The one-line continues

I thought I would share another one of my one-line drawings.  This one is in my top 3 for favorites.  The photo isn’t great which is really a downer I have to have my husband make it so I can scan in the pictures so they are better.  If I remember correctly this on started with the line that makes his eyes.

I think he is quite the sophisticated sloth

The start of one line

Okay so before Christmas I started a new drawing exercise.  Unfortunately it has taking me this long to get around to posting them.  But I figured I would share them now.  The concept of these drawings was that  either myself or some one else would draw a squiggle and I would use that line to make a finished drawing.  So here is the first one I did, I happened to draw the original line for this one.  This is one of my few doodles that take up more than one page.

 

This picture started with the curvy line on the dogs back

Reevaluation my artwork

So recently I finally accepted the fact that Realism is not my forte when it comes to artwork.  I tried so hard to master realism but its never worked for me, and it made me feel like I was a bad artist.  People would always tell me that I was talented, and I couldn’t see it. I would look at the work around me when I was in art school and thinking how did I get here? I’m not as good as these people, people’s art work looks exactly like the still life in front of us.  My artwork would always resemble the still life in front of us, but my perspective is never right and it never looks real.  Even my freshman year of college when we weren’t allowed to  use color at all I would look at their black and white charcoal pictures and think Oh my God they look just like a black and white photo.

So now I’m going to do what I want when it comes to art.  I can’t do realism and that’s okay.  It took me a long time to accept this but I think I’ve almost come to term with it.  Along with not focusing so much on realism I’ve decided I’m going to focus more on Ink drawings then anything else.  I recently realized how much I like to work with markers and pens, when I’m not working with cut paper.  Maybe with less focus on realism and more in finding my own style I will come up with the courage to someday apply to go to grad school.

A not so traditonal guest book

Saturday was cold and rainy which normally I wouldn’t really care about except on Saturday I got married, and the reception was outside, in a pavilion.  As we all sat there in the pavilion cold, my grandmother turned to me and said that it was the wedding or the reception that matter, it was how we approached our life as husband and wife, in 50 year the reception won’t matter, and it will make and excellent story for our children and grandchildren when they start planning their wedding.  But that isn’t what this post is about this post is about my very nontraditional guest book.

Pinterest is full of guest book alternatives, some of which are fantastic others are a little out there.  But I decided that I was going to come up with something unique, that could be displayed, because lets be honest most people use the traditional guest book and put it in a box after their wedding and never look at it again.  So one day Mark and I were at Hobby Lobby (not my favorite craft store but it’s the most prevalent craft store in Ohio) looking for something to make our card box out of and I came  across one of the giant wooden letters and thought that would be prefect for a guest book, if you use your last initial.   However me being me thought I could make one of these and that is just what I did.

 

Here is the “S” after I cut it out of a sheet of plywood, with a jig saw (a scroll saw would have been better but I don’t own one yet)  As you can see it needs to be clean up a bit.

In this photo I’ve routed the edges with a Dremel and then sanded them to give the “S” a more finished look. (It’s still not prefect but I think it look pretty good)

After the edges were smoothed I added two coats of black acrylic paint, I used artist acrylic as opposed to craft acrylic because I think it covers better when painting unsealed wood.  I picked black because I figure it would look good on a white wall surrounded by family photos in black frames.

And Finally the finished product, I had people sign it with extra fine silver sharpie paint pen, and I some point in time I will spray varnish it.

 

It’s not your traditional guest book but I think with will be fantastic surrounded by family pictures on a wall in a house someday, maybe I will get to share a photo of that.

Long time no post…

Alright It has been forever since my last post, like 3 months almost I think, I apologize for that life has been crazy busy.  I’m hoping now that I’m not working 45+ hours a week I will have more time to get back into my art, but first I have to get through the wedding.

If anyone remembers last time I wrote a post I mentioned that I had just found out I was pregnant, and Mark and I were moving our wedding up.  That is exactly what we did, we are getting married on Saturday.  We are doing a traditional Orthodox wedding ceremony and then have a picnic reception at a local park, I’m super excited and hope to share pictures of all the stuff we a made to “class” up the pavilion as my sister Vikkie likes to call it.

As for the pregnancy things are going really well, I’m about 21 weeks pregnant and according to my midwife things are going just fine.  We found out the gender last Tuesday and we are going to do a gender reveal at the wedding, so I’ll write more about that after the event like every thing else, I just thought I would post something because I’ve been thinking that I might have more time now that I’m not working all the time.

Unexpected Events and Big Life Changes

I’m going to apologize for the fact that I pretty much abandoned the 30 day drawing challenge, I’m completely awful at picking a favorite something so it just wasn’t working for me.  Plus life threw a huge unexpected surprise at me.

As I shared in a previous blog post, I’m engaged to an amazing man.  And in the short time we have been together life has does nothing but throw surprises and challenges at us.  It seems the biggest one won’t grace us with it’s full challenge for about 9 months.  I was completely surprised when I realized I was pregnant.  Mark and I want kids so it’s not unwanted it just unexpected, and throwing all of our plans out of order.

The first of which is figuring out our wedding plans, we had a great wedding in the works, but it wasn’t until 2015, we could wait but we don’t really want to.  I have always wanted a marriage more than a wedding so I’m not horribly disappointed about the fact that I’m not getting a huge wedding.  In all honest I never really wanted a huge wedding I actually hate large groups of people and being the center of attention.  So right now we are planning something very small with just our immediate family.  We aren’t sure where yet but we’re working on it.  We do no that we are getting married May 17.

I know that figuring out the wedding is the first of many challenges we are going to have to figure out.  But I also know that we will manage it all some how.

Day 8 of 30: Your favorite animated character

Alright guys a I know that this post is crazy late and a long time overdue.  But you know how it is sometimes life gets in the way and you don’t have the time, (as in I blew the transmission in my car and I had to get a new one, but I did and it’s super nice more about that in a later post).

Today’s prompt was to draw you favorite animated character, I picked Mulan, because she is a strong female character and not your normal female lead in a Disney movie.  I could go off on a tangent about that but I’m not going to at least not today.  It has been a long time since I’ve done copy work like this, as in I haven’t done something like this in at least 10 years probably closer to 15 ( which makes me feel a little old). Since it’s been a while I’m a little rusty and Mulan has some serious issues as you will see but here it is.

Her head is too small and her neck too long

You can’t do great on all the challenges and since the last two turned out pretty sweet I’ll take this for what it is.

Day 7 of 30: Your favorite movie

Today’s assignment was to draw your favorite movie, this was a no brainer for me, because when you watch a 4 hour movie more than a dozen times you would have to be dumb not to call it your favorite.

Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh are amazing in this movie.

I love all things Gone with the Wind, the movie and the book.  In my opinion despite whining occasionally Scarlett O’Hara is a real bad ass. And Vivian Leigh does an amazing job portraying her.  And I’m completely in love with how well the blending worked out an how much this actually looks like the real DVD case.

Day 6 of 30: Your Favorite Book

Day 6 of the 30 day drawing challenge was you favorite book.  This one was tough for me because I read some much my favorite book changes a lot,so to figure out this challenge I asked myself if I could only read one book for the rest of my life what would it be?  The answer that came to me was Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann.  This book has sex, drugs, love, betrayal and just about anything that you could happen and the best part is it takes place during the “Golden Age” of Hollywood, which is something I find completely fascinating, (but I think that is a blog post for another day)

Valley of the Dolls follows 3 girls Neely, Jennifer and Anne as they try and navigate there way through New York in the 1940s- to Hollywood in the 1960s.  It’s an amazing book that I feel every girl should read at least once, because while the times may be different and the sorry may be fiction, the main story line that is follows is “How do you stay true to yourself when the world your living in doesn’t support being who you are”. Well at least that is the story I take from it but every one has their own views as they should, and It has been a while since I read the book, it might be time to read it again.

“At Least I have my Dolls to get through it”

You’ve got to climb to the top of Mount Everest
to reach the Valley of the Dolls.
It’s a brutal climb to reach that peak,
which so few have seen.
You never knew what was really up there,
but the last thing you expect to find
was the Valley of the Dolls.
You stand there, waiting for
the rush of exhilaration
you thought you’d feel- but
it doesn’t come.
You’re too far away to hear the applause
and take your bows.
And there’s no place left to climb.
You’re alone, and
the feeling of loneliness is overpowering.
The air is so thin you can scarcely breathe.
You’ve made it-and the world says
you’re a hero.
But it was more fun at the bottom
when you started,
with nothing more than hope and
the dream of fulfillment.
All you saw was the top of that mountain-
there was no one to tell you
about the Valley of the Dolls.
But it’s different when you reach the summit.
The elements have left you battered,
deafened, sightless-and too weary
to enjoy your victory.from Jackie Susann’s poem ‘The Valley of the Dolls’

This is the poem that starts Valley of the Dolls, I thought I would share it just to give you a little taste of this amazing novel.

 

Question of the Day:  If you could only read one book for the rest of your life what would it be?

Day 5 of 30: Your Best Friends

Okay this one was really hard for me because I’m not really a people person and I’m completely awful at making friends.  So I decided to draw my sisters because the are my best friends. Although my portraits of them kind of suck but such is life.  This challenge is helping me realize that realism really isn’t my forte.  I would like to apolgize to my sisters if they actual look at this pictures because they are really bad. Sorry you have crazy eyes Ann-Katherine, And Sorry you have a giant mouth Pam, and Sorry you kind of look like Hercules Vikkie.  These are not 3 of my best drawn people although they are 3 of the most important people in my life.  Plus my flesh tone marker was dying so that really wasn’t helpful.

My sisters are way more attractive then this I swear, people just aren’t my thing