Sketching Away

I'm an artist at heart.

Yes, I love making jewelry. Yes, I love crafts. But art-- especially traditional art, has always been my first love.

This blog is all about sharing my artistic journey (gosh, now I'm starting to sound all cheesy... No! Not the artsy language!).  And traditional arts is a part of that.

But I have to admit something.

I haven't done any major art projects since Frodo and Sam-- and that was in June!!!

(Of course, moving and school puts many things on hold, but still.)

My problem is that I've reached the point where my major pieces take 2-10+ hours a piece.

And I get obessessed. I mean that. If I have a big art project to work on, I cannot focus on anything. My life is all art--eat--school--art--eat--chores--art--art--bed. :)

I'll be sitting at my desk trying to do algebra, but in actuality I'm thinking about how yada-yada shadow should look like that graph I just drew.

Plus we haven't even unpacked my paints because once the paints are out-- BAM-- mess, mess, everywhere.

There is a mess of paints and brushes and water and paint drips and paper towels and paint all over my face and paint all over bathroom sinks...

So, lately I've just been doing sketches. Some of which I thought I'd share with you. Just 'cause.

I took an art class at a homeschool co-op for the first semester of this year. The older kids table worked on collages in charcoal for a few weeks.

It's been such a long time since I've done anything with charcoal and I'm pretty pleased with how these turned out.

EYES... I love eyes. I've been known to fill an 8x10 paper entirely with one eye. I have affectionately called such pages "my sketchbook Cyclops."

You might have noticed that the collage looked a bit cut off on one end. I cut half of it off; I had drawn a picture of a depressed-looking model, and it was FREAKY. 

My little sister saw the picture in the trash can and wanted to use it as a coloring page. I think she did a good job-- her straight marker lines are so whimsical! 

I might need to make more pictures for her to color, and teach her how to shade in markers. :)

Speaking of markers... I need alot of work in that medium.

Here you can see that I drew a scene from Horatius at the Bridge. It is an ancient Roman story of a soldier, Horatius, who was single-handedly responsible for keeping the Etrucans away from Rome.  

(I may have to eat my words about Rome being the most boring historical time period I've studied; at least parts are interesting!)

I'm pretty proud of the coloring on Horatius-- I only had two shades of grey-- but the rest is EH.

One of my brothers thought the black mass of soldiers looked like Ringwraiths.

And for the life I me I can't do calligraphy in the Roman-carving style.

But I still kind of like this picture.

Speaking of calligraphy... did a bit of that on some Christmas cards.

Some sketches from Christmas break-- I kept up the tradition of teaching some art to the "little girl cousins." I drew sketches of some of them.

In pen. Without any penciling underneath.

Oh, horror.

I've been illustrating for Ink and Fairydust. 

(This is low resolution-- you'll have to wait a few months to see more. Oh, and there is a reason that there are only nine pins.)

And, of course, I've been making comics for I&F.