I am still here!!! I have been working away on my faces in my calendar and have done quite well but I am behind a little. I need to do some catch up painting and have three more faces to draw. I hope to get that done in the next couple of days:

Now I have to decide what to do for my August calendar. Maybe dogs or cats or zentangles.

On of my intentions for this year is to do some art journal sketching out in the world. I hope to feel more connected to the world and myself and be more observant. I want to develop my own style and become more confident in my drawing skill.

Today I sat outside of Cafe Citadell and drew this picture. I am pleased with it because I used some of the patterns in the wrought iron table for the design around the cup of tea. I wanted to draw a sparrow and made up my own bird. This is exactly what I want to achieve. My own style. I drew in ink instead of drawing in pencil and redrawing in ink. Letting go of perfection.I don't know if the picture will enlarge sometimes it does, sometimes not.

I have ordered Artist's Journal Workshop from Chapters and another Journal book, can't remember the name of it now but they should be here this week. I love getting new books!!
Blessings.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF FACE

I thought I would challenge myself today and try an aged face. It was interesting to draw. I find I am paying more attention to things since I started doing this. I want to do character faces rather than just your usual pretty faces. More of a challenge with I Micron Pigma pen than with pencil. I did draw it with pencel first and then went over it in pen and added more lines and shading:

This is the picture I copied for the Modigliani picture, below, right:

I didn't quite capture the sagging but I think it is quite good.

MORE FACES AND PRAYER FLAG #3

I have tried something different for two of these faces. The brown and green one is done with an eyedropper with acrylic ink, the next one is in the style of Picasso. The last one was supposed to be a caucasian woman but I messed up and so had to paint over what I had done and she ended up being a dark skinned woman (not a very good one at that, LOL):
The next three faces are in my sketchbook #12, 13 and 14 of the 100 to be done by the end of the year:

My prayer flag #3 is for forgiveness:

Yesterday, I went for an artist date and bought the new Somerset Art Journaling magazine and Somerset Studio. I treated myself to sushi and a latte' then went to Michael's and bought a set of different coloured calligraphy pens and a white gel pens. It is so hard to decide what to buy there because I won't buy anything without the 40% off coupon because there prices are so inflated compared to the American prices - almost double. I think I have mentioned this before but it is really annoying when our dollar is actually a little higher than the American dollar.

I am off to do some more creating, not sure what yet.

DAY 6 AND 7

These were quite interesting to do. I am amazed every day at how the faces just appear. The one for the 6th is done in the style of artist Modigiliani. So few lines. I was so impressed to look at his paintings on google and see with such simplicity how he captured the character of his models. I think I will do more of these. This drawing was from a face I cut out of a magazine:
The one for the 7th is scribble drawing an actual character emerged out of the scribbles. Completely made up:

Some of the ideas come from a book called Drawing Lab For Mixed-Media Artist by Carla Sonheim. This is a fun book.

I am really aware of how tense I am when I start, afraid I will mess up so this is an excellent way to gain some confidence in my drawing.

Thanks for all your kind comments and coming to visit me.

JULY CALENDAR

These are my faces for July 4th and 5th:
I was trying to capture art nouveau and I think I did quite well with the 4th and the 5th doesn't look anything like the picture I was copying which is good because I don't really like copying but I don't know how else to draw faces, I can't just pull them out of my head. It's interesting that even though you are drawing from photos or other pictures your faces have your own style in them even if you don't know what that style is. From these drawings I learned that very few lines are needed to create a face. I am really enjoying this and am learning a lot.

JULY CALENDAR

I finished my July calendar tonight. I decided to copy an idea I saw at Balzer Designs - to draw a face each day. These are my first three days:

I used watercolours to paint the faces, this is different for me. I think this is going to be a fun project and it will definitely loosen me up.