Two new butterfly drawings in my little moleskine sketchbook.

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!

Started a series of nature drawings in a little moleskine sketchbook.  For some drawings I used an old biologybook my father gave me as a reference.

This drawing kind of represents how I feel today. And no, it's no earache..:-)...
Still working on the correlation between the bodyparts. Arms little too short/ head to big. Hand should have been placed more over the cheek, now it actually could be someone with ear-aching...;-)....

A slice of new York Cheesecake. An assignment for visual journalings class.
I might actually make a cake like this soon, I got in the mood by drawing this one! :-D

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..." :-)

Yesterday evening inspiration came by! :-D I started with the one in brown and blue in pencil. I wasn't happy about the body, the arms are too long. So I started a new drawing. This resulted in the one in black and grey. There was still something about the first one I liked and I finished this one too. These both drawings are done in ecoline ink and drawing pen.
The woman in the brown and blue has a kind of flirty, more outgoing expression than the second one, who is more introverted, in my vision. Funny that a little variation in expression can make such a difference.
By the way, I think the one in black and grey is a bit skinny....:-)...

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?

The story is developing....Week 3's assignment for visual journaling; adding text to the story.... These are a few pages of my work so far.
(My cat thinks this book gets more attention than she does these days. So the best place to get some attention is on top of this object of my affection :-))

Magic happens when Lily is reading a book. :-) This is a page from the story that is developing for visual journaling. Painting over what you don't like and altering...I kind of like how this page looks now. Needs a litle bit of paint to cover up previous layers and some finishing touch maybe, but other than that, I'm satisfied.
Visual journaling is fun. :-)

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!

For assignment two for the visual journal, we should think about characters who will play a role in the story. Later on we have to integrate this in the (collage-) work we've done so far.
I came up with the idea for a 7 year old girl, not quite sure about her name yet (suggestions are wellcome!), thinking about Lily, who lives with her parents at an old house at a Canal in Amsterdam in 1971. She lives with her parents above a bookstore they own.  Her parents spend a lot of time working in the store and don't have a lot of time for her....She has a Siamese cat named Peppermint (because he loooves the smell of peppermint) who spends his days sunbathing between the books in the window display.
At night times, when her parents are asleep Peppermint and Lily (?) sneek down to the bookstore and toghether they read books about foreign places and cities. One night when she opens a book about New York something magical happens....
Here's a few sketches of how the girl and her cat might look like! :-D
I had so much fun imagining about Lily, who she is, what she likes, hates, where she lives etc.
It is all happening in 1971, as you can see by the clothing etc....:-)
(Gave the glasses glass after taking the picture...forgot that:-))

A few sketches for the second week of visual journaling. Character development! More to follow!

Coco Chanel

Result of the last few drawing lessons for now. I learned a lot! I took a picture from a magazine of Coco Chanel as an example. Not an exact copy, but just an example to work by. I like how the shading on the sofa worked out and I'm satisfied with the overall result.
By the way, there is an error in the text of the magazine, it should be :" leS secrets de Coco" or "le secret (without S) de Coco"......