Inktober Day 5-Butterflies

Day 5 brings butterflies! This time a decided to use the painterly approach with ink. This is proving to be good practice for values and getting comfortable with pure black. I'm glad I bought a separate brush for my India ink. Even when using a good brush cleaner, it looks like ink never truly washes completely off.

On the other hand I also do like the fact that a could put a wash of ink and not worry about it ruining the layers underneath. :) 

Inktober- Ballet Music

Day 4 brings a graceful ballet dancer as a little tinker toy on a music box. When a small blot of ink got on it, I decided to take my brush and make a painterly wash. Wasn't my original game plan, but I really like how it turned out.

Now the fun part of cleaning ink off a brush. XD

Inktober Day 3-Sword in the Stone

For day three of Inktober I think I found Excalibur. This picture was done on the go. For the month of October, my game plan is to use my dip pen for the lines, but since carrying around an ink bottle is awkward I took the more mobile route. My technical pens. And since I was busy today between work and other things, I wanted to keep the drawing simple.

So...does this piece make me a queen then?

Inktober Day 2-Pampered Parrot

Day two of Inktober is dedicated to Maury, my spoiled rotten parrot. If this was even possible, I know Maury would be all for it.

This image has been on my mind for a long while now. One day I'll probably make a colorized version of this. Originally I was going to make an ink wash for it, but I decided I really liked the line art as is.

It's Inktober!

Hey all! I'm back again and this time I am trying a new challenge! October 1st marks the first day of Inktober! What is Inktober some of you may ask? Well, Inktober was started by Jake Parker a few years back as a way to challenge yourself to draw everyday for 31 days of October. The rules are simple:

1.  Make a drawing in ink (pencil under drawing is okay) 

2. Post it online

3. Hashtag it with #inktober and #inktober2017

4. Repeat

I am personally excited to challenge myself to draw AND post everyday, and hopefully created a better habit for myself during my free time. Plus improving along the way is always a good feeling as well.

Everyone is allowed to join in on the fun!

Frog Stew

 Hello all! It's been forever and a day since I last posted something, I know. I've been trying to figure out a way to balance my full time job and time managing my art (I'm still working some things out). Anyway, while Halloween isn't for a few months it doesn't mean witches get to rest for a whole year. This is a late Mother's Day present for my mom who absolutely loves all things witchy (and frogs). Better late than never. It's been a long while since I used my copics, so I decided to use those as my medium of choice.

First off, to start this piece I actually tried a couple new products. I love the natural feel of dip pens when inking. Personally, I feel have better control with them verses the usual technical pens. While I have dabble with dip pens for little things in the past, this is the first time I've used them for a finished art piece. I had to make sure I got the right ink though. This particular ink I used is Kaimei Drawing Pen Ink. This ink handles alcohol based markers with breeze. No bleeding issue. However it will NOT work with watercolors, so a separate ink is necessary for that work. For the dip pen I used the G Model nib for the variety of line widths I could make. For the super fine lines I used a quill nib.

 After I had the foreground ink I used a lavender color for the base color for the background. My goal was to make a dark muted background as I wanted the focus on the witch.

The at this point the wall was mostly finished (saved for the window and the broom). I tried making the area around the sconces lighter to show the area of light from the candles.

 Floor and trim is mostly done. The color on the floor is the same used on the wall minus the lavender shade. I'm trying to keep everything unified.

 Started working on the witch. I made her a redhead because I like coloring redheads. It's such a pretty hair color.

 It's almost finished at this point. Just coloring the little details. I saved the window for last because I wanted to see how the overall picture was going to look.

So there you have it. I also added some warm gray in her hair too to help tone down the vibrant color and to harmonize more with the rest of the piece. Overall I am happy how it turned out. More importantly my Mom really likes it. Mission accomplished.

Title: Frog Stew
Copic marker on smooth bristol

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day everyone! It's been a long while since I updated my blog. Well, things have been busy and they're going to get busier still with me moving. I have been making some pictures (one is a self portrait I'm still working on) so keep an eye out for that. Also I've been planning to make a facebook page! So I'm exciting about that.

    A week ago my friends and I went to Blick Art Materials. With a coupon I decided I wanted to try out the Derwent Colorsoft colored pencils. They are a wax based colored pencil that are suppose to be really soft. I have to say, they are as soft as they say they are. What's nice is that I haven't noticed any wax bloom (milky-white haze/shine when color is pressed down or layered over a lot) that wax based pencils are prone to getting. Whatever wax bloom there is, is very minimal. They also blend effortlessly as well. I'm the kind of person who loves blending, and the colorsofts don't make you struggle with that. No complaints here. :)

About this piece. I wanted to create a little something with the colorsofts and I thought of a little dragon among some clovers to get into the Saint Patrick's day spirit. Because of the nice blending, the 12 set does offer a lot of nice color combos. I actually used a little less than the 12 colors offered.

Most people think of a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, whereas I was thinking of a little gold-like dragon loves to look at clovers.









The End of the Rainbow
Derwent Colorsofts on Stonehenge
5"x7"

What would like to find at the end of the rainbow?