, spreading the blanket, eating the food outside on a sunny day. 

DON'T ENJOY - Cleaning up at the picnic site followed by emptying, cleaning and putting away the picnic basket once home. 

The work of the picnic generally outweighs the joy of the picnic for me.  However, one time several years ago we were vacationing with mom and dad in the Smokey Mountains.  We were in the middle of nowhere and our breakfast had worn off - we were tired and hungry.  What to do??  Mom had purchased a loaf of bread earlier, we had preserves from a gift shop (sorry to whoever was supposed to receive said preserves but we were STARVING) and dad had a pocket knife.  Seems like there were some grapes involved but mom will have to confirm if I am embellishing at this point. . . 

Anyway - there has never been bread and jam accompanied by bottled water that has tasted better in my life than what we experienced that day.  The sky was blue, the mountains were gorgeous, there were deer close by in the meadow and we were happy and contented with the simplest of fare.

That is the kind of picnic that I love - a serendipitous picnic!

Linking to Art Journal Every Day,

Paint Party Friday

Paper Saturday

Illustration Friday - ROBOT

10 points if you can name this gal in 10 seconds. . .

5 points if you can name the TV show she is from. . .

YUP - It is ROSIE the Robot from The Jetsons!!  

I knew I had done a pretty good job when Connor (at 16 he is my harshest critic around here) said - "Hey mom, why ya drawing Rosie?"  He recognized her upside down and across the table. 

Rosie is updated a bit by using modern art supplies like COPIC markers and different colors.  She is originally blue and red but I used Melon and Cantaloupe which are the challenge colors this week at The Play Date Cafe Challenge (PDCC191). 

Retro supplies include my vintage letters (purchased on a past shopping spree with Kim) and my old ledger that I use as an art journal.  

Wish I had a robot to help me keep up with things around here.  Laundry must be my most detested chore - never ending, thankless job. . . which job do you dread the most? 

Linking to Illustration Friday,

Mandarin Orange Monday,

Creative Every Day

Baby watch. . .

She was beginning to regret her vow to wear the crown until Will and Kate's royal offspring was born!

Linking to:

Summer of Color - Sage and Sepia,

Paint Party Friday,

Art Journal Every Day

Illustration Friday - TRAVEL

She often wore her pirate eye patch while planning her imaginary jaunts to the Florida Wetlands.

This week's Illustration Friday topic is TRAVEL and maps symbolize travel to me - Want to know what's under that eye patch? 

It was the easiest way to fix a face that was a bit wonky and not very interesting.

HUSBAND - "If I was at a Speed Dating Event I'd pass her table right by. . ."

ME - "That's not very nice.  I think she is cute."

HUSBAND - "That doesn't make me feel good - you told me earlier tonight that I was cute."

My older son Connor said that she looked like Sloth from The Goonies!  Google it if you want to know how mean my kid is to me - I get no respect around here!

Linking to Creative Every Day and

Artsyville Glue It Tuesday

Summer of Color (Week 5) - Candy Apple Red and Yellow - Lichtenstein-like

It is week 5 of the Summer of Color challenges - sadly, only one more week to go - this week's color combo is CANDY APPLE RED and YELLOW. 

I went for a Roy Lichtenstein comic book sort of approach to this girl - and I think she turned out pretty good although I had my struggles along the way!

Fans of Lichtenstein would be aware of his use of dots for the skintones in most of his paintings.  

Ben-Day dots are a technique (Named after Benjamin Day but since we are so "close" we can just call him Ben) dating from 1879 that give comic books their distinctive look - I call it retro printing. 

I read that Lichtenstein first made his dots with a dog brush dipped in paint and would fill in the splotchy areas by hand.  He eventually moved to using metal screens.  Roy worked really hard to make his handpainted work look mass produced.

I was afraid to attempt the dots - You can call me chicken but I was having serious marker issues. . . it wasn't quite dry when my hand tracked marker all over her face and hair - YIKES!! 

Once I got that issue resolved I wasn't about to mess with her again.  I'll let the dots on the Washi tape symbolically represent the face dots.  The marker took forever to apply. It is such a pleasing graphic look although I won't be attempting it again anytime soon.  Are you a fan of Roy Lichtenstein? 

Linking to Paint Party Friday,

Art Journal Every Day and

Paper Saturday

Illustration Friday - PROTEST

This week's Illustration Friday topic is PROTEST and the quote is from Phil Ochs.

Trying to work on drawing hair lately - I've got quite a ways to go on it though - I tend to lose patience after a while.  Funny how the hair that looks kinda cool on a paper girl would look terrible in real life - stringy and uneven on the bottom is not usually a look that is desired . . .am I right? 

I'll leave you with some funny words from our younger son from earlier this morning.  

CALEB (confused) - "Why do they call it the Tilting Tower of Pizza?  Because it is in Italy?"

REST OF US (guffawing) - "It is in Italy but it is called the Leaning Tower of Pisa - HEE HEE"

Linking to Sunday Sketches, 

Creative Every Day,

Mandarin Orange Monday and

Glue It Tuesday

Pretty in Pink

This sweet girl with a faint blush is for the Summer of Color Challenge - Charcoal Grey and Light Pink.

Those of you that follow this blog know I am not a huge fan of pink - This girl was wearing a pink tank top but it was too much pink for me so I ripped it off up to the straps - I can commit to some pink but not too much!

One thing that I did differently when drawing her was to sketch her lips with a red pencil -  

I think that it helped to keep her lips more natural looking than when I use a regular pencil to sketch them  - Hope I remember this in the future!  

Linking to Art Journal Every Day,

Paint Party Friday,

Show and Tell Saturday and

Paper Saturday