A matter of time.
When we first got the kittens, I didn't want them.  It was a summer project.  But then the stray cat mom cat died, and we had the 5 kittens.  I thought I would find homes for all the kittens, but apparently it is REALLY hard to find homes for kittens, which is shocking because they are so dang cute!  And apparently there are a lot of too cute kittens, too many.  So we ended up keeping them, well 4 of them. A good friend took the only girl kitten.  And thus the flying cat boys entered our tribe.  And I swore I wasn't going to be one of those people making art about cats.  At least if I did, it would be a long, long time. 

But I already have.  And this morning's sketch is of Pumpkin who is always an inspiration to me.  I think cats are such interesting animals and have such interesting shapes.  And when I draw a cat from memory, it usually takes such a different look.  But looking at a cat's REAL shapes, really cool!  Here is pumpkin lying on his back.  I love the simplicity of the line drawing, one of my favorites!

Torn paper and ink, #3

Here's another in the series of my new journal.  Having fun with tearing the paper in ever shrinking sizes.  Nuts!

Tearing Paper

Found myself in a paper store and knew I wanted a new moleskin journal and a pen.  Then drifted over to the paper selection.  Not surprisingly, I was drawn to bright colors, so I bought some, and a glue stick.  I spent the next chunk of a day just tearing and pasting.  Then I drew with the pen on the first one.  I had so much fun, and was really drawn to the qualities of paper that it can make shapes like these by tearing.  You can't tear fabric and get these shapes.  Many more possibilities to explore!

Sweet Kitty?
...or so it would seem.  We call this pose the "Venus Hand Trap".  So soft and innocent as you reach in to stroke his soft belly.  Then, faster than you can blink an eye, the trap has SPRUNG! Your hand is trapped inside a kicking ball of claws.  B E W A R E!!  ;)

Drawn in Faber Castell artist pens, colored in Derwent watercolor pencils and Niji waterbrushes.

Trace and Fill

I used the paintbrush to trace the lines of the photograph in white. Then I used the selection color tool, selected one of a range of colors inside the area, and then the paint bucket to fill the area. It was simple. I had my doubts though. After filling the first sections of the flower and losing all the exquisite detail that mother nature provided, I was sure this exercise would look hideous. But it doesn't. I persevered and really like the overall effect. The colors, the lines, the shapes....all pretty.  And, from a quilting perspective, I can totally see this as a quilt.  The quilting lines could stay simple to the concept, or you could pick darker threads and add the subtle shading that the flower started with.

Gladiola

Wouldn't it be cool to be able to paint a flower like this? It is so beautiful! My style of art isn't realism though. I find beauty in lots of places and consistently am drawn to clean lines and nice colors, very graphic in style. I think I might try to play with an image like this in Photoshop and perhaps draw on top of it, fill it in completely, and then "disappear" the photo all together. I think it would be fun to play with it on real paper too, with pencils and maybe watercolor...dreaming until I get my cast off. At least the photography is fun to look at as well. ps. can't really hold a camera yet, so I am sort of cheating by posting this old photo. Enjoy!

starry nights
on real paper...with triangle shaped crayons between my ring finger and middle finger (right handed), my first post accident attempt.  it looks a bit sketchy to me.  ha, ha! i overpainted with dilute watercolor. it took a couple of days to complete- but it's a start.
this is also inspired by google art project.  i have been browsing the museums in my spare time.  van gogh, always a favorite.  i love that you can zoom in so close to the paintings, and see the brushstrokes. i miss being able to drive. i am happy that i can make coffee by myself-unassisted.  i am adapting.

Delay

well... i was sketching--a new fabric line, but i can't post that. it is unlikely that i will post at all this month.  setback.
bike crash. too fast around a corner.  this is after the er.  i won't show the before.  the right hand looks good, just soft tissue damage. i can't write or open jars.  missing the use of that wonderful opposable thumb.  i am learning new ways of doing things, but can't drive yet. grateful, so grateful to be able to walk, and no head injury. yeah for helmets, the kindness of strangers (who scooped me up and rushed me to the er), and pain meds. road rash is not for sissies, and i feel like a big one. bleahhh.

Day 29

Today I have a guest blogger.  She is my daughter, Jane.  She happened to see my blog today, while I had it up and asked about the Sketchbook Challenge.  So I explained it to her and she wanted to participate. I told her the theme was Highly Prized and immediately she said "my cat"!  Of course! I thought she would draw with real paper and paint, or markers or something, but no!  She wanted to give my drawing tablet a try.  It was a bit frustrating for her, because she doesn't know anything about Photoshop.  So I started her off easy and showed her just a few simple things.  She started over a few times, but this is what she drew.  I am really quite proud of her for sticking with it!  And I LOVE her drawing!

Day 28
Well, it's day 28 and I don't have 28 drawings.  Darn it!  I am still in the first month and unable to make my goal.  Well, this is supposed to be fun and instructional by making it a daily habit.    And it seemed like the carrot danging at the end of the stick.....that is, while I wasn't working much on my art quilts.  However, I have now managed to carve out some time to do the work I love so much.  So all is good on the art front, but maybe not so much on the sketching front.  Too bad, I won't apologize for making time to create art quilts, I just can't go there. 

Meanwhile, today at the bakery, on my son's iPad, I drew another doodle.  He did save it, but that is NOT what you are looking at here.  His app is called ColorTilt.  It is FUN.  As you tilt the iPad, the colors change while you draw.  I must admit that it is rather difficult to draw anything on a constantly moving surface.  The app does allow for a LOCK mode, in which you can just draw with one color at a time.  I like that too.  Anyway, here is my rendition of the sketch I made on his iPad.  I drew this one on Photoshop.  This evening I learned how to draw a rainbow line.  How cool!!!

Day 20

Fun with doodling.  I like the feature on Photoshop that you can select an area, in this case it was the orange background.  And then you can draw all over it without your drawing overlapping the flowers.  Kind of cool.  I added the white doodle lines on the background after the flowers were drawn in this way.

Day 19
Did you notice the hiccup?  I missed yesterday.  Now what?  Give up the project?  Keep going and acknowledge that I missed a day?  Just not perfect as it turns out??

So, today's entry is a fingerpainting.  On my son's iPad.  He emailed it to me, so I am sharing it with you.  FYI, it does not look like him, though I was looking at him when I drew it.  It took about 3 minutes. And well, at least it is recognizable as a face, that's all I can say.  Oh, yeah, the app I used was Mirror Paint.  He has a lot of art apps.  I wish I had his iPad.  It's really, really fun.

Day 17
It is amazing how much time I can spend making a simple sketch and still get the angles wrong.  I am overly critical of this little red stool.  I looked at the darn thing while I was sketching, but the angles are still off.  Meanwhile, it does look like a stool, so that's good.  And I did attempt a small bit of shading, which is hard for me.  I didn't take time to add the shadows.  I also feel a bit frustrated.  Maybe a quicker sketch might have been more to my liking.  Maybe I will try that tomorrow. 

Day 16
January 16.2011

I really did NOT feeling like sketching or playing today.  I would much rather be working on one of my art quilts tonight.  This sketching every day is turning out to be much harder than I expected. 

So, this one is really quick.  I played with drawing color boxes, and then stripes with transparent color.  Next, I tried playing with the hue option under the brushes tab.  There is so much there to explore!  Anyway, this sketch is an ode to my easy button, a toy on my desk.  It is much more fun to play with that I could have possibly anticipated, but there you are!

Day 15
Inspired by Diana Trout's Jan 14 entry, the Doodle Game. She has a video showing her method.  It looked fun, so I gave it a try. I mostly followed her rules, start with a continuous line to fill the blank space, then go back in and add details.  Except, I did mine in color and I cropped it to make a smaller section to work on...  And it was fun and interesting!

Day 14

I think this butterfly is done now.  I started with some abstract stripes, which then became the body.  I distorted it to make it look curved.  I drew some outlines of the wings, then filled with the gradient tool.  I probably spent two days worth working on the silly white dots on the wings.  Then I drew the head and legs yesterday.  That was fun playing with more gradients and special effects on the proboscis and eyes. Today I drew in the veins on the wings.  And the background, which started a lovely mint green, but became blue when I overpainted and then played with special effects in the filters tab, (sketch-bas relief).  I loved the effect!  And am pleased with the overall result.  And it makes me want to try some different shapes, like differently shaped wings, and the butterfly from different angles.  Maybe!

Day 13
Working on the head and antennae. It's not where I want yet, but made a lot of progress today!

Day 12
Playing with gradient fill tool
I LOVE this! I didn't realize that the gradient tool had patterns. Everytime I try to use a Photoshop tool, I find more and more options buried within the tool. It is fun to explore. I spent some more time shaping my butterfly's wings, and playing with patterns today!  Here's a closeup.  At some point, I will show you the whole sketch.  I am continuing to add to the previous day's work.

Day 11

Continuing on day 9 and 10, this is a closeup of my sketching today.  I have decided to make a butterfly out of the sketch, and have started working on the wings.  Not a lot of progress today, but hey, it did take a long time...ha!

Day 10
Today I have added on to Day 9's sketch.  It includes getting rid of some blue and green, copy and paste, repeat.  And learning the distort tool.  That was fun!  Quick 10 minutes took 20 minutes.  Hard to stop when I am having fun! Here's a detail view.