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.

Practising and inspiration

'If one knows how to copy, one knows how to do it" (Leonardo da Vinci).

I sometimes like to try and see if I can copy something by a famous artist a bit. Just to practise and because I want to know if I can understand how an artist drew something. A few weeks ago I went to the museum and bought a few art-postcards. One of them is Rembrandts drawing 'Saskia at a Window'. Here's my version of it. :-) I think her right arm (in my version ;-)) is a little too short/small. This happens to me often, that I notice some things that are not a 100% right. After I took the picture, when I look at it. Apparently taking a picture of a drawing is a good way to create some 'distance' to see things you didn't see while working at a drawing.

Rain made mirrors of the earth

My finshed collage. Added some ink, colored pencil and a few words that speak to me:

Remember seeking moon's rebirth 

Rains made mirrors of the earth  

The sun was just yellow energy

(From the song 'Chariot' by Gavin DeGraw)

Going Home

I really love illustrations with old, vintage-like colors. These illustrations give me a feeling of days gone by in a imaginative fairy-tale like world... You could take a look at my 'Illustration' board on Pinterest to see examples of what I mean ( http://pinterest.com/estherlankhaar/illustration/).

Last weekend I've been working on an illustration like this of my own ;-).

I call it " Going Home'.

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! :-)

It's been a while

It's been a while since I've been around, blogging. I haven't been drawing for a while, but last week I started this drawing as an assignment for my drawing lessons. We had to find work and images that inspired us and create something, using the chosen images as an inspiration.

The drawing is still work in progress, I'm planning to add some details. I"ll take it to my drawing lessons and ask my teacher for advice.

The photo of the drawing of the girl seems a little bit skew (don't know if this is the right English word to use in this context?) but that's because the paper crinkled a bit because of the water and ink. The drawing itself is less skew in reality ;-).

Two quotes

Two quotes I came across that spoke to me this sundaymorning.

Anastassia Elias

Loooove the work of Anastassia Elias.
This collage-piece is amazing.
http://blog.anastassia-elias.com/2007/07/25/entonnoir/

Haven't felt like drawing these days, I got  a personal thing going on, and somehow I can't draw at the moment, don't feel like it at all. For now a few inspirational quotes. I will get back to the drawing-business ;-) in a couple of days hopefully...
Saw these here:  http://charlottevallance.blogspot.nl/

Yesterdays post was about a few nature drawings I started in a little moleskine sketchbook.
Today some pictures of the old biologybooks my father gave me, which I used as inspiration. I like those old-fashioned drawings.
So I somewhat copied the drawings I showed you yesterday. The yellow butterfly I saw on a postcard of which I like the illustration style a lot. Sometimes I feel guilty when I copy someone else style : " I should have my own style, and invent a style of my own!" But then I think of a quote from Leonardo da Vinci: " If one knows how to copy, one knows how to do it."  Practice, practice, practice, and your own style will develop eventually!
This quote I read in a book from Carla Sonheim with 52 drawing exercises to make drawing fun. This book really is fun! To loosen up and make you think of drawing in a fun and different way!

Two new ones in ink and pen! :-D Still working on my ink/ecoline skills..! :-)
I used magazine-pictures as references. The text in the first one is a few lines fom a songtext  from Gavin DeGraw ('Dancing Shoes') that kind of describes the feeling of this drawing for me.
The second one I'm not completly satisfied with. But I decided to also post the drawings I'm not completly happy with. All part of the process...;-). In this one the shape of the guitar, and maybe, the right leg is too short in this perspective, seems like a bit of a handicapped leg.... But hey, those kind of legs exist too...! :-) I still like the cool, relaxed "I'm playing my guitar on a sunday afternoon in the backyard- vibe..." :-)

This one I drew a couple of months ago somewhat by an example of a drawing of someone else I liked. The words and the rose are an addition of my own. I gave it a little bit of an "antique" look in iPhoto.
Which one looks nicer I wonder?

I stumbled upon this one: Andrea Joseph drew this upside down!:
http://andreajoseph24.blogspot.nl/2012/07/resurrected.html
Amazing. How you see this picture is how she actually drew this.

Purchases for today! For visual journalings assignment for week 3, we have to add words and text to the story. Some newspapers in english will come in handy for this one!
Also bought a cute little sketchbook I'm planning to make cute little drawings in...;-).
The book  'Letters to Anyone and Everyone ' is a very lovely book about animals writing letters to eachother and even to a table...:-). This book is a little present for myself. I love the illustrations and the storytelling. Inspiration!

I like this one by Keri Smith. Permission to make mistakes. It should all be fun! :-D
http://www.kerismith.com/

This is so cool: An attempt to draw all the buildings in New York by James Gulliver Hancock, an illustrator originally from Australia currently based in Brooklyn, New York.

ALL THE BUILDINGS IN NEW YORK: 16th Street