Totem Girl

I've been really enjoying the illustration class and made another painting.  I've never really played around much with drawing characters or scenes.  I think I may give that a go.  This was a lot of fun and stretching myself in a different way.  We'll see what comes out of my imagination.  I feel like I'm on a quest to learn, learn, learn.  I don't have a definitive style that is recognizable and I'm okay with that right now.  I seem to be all over the place with my art with varying styles from realism to whimsical.  There is so much I want to try and experiment with and hope that my voice and style will evolve from it.  In the meantime, I'm having loads of fun.

9" x 12" Acrylics on 246 lb. canvas paper

Illustrations

Wow!  I haven't posted in a long time! My youngest got really sick on the 16th and after that I was busy taking care of him, followed by a visit from my parents for Thanksgiving. My little guy is on the mend, my kids are back in school and my parents are back home.  Now it's time to get caught up!

I'm taking an illustration class from Tascha Parkinson.  I wasn't aware of her art until recently when I was perusing the Creative Clearinghouse site. I fell in love with Tascha's girls.

I'm into week 3 of the class and we are learning to put motion into our illustrations.  I don't have those drawings photographed yet but here is a sampling of my drawings from the first couple of weeks of the class.   In these, I was practicing different expressions and hair styles. I also made one into a little 6" x 6" painting.  How cute is she?!

Watercolor Mandala

Here is a work in progress.  I feel like I'm so scattered these days.  I jump from project to project and I'm not really completing anything. My head gets full of these creative sparks and I need to get them out and on paper or canvas right away.  This is a mandala in progress. I'm not sure where I'm going with it.  That's the beauty of making a mandala for me.  I go with my intuition in the moment.

This is done on a 12" X 16" Arches Watercolor Block.  While the paper is lush and holds a lot of water, it gives off an odor when wet that I don't like.  My favorite watercolor paper is Fabriano Artistico.

A Quick Watercolor

I've been playing with acrylics lately and have really been missing my watercolors. I sat down today and painted a quick poppy painting that took less than 15 minutes. I forgot how much I loved seeing the colors mingle on the paper and the surprising results.

I had a lot of fun with it. The photo is from my phone so not a great one.