Surplus / Illustration Friday: Fluid

Here's my first attempt at doing a watercolor sketch instead of colored pencil. Needs brighter bolder colors, I think, some more punch, but it was great to try.

Skatey Smurf

Small, 5x7 quick painting from a box of "old things" my parents foisted on me recently.

Snail

Sketch for Book Project

This is a from a book project I am working on. My goal is to have 12 black and white sketches for each of the spreads done by the end of March. One a week.

Started a Sculpey Model

I am working on black and white sketches for a book project. Reading David Weisner's blog and illustrator Blythe Russo's blog, I thought I would try making a model of the beaver character the story is about (Clara) to help me draw her in different poses. I have started a sculpey model, and already used it as reference and found it helpful.  (see before/after sketches below)

Character sketch

This is a character sketch for a book project I'm working on.

Solar panels, rock and tree

Illustration Friday: Sight

Inspired by, or coinciding with, a quote from Miranda July's book: ""It’s always embarrassing to pin a tail onto thin air, nowhere near the donkey. It might be wrong, it sure looks like it is — but then again, maybe the donkey’s in the wrong place, or there are two donkeys, and the tail just got there first."

Heights

Occupy Boston

Last week, I was in Boston for the first day of Grand Jury duty.  I went to see the Occupy Boston group in Dewey Square in the pouring rain and was inspired to do this quick sketch on the train ride home.

Suzanne

Steady

Guerilla Art in the Ladies' Room

Inspired by Artist Keri Smith's book on Guerilla Art, I installed this little drawing in the ladies' room at work. Someone had removed a coat hook that was screwed into the top corner of the stall door, leaving 2 hole marks and an outline that looked strangely like E.T's head!

It was great fun hearing people's reactions, one person posted a photo of it on Facebook (see first pic below), another person added their own guerilla art to the scene the next day (see second pic below)! The most heard comment: "I was sitting on the toilet and I looked up and just laughed!" How often does someone say that in polite conversation?

Shark Bait

In-progress Sketch and Art Pedestals You Make Yourself!

Also: I just read a great post about constructing your own art pedestals out of cardboard, for not a lot of money! This was a great find on the web, and I am contemplating building my own to display sketchbooks at the next open studios in Lowell.

Luggage

Trip to Monhegan

These images are all from a recent trip to Monhegan Island in Maine. It was a great chance to do some outdoor painting, and try to improve on my efforts from last year.

This view is from Horn Hill, a beautiful site
looking down at the town and water.
Most of the houses and inns on the island are half
clapboard, half gray-shingled, and dot the
landscape in all directions.

Monhegan is powered entirely by propane
fuel, the tanks are one of the iconic scenes
of the island. As are the Adirondack chairs.

Two watercolor sketches -- this one of a yard with
bags of carob shell mulch: a great smelling
alternative to bark mulch and used everywhere on
the island.

The second is of two pine trees
on Horn Hill,  the most common
tree next to fruit trees on the island.

This is an experimental sketch of shale and desert-
like rocks on Lighthouse Hill. The scrubby plants
and hard backed beetles nearby made it seem like
a barren, hard place, so different from other lush
parts of the island.

Watercolor sketches

 Here are two watercolor portrait sketches I recently did, with subjects suggested by others. I like working off of someone else’s ideas at times; it can be energizing and I get the experience of discovering something new.

Obsession -- Illustration Friday

This week is a breakthrough for me. I got to a solution without relying on my usual ideas. I
hope to do more this way.

Illlustration Friday: Gesture