Returning To Sketching

I have been missing making art in my sketchbook so I grabbed it and did some church drawings. The woman is from a magazine image. I was going to just leave this page with pen and ink but then remembered that a little color can always make a drawing come to life. I used cheap watercolors to add the color in this piece.

I drew this from a photograph. I am using a new pen and oh I love this pen.  Its a soft Fudenosuke Brush Pen by Tombow. You can get them at jetpens.com At only 2.50 this pen is a steal. If you want a fine line you use it as normal, you want to get a thicker line you just use more pressure.  Its like having a fine liner and a brush pen in one.

This I drew in church from life. I used pen and then watercolor pencils and a waterbrush. I put the quilt and wall hanging in last. I was not sure how it would work but I was glad I tried it because it looks good.  Art is all about taking risks, sometimes we are willing and other times fear takes a hold. Each time that I find myself being a little bit bolder, it gets a little easier. Sometimes we need to take small steps to reach big goals.

Kate

Learning New Things

Having a blast with sketchbook Skool once more.  I don't know what it is about this course but I just love it.  The people teaching are amazing artists dom all over the world and the classmates are just the best.  All so encouraging and fun. I mean we even have our own T shirts, mugs and such.  How much fun is that. This time I am taking 2 sessions, one on seeing and on on storytelling. One started two weeks after the other one which is helpful.  This weeks teacher is from France so its been delightful listening to him talk, and seeing his sketchbooks and learn from him.

This was drawn from a magazine image.  Pencil, then ink and inktense pencil for the color.  Its small created in my Japanese moleskine journal.

I had been wanting another fountain pen that had a finer nib than the one I have so I ordered this one from jet pens.  In an earlier class I learned if you turn over the nib you can get a lighter line. Its a pretty cool technique.

In the Seeing course we are doing self portraits all week.

This was done looking in a mirror.  Really hard to do. I think it looks like I am 12.

So then I took this picture and drew my next portrait from it.

At least I look a little older here, but it still doesn't seem to look like me.  Other people seem to see it but I don't.

Here is selfie #3, drawn by looking in a smaller mirror.

Do you feel like your self portraits look like you?

Kate

Collage Society

I am in a great group on Facebook called the Studio run by April Cole.  She has challenges every month.  This month the Collage Society is making tags.  They are a great way to get into doing collage.  They are small so are pretty quick to whip up. After making these I realized that we are making 4 different ones with 4 themes throughout the month.  We are going to make little books out of the tags. I think that sounds like fun.

For this swap the tags had to use words or letters in some way.

I used a base of collaged words on each tag, I used old book pages and music pages.

Then I added Faber - Castell gelatos for some color. I just slapped sever colors on and blended them with my fingers.

Then I added paper scraps and a focal image.

And lastly I added embellishments like doodles, ribbons and buttons.

Have you seen these at Michaels? It looks like Sharpie is making more of these pens again.  These are smaller and I really love them.   They are extra fine so perfect for writing and lettering on journal pages.  They are water-based.  So far I have seen this pack and a metallic one. I searched all over the net for other colors but had no success. I hope them come out with more colors soon.