January 20

Decided to play with my oil pastels today.  I found a youtube video and tried to mimic it.  I think I learned that my oil pastels are way soft.  They blend really well, but the more layers that are put on, especially with the darker colors, the more they tend to turn gray.  Especially black.  It picks up all the layers of the previous colors, and it's hard to keep the black and nice, dark, rich black.

I'm also very surprised how dirty your hands can get with oil pastels!

I like the nice blend of background colors, but I find my trees misplaced and not colored correctly.  Overall, not a very successful painting.  But it was fun.  

January 19

We went out for a...  well, more of a ride around town trying to find a brunch spot, but we finally ended up at Fado, and I tried to sketch, but we were overtaken by the very, very, very bright sunlight, which prevented me from looking up at the skyline, so I was practicing what was near to me...  A very bad sketch of Kevin.  Probably the only thing I got sorta right was the nose, but it even looks a bit gruff.  Then the top of a lamp post, which was the end to my sketching because the food finally came...

Kev wanted to know where his chin had gone...

His chin is being disguised by the ginormous beard I gave him because I was getting the lines all wrong for his head, the proportions...  In my defense, he was looking up a lot at people walking by.  But then he was looking down a lot because he was reading.  At least it looks like a face!  Even if it's not really Kevin's face -- that is his nose, though.  Sorta.

January 18

Kev was cuddling with the kiddos yesterday.  "Cuddling" for Kevin means smothering them with his love...  Boxey is to the left, and Kev's head to the right.  Durham skiddaddled out of the picture before I even had a chance to try to get him and Kev's right arm in correctly.  And my pen was giving me a little bit of trouble.  I guess the nib had dried out a bit, and I had to flake a little off before it would stop flowing again, so it took me a while to even get this far with the sketch...

January 17

Just finished reading a play with my 3rd graders.  It was about how the Sky used to be bland and void of color, but wanted badly to have colors and asked a few animals for help.  The only one able to get high enough to give the Sky some color was the blue jay.

While I drew this with regular crayons, I was thinking I would continue to play with it, and try to do something about getting Blue Jay's blues into the sky...  I'm thinking I'll experiment with mixing some pastels around...  We'll see... 

January 16

Just back from our winter vacation, the kiddos at work are killing me!  It's like they forgot how to be responsible and get their homework done!  They forgot how to behave!  They forgot my expectations of them!  How can a single, 2-week holiday do that to children?!

I took a little reprieve from my day with this creation.  While psychedelic may sound kinda mushroomy, I was not at all in my happy place -- but I was very definitely trying to find it!

January 15

My lego me sits on top of the 3-story Harry Potter Night Bus on my living room table.  Hedwig turned out better than I did.  I stopped when I figured out that I wasn't spacing things out right.  The lego bubbles wouldn't be all lined up...  But I thought Hedwig looked okay, so I decided to include it. But I will definitely need to give this scene another go on day...

January 14

Just playing with my watercolor crayons.  Fun!

Angel Collection

I thought I'd post my angel collection.  Most of them were done prior to the new year, so don't really count as my Sketch-A-Day...

This is one of the first angels.  I did not like at all how the texture was so visible.  However, this more more of the form I had in mind.  It was the form of the little baptism angel that my step-mom had given me when my brother was born.  For the life of me, I can't find the figurine...  And she has no idea what I'm talking about.  So, maybe it came from someone else?  Maybe I'm just loco?!...  

Maybe all of the above...

Now that I think about it, looking at the smudges around the angel, and how I was able to smooth them out, I should have tried to smooth more out...  Maybe it could have worked?  

One of the first ones.  Still playing with colors, trying to get a feel for what I want, how I like it.  But at this point, it's becoming increasingly clear that I'm not digging the texture.  

One of the earlier ones.  I was playing with the layers and colors.  I do like how the red and orange show through on this one.  I even have some baby blue up by the hands.  Still, the very visible texture detracted from the misty look I was envisioning, and it didn't work for me.

This one was actually not how I had pictured the angel, with very defined boundaries and shapes.  I was using the oil pastels that Kevin gave me for Christmas, and just wanted to try something new since I wasn't able to get the angels look how I wanted them to.  I ended up giving it to Yo this week since she's moving soon; this one was her favorite.  Hopefully she'll put it up somewhere in her new house and think of me when she sees it.

This one I did with colored pencils.  I really liked how it turned out, and I want to play with my colored pencils more.  It's not the angel I was wanting, so it didn't win out in that respect, but it was an interesting effect with the crosshatching.  The colors layers well.  And while I like the effects of the pencils, I didn't get the form just right.  But it was a nice learning moment.  I actually drew it in a sketchbook -- black-paged sketchbook is awesome! -- at an angle.  I had to cut it at the angle to get it all to fit into a 5x7; there's one little sliver at the top-right corner that's missing because of the angle.

This is one of the last ones that I did.  I painted it at D's house when I got the smooth paper.  I like how it blends better, more smoothly, without the texture.  It looks more foggy or misty with the smooth paper, which is more in tune with how I imagined it.  D really liked this one.  I think it was her favorite.  And I like it as well, how the highlights in the wings -- I'll call them wings because that's how D and C saw them -- stand out so much.  She actually thought I'd highlighted them with a white, when in fact the highlight is a green.  It's one of the undertone colors, and I had just gone a little farther out than I intended.  I'll probably give this one to D and Taylor, even though they already have an angel on their wall.  Yes, I'll give this to D.  It was just her birthday a couple of days ago... I'll buy a frame and give it to D.

Found another one that I'd made in my color sketchbook.  Don't remember doing it, but I was probably just playing with the colors, see if I liked it any better than the darker background, I guess...

January 13

It's a puzzle!...  Can you guess what book I'm going to be reading with my kiddos?!

(I really f*&%ed up that nose, didn't I?!)

January 12

I need to practice shapes and shading with watercolor again.  I told that teacher that I would have practiced the rest of the shapes by the time I see her next...

I was amazed with the water-soluble crayons!  The color lifts just as readily as with regular watercolors!

January 11

Lil Dude's habitat with fun brush pens...  It may be a little askew, but it's not totally horrid...

January 10

2 dads...  2 birthdays in 1 month...  So 2 cakes in one month, both of them calorie-free...

Here's for my 2nd dad, Kevin's dad, Gene...  And he calls me the weirdo!

January 9

I know, I know... I'm a slacker.  That said, I may have missed a day or two here and there, but I'm working on coming up with a routine so that I can stick to my resolution even when work is busy...  What I have been slacking on is actually posting my sketches.  Hopefully I can get caught up by this weekend.  (But, my little blog, you should know that I have been missing you!)

Elementary, I know, but still a sketch.  And most of the time, I work through lunch, tutoring the kiddos, so some of them may be rather quick and simple...  It is what it is...

January 8

I was so tired last night that I didn't want to draw anything.  I wanted to go straight to bed!  

Kevin, my wonderful partner, decided that he should play his role as my wonderful partner, and tried to motivate me to draw something.  He said that if I didn't draw something, then I could always use his sketch for today's art...  It worked, he motivated me.....

My student who gave me a hard time the afternoon before has been in my head.  She's got gorgeous hair -- the face may be off, but if I could color it, the hair is right on.  

I also tried to draw a sneaker without looking at it.  Very, very horrible sketch.  Still, I want to include it.  We all start somewhere, right?  And how are we going to notice the growth if we don't pay attention to the crap we create too?

I'm still dying to play with my watercolor crayons.  Hopefully this weekend.  I'll just play with them since I don't know how to use them yet.  I may even take out my paint brushes and try to do some more solid figures like from my class...  (was on December 31, so aren't included in this blog, but maybe I will include them after this weekend?)

Oops!  Just realized I forgot to crop the pics before including them in my blog...  I'm still pretty tired, and still have a lot of work to do tonight...

January 7

I had to draw one of the fish in my classroom during reward time with one of my students.  She was impressed!  :-)

call for submissions

Just in case I need a little direction...  though, I certainly don't plan to enter any art contests any time soon...  Well, why not?!  No one said you had to be a professional to enter contests!!!

Join AVAA and the Austin Art Space Resident Artists for the first show of the year – “For the LOVE of Art” 9th Annual Exhibition & Sale – at Austin Art Space Gallery & Studios, 7739 Northcross Dr., 78757. The theme of the show is LOVE.
What is your interpretation of LOVE – is it a place, a person, a feeling, an object, a work of art, a memory?
Deadline for Entries: Jan. 21, 2014 (by 6 p.m.)
Notification by email: Jan. 24
Artwork Drop-Off, Sat. Feb. 1 (noon-5p.m.)
Exhibition Dates: Feb. 7 – March 8, 2014
Reception: Sat., Feb. 8, 2014
6:00-8:00 p.m.
For prospectus, please click link below
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=45270f33-ba56-4e39-bdbe-03fb5cfc77fd&c=c2343370-206a-11e3-b595-d4ae527548e1&ch=c2a544c0-206a-11e3-b5ba-d4ae527548e1

maybe I should have saved my anniversary painting after all?...
and, it's my birthday...  (shouldn't I get a prize for that reason alone?!)

January 6

I just realized today (January 7) that I didn't post a sketch yesterday.  In fact, I didn't sketch anything to be posted, as I was working absolutely all day.  From before dawn tip well after dusk...  how depressing...

Anyway...  However...  I did actually doodle during my professional development class.  But that stuff's at work.  And though I have yet more work to do today, I am no longer at work.  I am home.  And upon reaching my home, I remembered that I need to post something for yesterday.  And all I wanted to think while I was being artsy-fartsy, after my long, arduous afternoon with a particular school-aged booger of mine, all I could think of was this....

Aside from the accidental blending of colors and the occasional smear, I like it.  :-)  And what have I learned from this?...  I really need to play with my oil pastels more so that my paintings aren't quite so messy!

found this on reddit...

thought I'd save it here just in case I ever come up completely blocked...

January 5

for my beautiful nieces, of course!

January 4

finished Marga's angel in the car on the way to Houston.  

Now what to do with all the other angels I've been painting and collecting?

January 3

look underneath the puzzle, bottom left -- 

did a sorta copy of a Cezanne (my copy is underneath on the left) - didn’t really turn out well, but I might as well include it!

working on the angel for Marga at Danielle’s house; the one I painted on Taylor's office wall convinced me to use a lighter colored background paper. 

January 2

Birthday cake for Dad.

Dad said this was the only cake he got for his birthday.  I reminded him -- zero calories!

January 1

New Year's Day: Clue-playing, potato soup, black-eyed peas, cornbread.