more silliness

Just another doodle from last week. I was out of town over the weekend so I’m behind on my silly assignments.

And chores. Oh, well.

The doodle above was just a “blob” (left side of image) and we were to find the hidden creature (right side of image). Ringo is what emerged for me.

the art of silliness 2

I signed up for an online class last week. It’s been great fun receiving an “assignment” everyday and spending a few minutes coming up with a solution.

I bought Carla’s book last month and that’s how I discovered her blog + class. Personally, it’s been so fun for me to step out of the corporate designing mindset and doing something, well…silly!

Above is a snippet of one of the assignments. It was called Connect the Dots and that is what I saw.

drink coca-cola

This is an ad painted on a building in downtown Rogers. My perspective is off…I know. And like I said in the previous post…I can’t draw people very well. What the heck. I try.

Our downtown area is so sweet. They’ve done a great job keeping that old-fashioned look and feel. Brick streets, small family-owned eateries and shops. It’s a great place to hang out and sketch at lunchtime.

drawing people

I can’t draw people. Well, “can’t” is a word I like to avoid. How about this: “I don’t draw people very well.” At least not in a realistic sort of way.

Whenever I try, I end up using the eraser more than I like to. My eyes never match (sort of like Picasso eyes…only not on purpose). My mouths come out looking EXTRA LARGE. And noses…let’s not even talk about noses.

Here’s a little doodle full of people. Fun, happy, no-noses people. I guess in my world, we breathe through our ears.

i'm always thinking about food

When I moved here a little of over 6 years ago, I checked out the local coffee house downtown. They do coffee, breads, muffins, soups and sandwiches. Man, do they do sandwiches!! This one is my favorite.

(note: the bread is not actually red...my scanner just stinks!!)

I never in a million years would have thought to put coleslaw on my sandwich. I guess it’s a southern thing. It’s very tasty…and I’m sure not very good for me. Oh, well. 

a book, a blog and lab #1

I found this book mentioned on a blog that I follow, so I went to Amazon and took a look at it. It’s called Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists. The exercises in the book sounded fun…and I’m always looking for new creative boosts! So I ordered it and have really been enjoying some of the labs in it.

The author’s blog is here and Carla is offering an online course that begins on September 15. I think I’m going to sign up. I could use a good dose of Silly right about now.

Take a look at my attempt at lab #1 (“draw cats in bed”) from the book. It captured my attention right away…anything with CAT in the title is bound to do that to me. 

The assignment is to take some white card stock paper and a sharpie and go sit  or lay down in bed. The softness of the bed gives you a looser drawing. I think I drew for about 10 minutes. Something like that. In the end I had three 8.5x11 sheets full of cats.

I picked a few that I liked really well. Traced them onto watercolor paper using a lightbox and then added some color. 

I liked this one. When I did his left eye, it sort of looked up, so I had to make the other match.

Of course, cats sleeping. Which is about the only pose I ever see at my house.

After a while, all my cats started looking alike so I switched the marker to my left hand. I got this fat cat. I added the other swirly lines while I was painting.

birds

I just love watching birds. They’re so chatty and friendly. I always try to figure out what they’re talking about. When they get together in our birdbath, they’re like little kids at the pool. So excited. But there’s always one of them saying “Stop splashing me. I mean it!”

These three fellows were down the street sitting on a mailbox just chattering away. It was at lunchtime so I imagine they were discussing where to go for a bite to eat!

saturday morning walk

I hope everyone is enjoying their Labor Day weekend. I’m having a good mix of getting chores done and finding time for sketching.

I took a long walk on Saturday morning. The weather was nice and cool…just perfect. Picked up a few things to bring home and sketch. I passed up quite a lot of things I decided NOT to bring home, i.e., bugs (alive + dead ones) and cig butts.

I’ll have to do this again in a few weeks when the leaves are showing their fall colors.

sketchbook project 2011

I’m very excited about this project. I read about it some time ago so finally decided to just DO IT! I sent away for my sketchbook and it arrived last week.

My sketchbook theme is “Down Your Street.” Down MY street will be a very short sketchbook since my “street” is only two blocks long. I’m looking forward to the challenge though. Thinking outside the box (or block in my case) will be a good thing for my old brain.

So far I’ve just sketched out some patterns and made a stamp for the end paper. At least I’ve started on it. That’s something I guess. Only 40 pages to go.

I’m a little nervous about the paper in the book. It’s very thin. Very. Very. Thin. I’m used to working on watercolor paper. I read online about several people who took the book apart and inserted watercolor paper in their book. I could do that I suppose but I think I’ve convinced myself to just work with what I have and make that part of the challenge.