The Grand Finale

I've decided to stop apologizing about not posting very often. Real life is more important than what happens on the computer, and that's that.

(For the record, though... I am not this behind on the 30 Day Drawing Challenge. I was only a little over a day behind. Our scanner is only hooked up to one computer, though, and it happens to be the laptop that Dad had brought to work for the past several days).

Day 23: Something You Need

I stole Lydia's lovely idea-- of course, Our Savior is someone I need!

Gouache paint, based off of an icon on a prayer card. 4X6 as usual.

Day 24: A Couple

I thought about being all smartypants and drawing something like a couple socks or a couple dragon claws or something... but then I decided that this idea floating around in my head was just too cute.

Gouache paint.

Day 25: Scenery

Due to a very unfortunate spill, the backside of the Couple painting got smeared with paint. Now, I did the entire 30 Day Drawing Challenge in one little notebook, and was running low on pages. I had to do the Scenery drawing on this smeared peice of paper...

...so I ran with it and smeared more paint on randomly and then drew random cartoony scenery stuffs in sharpie. I call it the Magic of Random Paint Spills-- An Abstract Study of the Biochemistry of Gryphons. It's a masterpeice and will someday hang in a museum.

Day 26: Something You Don't Like

I don't dislike Rubik's Cubes. It's just the fact that my little brother can solve the entire thing in two minutes flat, while I... well, I can't even solve one side of it! ;)

Day 27: Someone You Love

When you can't decide who to draw because you love so many people... it's always safe to draw the cutest littlest dude around. Meet my brother, King of the Laundry Basket (we didn't have a mountain handy). Complete with the paper crown handmade by our eight year old sister.

Day 28: Anything You'd Like

Feeling a little nostalgic for Autumn. We just had our first sprinkle of snow and first frost to last beyond the sun's waking.

watercolor

Day 29: A Place You Want To Go

A ticket to Middle Earth? You shouldn't have. Aww, thanks. YOUR'E THE BEST PERSON IN THE WORLD!

(Here's another unforunate spill at work. My india ink made a nice big blot right on the bottom left corner. I did my best to fix it with some guoache paint and stained the entire map brown. Now I'm not sure if it looks all cool and aged, or all messed up and stained!)

Day 30: A Congrats Banner

I meant it when I said I was running out of paper! This is drawn on the back cover of my sketchbook. Sharpie and a wee bit of white watercolor.

Here's the linky... sorry it's so late... go ahead and use a seperate link for each of your drawings, or a single one, or whatever. :)

An Orange Tablet Pirate Ship

(P.S. Don't forget to check out the Shoppe-- tommorrow is the last day of free shipping/special prices!)

Day 20: Something Orange

Because sometimes, your life isn't complete until you've drawn a super-cute orange owl with glasses.

Photoshop is fun, by the way.

Day 21: Something You Want

Going materialistic here and drawing a thing, even though there are many things that I want... like heaven and world peace and more time and being totally caught up on essays and other good stuff.

So, I want a Wacom tablet for digital artwork. I'm actually going to get one of these very soon-- I've finally made enough money, between the Shoppe and some freelance work, to purchase one.

Day 22: Something You Miss

Fine Linen Drama. The theater group I was in in my old town. The people were absolutely amazing (in fact, I met many of my friends there) and the shows were spectacular. The drawing is of the set for Pirates of Penzance, the second and last play that I had a part in. I love my new town and new friends, but I dearly miss those Saturdays full of rehersals and friends.

Guess who needs to work on her inkwash technique?



P.S. It is very fun to make up blog post names by using parts of each drawing... :D

 

Doodled Earrings (Day 18-19)

(Hey, be sure to visit the Pink Lemonade blog to enter a giveaway of one of my chainmaille cross necklaces!)

(Also, I'm running Black Friday-Cyber Monday sales. Starting today and lasting until Monday, get free shipping on your order from Shealynn's Faerie Shoppe, plus special sale prices on many items! It's the perfect time to get Christmas presents... plus it'd make me very happy. :D )

30 Day Drawing Challenge...

Day 18: Just a Doodle

  Day 19: Something New 

During Thanksgiving, I was doodling some new jewelry design ideas. Then I realized that my doodle counts as the "something new" challenge...

When I got back, I made the earrings I drew.

 They're available in the Shoppe!
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 My family thought it was so funny that I behind and got stuck coming up with ideas of what to draw for this challenge that I made up. I suppose I wasn't really clear when I started this challenge: it's not my idea. I was inspired by this picture that has been making its rounds on Pinterest. I just wanted to see how many of my online friends would like to join me in my (admittedly crazy) venture to actually do this!  

Favorites: Week 2

More features! Again, it is so hard to choose just one favorite per person per week... So I wen the eenie-meenie-minie-mo route. Go check out the artists' blogs to see more beautiful drawings!

Victoria (Raindrops and Moonlight) drew Rapunzel! Yay!

Alison (Mousin' About) drew this sweet sketch... technically it is just some additional sketching, and not part of the 30 Day Drawing Challenge, but I really liked it... so...

Mary (Saracen's Head) drew a lovely lady running down the stairs. 'Tis the wise woman from George MacDonald's story!

I love the details on Lydia (Saracen's Head) drawing of her First Communion. It looks like a prayer card.

Anna (Sarcen's Head) drew this beautifully whimsical drawing for the "favorite candy" challenge.

Days 15-17

Trying my best to get caught up here. :)

Day 15's challenge was Draw a Family Picture.

I attempted to draw miniature portraits of everyone in my family, putting each portrait in a frame that somewhat "matches" each person's personality. If you'll recall how my previous miniature drawing went... you'll understand why I gave up. It's a project to come back to when I have the patience.

(How is it that my stick figure drawings are worse than most people's? I don't get it.)

Day 16: Inspiration

This one was a no-brainer! Of course The Lord of the Rings is one of my biggest inspirations!

However, I'm wondering what made me think that I could paint a four-inch hand. I can barely draw a hand (particularly foreshortened ones like this)-- and I'm just learning how to paint. For what it's worth, though, I'm stubborn and spent a couple hours on this and I think that the final painting at least passes for a hand with a Ring of Power on it. :)

Day 17: Favorite Plant

"Should I draw a rose? Maybe those flowers by the side of the house? Perhaps athelas or mallorn or the Two Trees of the Sillmarillion? The Party tree? The lantern-tree that grew from Janis' peice of a street lamp? What about a fairy's mushroom? Or some of the strange-looking trees in the Japanese gardens?"

I couldn't decide so I drew the plant from Wall-E.

Of course, afterwards, I realized that I should have drawn the pizza plant!

 

Please go ahead and use a seperate link for each day's drawings. :)

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Favorite Drawings: Week 1

Yes, this is coming to quite late. Quite late indeed. Forgive me. My brain seems to have a few loose wires at the moment.

Here are some favorite drawings from the talented people who have joined in the drawing challenge! It was extremely hard to choose only one per person... go visit their blogs to see artwork!


The first few drawings are from the three sisters at The Saracen's Head. They are wonderful artists and have done every day of the challenge so far, so go puruse their blog!

Lydia works wonders with graphite pencils, but this illustration-style drawing that she did really caught my eye. I think it's the subject matter-- so peaceful and homelike.

Mary drew Linus from Peanuts. (Linus is my favorite Peanut character!)

Anna drew this impressively accurate map of Middle-Earth. I love the way Lydia, Anna, and Mary manage to turn many of their drawings into Lord of the Rings themed artwork.

Alison, a talented illustrator over at Mousin' About, the Sketchblog of Alison Mutton, drew this little mouse. I'm not sure why, but I'm rather fond of it, it's so cute.

 

 

Victoria at Raindrops and Moonlight drew Kate Winslow as her favorite character. I especially love the colored version. :)

Sillouettes and swirly curls and drawings are awesome. Therefore, this drawing by Vicki from Decked Out in Ruffles is awesome. :)

 

Grace at Craziness From Grace drew this super-duper cute Chocolate Elf!!!

My favorite drawing that my little sister did has got to be this table full of pizza-- with chairs for guests.

Day 14: Favorite Fairytale

The Children of Lir

Once, a Celtic king had four handsome and kindly children whom he loved very much. An enchantress grew jealous of the King's love for his children. She lured them away from their home, tricking them into thinking that they were visiting their grandfather.

The enchantress cast a terrible spell on the four children. They morphed into beautiful swans-- and were doomed to spend nine hundred years in swan form, living in three lakes.

Their father's heart was broken, but their sweet songs consoled him.

One version of the story ends with the peal of wedding-bells. A king and queen were married, and the enchantment broke. The swan children found refuge with a saintly monk (for St. Patrick had converted Ireland during their time under the spell).

The children were joyfully baptised, then twisted and turned and changed form...

An old lady and three wrinkled men died in the hermitage. The monk buried them in a peaceful grave.

(Here is a telling of this story. Various versions are described here.)

 I love fairytales so much that I simply couldn't choose one to draw as my favorite fairytale! So I decided not to do an ordinary fairytale.

I'm not sure why I chose The Children of Lir. Perhaps it is because of the beautifully illustrated book that I read it in (The Names Upon the Harp: Irish Myths and Legends by Marie Heaney, illustrated by P.J. Lynch). Perhaps because of the vivid imagry and wonderful drawing-potential. Perhaps it is because of it's bittersweet tradegy... I remember reading this tale when I was fairly young, and it has haunted me in that beautiful way that sad stories do.

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Juggling Spilt Milk

Day 12: Most Recent Accomplishment

My most recent big accomplishment is becoming Graphics Editor of Ink and Fairydust and surviving the first issue! However, me sitting in front of a computer would make for a boring drawing.

I thought about drawing one of my favorite accomplishments: jumproping on the unicycle. However, that isn't exactly a new accomplishment...

So I drew my latest talent: juggling two balls. Yes, that is right! I can throw and catch TWO BALLS!

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Day 13: A Comic

Moral of the story:

Don't boil milk in a teapot.

I tried to base this comic off of Mr. Hatke's journal comics. I love his art style. The journal comics are on his blog-- go check it out!

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Seven Quick Takes (and Day 11)

Today I'm doing 7 Quick Takes a'la Conversion Diary!

1.

Yesterday's theme for the 30 Day Drawing Challenge was Draw a Turning Point in Your Life.

I think that they day I was born was a very important time for me.

This is based off of a photo of me in the hospital the day I was born.

Yes, I actually had that strange alien ponytail sticking out of the top of my head. The nurse who did that either thought I was a unicorn or had a very strange fashion sense.

This drawing gets a place in Shaylynn's Terrible Drawings Hall of Fame.

I'm also in a terrible habit of posting these drawings a day late. Since I am the one "hosting" this challenge... that's a little pathetic.

(I know that I could have chosen any number of "turning points"-- I'm thinking of my First Communion inparticular-- but I just couldn't resist drawing my ridiculous baby ponytail!)

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2.

EEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!
Major geek-out moment. My drawing is published in Gilbert Magazine!

This summer I went to the American Chesterton Society Conference with my mom. One of the speakers writes a column called, "Jogging with G.K." for their magazine. Those of you who know about Chesterton know that he was quite the massive guy. At the beginning of his talk, the speaker mentioned off-handedly that someone ought to draw Chesterton jogging.

So I did. It's not the best drawing by any means, but I did it quickly during lunch break.

A long story short, I'd shown it to the speaker who showed it to the society's president, who took it for their magazine. :) EEEEEKKKK!!!!!!

3.

Remember how I posted about the used guitar string jewelry? It's finally available in the Faerie Shoppe!

There aren't many pieces of guitar string jewelry up yet-- only two, most of my stock is on display at a local store!-- but I'll be getting more uploaded. And remember, I love custom orders and can make any of the designs again. :)

There's also some new bobby pins, hair jewels, and more Elven jewelry:

4.

I'm crazy busy doing graphics and other work for Ink and Fairydust.
This next issue will be awesome.

In the meantime, you can re-read the Sept/Oct issue!

5.

My family (or at least those who have been convinced to actually do some art-- gasp!) will be participating in the All Saint's artist trading card swap at Pondered in my Heart. I'm still deciding which saints to draw!

6.

This morning I attended a Catholic Writer's Guild meeting. There were many wonderful people there, and I can't wait to find out more about this group. My friends and I got a wee bit lost on the drive back. When I got home, Dad was in one of his deep-cleaning moods. We did everything from scrubbing the stairway railing to organizing the garage. After that, we had some family friends over. I did something I haven't done for five or so years: my friends and I play-acted a story in the moonlight. I love make-believe. :) And I love my friends.

7.

I'm really busy right now (in case you couldn't tell already). School, family, friends, art projects... there might actually be something called Too Much Of Good Things. Right now, I'm wishing that all my days were much, much longer than 24 hours!