Oldies

Sketchbooks all over the place….I tend to start a new one before the previous one is completed….Somehow I need something new every now and then and a new book for new ideas comes in. It's nice to go through 'old' books though. And rediscover drawings. How about my little 'Hugo' character who found a baby-rabbit :-)? I drew him in January last year.

Enjoying the ride.

I recently discovered David Litchfield on Facebook. His illustrations are georgeous. I really love his style, the colours he uses and the kind of odd characters he draws. A little strange but not too scary. He calls himself a scruffy illustrator :-).

While looking at his illustrations on Facebook, I was inspired. I can't copy and paste one of his illustrations here  unfortunately, but please take a look at his beautiful illustrations on Facebook. He inspired me to draw this one.

I liked Davids drawing of a man riding a bike a lot and I've been wanting to draw someone on a bike for a while. After messing a drawing  up in ink, I decided to do this one in pencil and colored pencil. I thought about coloring the flowers, or should I leave them in black and white?

You can also take a look at my Facebookpage to see this one and more of my illustrations if you like.

Good Luck Lily

I drew a lily today. Yesterday evening in bed I thought of a ladybug. I have no idea why but I did.

So I drew a ladybug today. On a mug with a lily in it. I hope it brings luck to who ever needs it. :-)

Green and pale pink seem to be my colors lately by the way...I have to work a bit on the foot of the mug I see. Looks like a bit of an unstable mug this way;-)

On to the paper, out of my head

Friday is blogging day, as it appears to be....;-)

The illustrated story I've been working on for my drawing lessons is still work in progress. I feel like I've got a couple of nice drawings and  the story in my mind. Only one or two drawings are needed to finish the story. I want to make a little book of this story eventually. First there are a few things I need to do. I have to work on my Photoshop skills to be able to present the story the way I'd like to, the way I have in my mind.  I've been experimenting a bit with Photoshop, but there are things I'm stumbling upon every time, while experimenting. Frustration all over....but....after an afternoon of experimenting, I decided to let things rest and see how this challenge will find it's way to a solution. I didn't have to wait that long; the next morning, I found a solution in my email inbox. An offer for an online Photoshopcourse with a very lage discount! Funny how solutions have a way of presenting themselves to you if you let things rest, having faith answers will come your way, one way or another. :-)

Something else I 'd like to share is that I've started working in -yet another- new Moleskine sketchbook. I have several sketchbooks laying around. Some cheap ones which I also love, some Moleskines. All for different purposes. Watercolour, botanical/nature drawings, ideas/journaling....and so on...A couple of days ago I got the idea to start working in an new a4 size moleskine sketchbook a still had. I want to make this one into an art/illustrative-journal. A place to write and draw and glue things down that are on my mind. Where I can express my thoughts and emotions. Especially thoughts have a tendancy to stay with me too long, so I hope this journaling will help them stay in the book. And out of my head.

Red, Green and Yellow

I've been experimenting with the size of the images that I want to put on this blog/on the internet. I see some people put a watermark on their pictures to prevent other people from copying their work for commercial purposes. I don't like it very much when I see this watermark on other peoples work, it distracts me somehow. I'd like to look a the images just the way they are, without these (often) big watermarks on it. At the same time, I get it why people do it of course. One of the blogs I read regularly is the one from the very talented Andrea Joseph.  She wrote about people have been copying her work for commercial purposes. Her drawings appear on tote-bags in Russia for example. 

It's not that I want to compare my drawings with Andrea Josephs, these are a league of their own, but I've been thinking about this subject. What I decided to do from now on is put smaller and less pixeled images on the internet, to make printing and copying by people with 'bad intentions' less attractive because this way prints will be more blurry if someone tries to enlarge them. This is what I read about others people advice on this subject at least.

At the very same time, I feel a bit ackward to even think and act on this copying subject, because this way it seems I believe my drawings are copy-worthy....

Anyhow ;-), here are the images of the shoes I drew last week. Resized, just to be more sure about what I'm not sure about...:-). I'm curious by the way, to hear what your thoughts are on this copying subject in general.

I kind of like like how these drawings turned out and I'm thinking about maybe printing them on double postcards, on nice paper.

Focus

I've been drawing and practising and experimenting with pencil, acrylic paint, watercolor, ink, collage....and so much more the previous year and I still got the te very strong drive to draw and to create. Other things in my life don't seem to get going, so I'm not that happy with every aspect about how my life is right now. But I consider myself lucky with very sweet family and friends, that's what I've got!

And, something very important too: I really found the thing that makes me most happy to do: creating and drawing. This could only have happened during the period I didn't have a job and I had to find another way to keep myself busy and inspired. And this is something beautiful that happened, even though other things in life aren't going smoothly, this creative thing is really going very smooth and flawy! Even though it's been hard work too, practising, practising and even more practising.

Could it be that this is a sign? Isn't it funny that while some things in life are difficult, other things seem to get better and clearer?

At first I didn't know what to write about the subject 'Focus' for Andrea's blogchallenge (http://dreamheartsmartart.blogspot.nl/2013/02/blogchallenge-focus.html). But It's quite clear now, while I'm writing this. I found the thing I love to do most, at this moment, I would love to get some focus and clearity in which way to go with my creativity. I've discovered that what I really like to draw is little characters and make up stories for these characters. This is what I allready loved to do as a little girl. But now, after practising the last year with all kind of techniques, I feel I can now draw, as I see things in my imigination.

I think I might want to draw and write a childrensbook maybe. Could it be that here's where my focus needs to be I wonder? 

These are a few examples of characters I've been drawing recently. The last drawing is the first of a drawing for an assignment for my drawing lessons, where we had to illustrate a story and make up a character. I suppose I have to keep on following my heart, in my drawing, in my whole life actually. Don't you think so? :-)

(Thank you Andrea! Wouldn't have written this blog without your blogchallenge and now I wrote this, I feel better and things seem a little clearer by writing things down!)

Drawing in the Sun

During the last two weeks of december I was in Florida, Bonita Springs for a holiday with my family (my parents, sister, her husband and my two nephews). My parents were married 40 years last year, so to celebrate, they took us on a vacation. Florida with its sunny weather was a very wellcome change of scenery, because of the rainy and dark winterweather in the netherlands where I live. We enjoyed ourselves very much, we enjoyed the sun, went to the beach, went shopping and took a boat-tour through the Everglades. My little 4 year old nephew had two favourite things this vacation: the pool at our vacation house and the mini-golf place near our house. :-)

I brought my drawing equipment, but i didn't draw that much: too busy being lazy ;-).

I did make two drawings though. The first drawing is of a very good thing: a decent cup of coffee (empty mug in the the drawing ;-)). when I was drawing this, I went to the toilet and when I came back, my little nephew helped me a bit with the drawing. He added the line around the drawing ;-). My sister was a little mad he did this to my drawing without asking. I could hear a conversation about it when I was on the toilet and was curious what I would find my drawing like when I came back;-). It wasn't that bad as I saw it and I said: Well, that's o.k., but just ask the next time." My nephew said to his mother: "Aunt Es says that I can do it." I found this quite funny and now the drawing is a collaboration, I kind of like that. I asked my nephew to write his name on the drawing, so it's clear we made this drawing together :-). The second drawing has no story, it's just something I felt like drawing ;-).

Sunday Drawing

I'm in my pencil and coloured pencil phase. :-)

Drawing and determination

Faces always seem to keep inspiring me. I still feel that I am in my practicing and experimenting phase with my drawing. I've always loved drawing since I a was a little girl. You could always find me drawing or reading ;-). It's only since the beginning of this year that I really got the drawing-craziness, I have to do it all the time, where in the years I grew up and was grown up, it was just something I did ocassionally. Somehow, I always had the idea that people who could draw, just did it, put a few lines on paper, and voila, there was a perfect drawing. Now I know it takes a lot of practise and determination to get better at it. Except maybe for the real great artists like Rembrandt, maybe he could really capture something in just one try. But still, he practised, by drawing too.

I look at other peoples work that inspires me a lot and I try to draw similar things myself. I always keep Leonardo Da Vinci quote in mind:

"If one knows how to copy, one knows how to do it."

I only begin to get the feeling right now, that experimenting and practising is becoming to pay off. When I draw I start to be able to "nail it"  in a drawing directly, where before I liked the drawings I made, but it was still a coincidence when a dawing was right and there where always things I saw, that I could become better at, and I thought about: well, this or that you could do better in a next drawing. Now, I start to get lucky more often and get it right in one time. Still, I want to develop my own style, that's my next wish! :-) and become much better in all kind of techniques, because there's still so much to learn. I'm also following very inspiring drawing and concept lessons at a studio in the town I live in.

When I was working on this drawing, I was amazed that I really did it in this one, and the drawing just happened, without much 'sweat' and erasing, it's just there and I like it!

The first picture is a photo, the second one a scan. My scanner isn't quite big enough for a drawing on A3 size,  I discovered and my photographing and photoshop skills could be much better. This is what I don't like, I want to quickly be able to post a drawing on my blog, but it takes time and adjustments to get it about right, but still, the presentation could be better. I have to find a way to fix this problem because I don't like to spend a lot of time figuring all these things out, adusting etc etc. I just want to draw, not photograph, photoshop, scan etc etc! :-)

Deer

Drawing a Deer. A Deer, for me symbolic for innocence, pureness and vulnerability. And writer Emily Dickinsons said the smartest and most beautiful, true things.

Just Stand Tall

A drawing I made yesterday. I felt like drawing a tree. I often like to add some symbolic words to a drawing. 'Just stand tall' in this case. Stay strong, and keep standing straight up, no matter what happens. Just like an old tree does, for decades. And in case you were wondering what that colourful paper on the bottom right side is....writing my name in ink went wrong so I covered the mess up with a colourful piece of paper....creative right? ;-).

Autumn Nights

There's something about autumn nights. Staying home where it's warm, with a cup of tea.I felt like drawing a cosy autumn scene. Yay for my Nikon camera! Well....not really mine, but my cousin was so sweet to lend me her camera, since she's got a newer one. I'm so happy with this, because now I can take better pictures.

The Sun was just Yellow Energy

                                   

New and Old

Changed the look of this blog a bit. I needed a little change. :-)
Here's a drawing I did a couple of months ago with a little paper-collage piece in it. Can you see what's the paper-part? ;-)
My approach in this drawing was: Just draw what I want to draw, not with a specific idea about what I want to express. "Thinking about what to do" is a line I added afterwards; words to match the feeling that appeared  in the drawing.

A Rose

A rose in coloured pencil and Artist Pitt Pen on tinted paper. First the drawing was on a larger size tinted paper. While writing the words in Indian Ink, I made a stain. I decided to cut out the rose, wrote the text again and glued the drawing on a another piece of paper.
I like Emily Bronte's words:
'But he that dares not grasp the thorn
should never crave the rose.'
My interpretation: if you really want something you're passionate about, you have to deal with the risks and the possibility of getting hurt. But it's worth it!
A lovely reminder to keep in mind in life to always follow your heart, even if you're scared.

Lily's Magic Books

A while ago I finished a class that I followed: Visual Journaling. I followed this course at http://camp.pikaland.com/. The assignments were about character and idea development and as a result I came up with Lily, a 7 year old girl, living in the seventies, with her parents and cat Peppermint above the bookstore they own in Amsterdam. (If you would like to read about earlier posts about this, click on the tag/label 'visual journal' on the left side of the page.)
These are my final results. The assignment was to pick one scene and draw different versions of this; in black and white, two colors, and an abstract one. As the story also takes place in New York, where Lily magicly goes when she opens a book one night, we had to draw food related to the story and place.
I should finish the complete story because I have the idea in my head. Now I only have to follow through...;-).

A Funny Little Story

Illustrative journaling: Telling a little story by an illustration/drawing and some words.
Here's one about about something that made me smile yesterday.
My camera is so crappy by the way. I hate this. I need either a scanner or a good camera! Or both! I need sponsoring because I'm a poor artist! ;-)
You should be able to read the little story if you'd like to,  by clicking on the picture for a larger image.

My Cup of Tea

I bought a watercolour sketchbook yesterday, and some waterolour paint. When I see other peoples work in watercolour, I like the effect you can achieve with it. I'm not experienced in working with it, but I thought: let's give it a try. And it's always so much fun to go to the art-supplies store and buy some new stuff to experiment with.
So this is yesterday's watercolours result! I must say I like how it worked out. It's done in watercolour, Chinese Ink for the text and some coloured pencil and Faber-Castell Artist Pitt pen.

Green Dress

Yesterday I wrote something about not feeling like drawing for a couple of days. Felt really sad about a love-thing. Still I decided to buy a green dress I saw, I just felt I had to do that. Somehow it became a sort of symbol for me for choosing the things in life that I want and most importantly, that the choices I"ll make will be about enjoying and loving life. And share those feelings with other people too, not only keeping them to myself too much ;-). And the dress wasn't even expensive:-D.
Since the dress became a little symbol, I decided to draw it. It's a brighter green in reality, but that's the artists freedom;-).
It's done in coloured pencil, regular pencil and a Copic multiliner in brown.

Two new butterfly drawings in my little moleskine sketchbook.