In Memoriam

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This has been a sad month. We lost our very spectacular dog Big on September 2nd. He did in fact have a long (12 years), adventurous and a really spoiled life. However, the pain of the loss still weighs heavy, I imagine that will last for awhile. He was a committed companion, always on watch for his family. When you have a dog you get used to all the things that go along with having a dog…saving leftovers, night walks, morning walks, morning cuddles, sharing the sofa during tv shows, making plans for travel that include finding spots that will take dogs and of course one of the most wonderful things… knowing you are coming home to someone who always has time for you. He will be missed in a Big way. I will be forever grateful to my parents who were with him at the very end, they are the kindest people I know. I only wish that I had been with him as well.

We will probably adopt another dog in the future, but Big will always have an especially special place in my heart. I don’t know why but somehow I felt even more connected to him than our other dogs…and I loved our other dogs very much!

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Sadly our friend (and vet) also lost their long time companion, Springer Spaniel Samantha. She also had a long and wonderful life. I know her family will miss her as well. I did this portrait for them as a memoriam.

Dogs are really fabulous, I just wished that they would live longer.

20 Minutes A Day Challenge

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So for two weeks I am going to try my best to stick with the #20MinutesADay challenge. I am on day TWO! So far so good. I decided to work on portraits as I am still trying to get better at that. 20 minutes seems to be just the right amount of time, not to little, but not too much! I am hopeful that I can keep it up.

Maybe I will develop a good habit!

Recent Work

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I have been drawing, just not posting. Fourth of July holiday was our week vacation time. Lots of camping and sailing…and I always have good intentions to do some sketching, but it is still difficult for me to settle down. We seem to spend a lot of time moving our gear in and out of the boat and then off to another island!

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Luckily we spent two days at Little Hens so I spent a little time doing some landscape drawing (which I really never do). Once I got back home and unpacked it was back to #sktchy and faces. I am also working on some fish studies for larger paintings. The Right Whale seemed a good choice.

One and a half days left on vaca and then back to work.

Sktchy and Materials

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Along with doing quick simple faces I want to be able to do a more finished drawing. This started with leftovers (I hate to waste paint!) I had painted a blue(ish) ground on my strathmore toned paper…then had some left over acrylic paint that I decided to squash on there. Over that I decided to paint some watercolor…which looked interesting…kind of like a stain. I thought, well, this might be a good surface for graphite.

I am not sure about it. The graphite went down smoothly. But, I felt like I couldn’t get the darks as dark as I wanted. Maybe I just needed to control the ground more in areas. I think that the effect is interesting though, will try again!

Still going

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I am still doing a face a day…but some don’t turn out as planned. This was from a few days ago, since then I haven’t been happy with any of the others. I guess I am going through a rough patch. I always feel like outside factors (like stress or feeling overwhelmed at work) shouldn’t influence the drawing–but they seem to!

But, I will keep going!

This one was done with ballpoint pen in my everyday journal. I downloaded the Adobe Draw app which looks like a great way to add color to my sketches. But, it is different than my computer version and will take a little getting used to

Still having fun with #sktchy app!

Imagination

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I am finding the great thing about #sktchy is not just the endless photo resources, but learning how other artists are using their photo resource. So many folks do such a great job of really just being inspired by a photo–you can tell that they used the image, but they really used their imagination to create something entirely different! This is something I want to learn how to do!

This is the first time I felt like I deviated a bit from the original image. The resource photo of the girl was great, and somehow she reminded me of a gypsy girl! And, I felt like she need to be looking out of a window with shutters. So….I am happy with this re-interpretation of the image. It’s not a perfect likeness and I have changed her hair and the surroundings. I am going to try and do more work using my imagination!

Two days of faces

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Trying to keep up with the face a day! Not everything will work out as planned, but I am really trying to keep up. Top face is from Monday–ballpoint pen #sktchy, bottom one is from Tuesday. Tuesday’s face did not turn out at all, it is from #sktchy, but I didn’t post it on the app. The resource face was so nice, and this turned out so wonky, it just didn’t do the resource photo justice. Do over planned.

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Quick Draw

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Keeping it simple is really helping me feel motivated to draw with limited time. Somehow I have convinced myself to just sit down for 15 minutes and that if I make a mistake, it’s okay! And, coloring in photoshop is quicker (and easily changed if needed).

Today’s face from #sktchy. Ballpoint pen, photoshop color.

Keeping it simple

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Trying to keep my lines simple so I can keep up with my face a day (personal challenge). Photoshop is helping me get some quick color in. #sktchy is helping to give me inspiration and some motivation!

I never thought I would be drawing so many faces! Hard to resist adding the pink cheeks.

Face and Hands

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This face was from three days ago (I have missed a couple of days). The challenge for #sktchy was to do hands. I figured that I would start conservatively with one hand! Hands are wicked hard. Great challenge though, and I will definitely start looking for more faces with hands in order to get better at this. #WAXHandy.

This week my goal is to work on faces that are more simplified…this is just based on more limited time available on my part. I think it’s a good challenge for me to try and capture a face with character…with less detail.