Slo-Poke

Once you open the bag, you just can't stop.

This one is fitting, since I'm kind of a slo-poke myself about some things.

This is all Prismacolors. Getting the right color is always a fun challenge. For that darker shadow color on the yellow, I ended up using some of the putty colors as well as a grey, a violet and a couple of yellows. With yellow its always a challenge to not make green or something else you don't want, when you mix something with it. More so than other colors I've found. Usually I trust my gut and go for it - not very scientific or professional sounding! Sometimes I make a little scribble on a separate piece of paper as I go along to mimic what I'm doing on the actual piece, and test the color I'm thinking of doing next to see what it will do. But not always.

I really do have to shift gears into some other work now, but I will try to get some prints of these candy pieces done and in the etsy shop over the next week.

This one is for sale.

Bye for now ~

Twizzler and Tootsie Roll

A dentist's dream. More sugar!


I had fun doing this one! And have been eating a lot of Twizzlers since that package was opened - they're not individually wrapped so can't be handed out on Halloween. Can't let them go to waste you know.
This was a commission, and is not for sale.


This was fun too. I love how Tootsie Rolls come in this size, the "foot long hot dog" size (well, that's what I call those long skinny ones) and the jumbo super-size. This one is for sale.

Both pieces were done with Prismacolors and Polychromos on Stonehenge.

May do just one more, then have to shift gears for Christmas. Its the start of "burn the candle at both ends" season. I'll be shifting into painting for some new pieces, so that should be a fun change of pace. I'm working on art for licensing and have a commission to do some card images, and I will be 'thinking' something other than candy! I think that's a good thing.

No Excuses Watercolor Sketch Kit

This is such a cool thing! Watercolor artist Laure Ferlita has a wonderful little video on her blog about how to create this simple, 'take with you' watercolor sketch kit using water soluble colored pencils and a water brush. Brilliant.



Thanks Laure!
Be sure to look at her whole blog as well as her Imaginary Trips site. How fun.


Today we're getting our first real storm and its a doozy! My little wild kitty friend, Jasper, wasn't on the back porch waiting for breakfast as usual - it was a wet mess. So I was worried about him, until I opened the front door to find him out there instead! Smart little guy, switching his 'waiting place' to a drier spot. Why on earth he won't just tuck in inside the house at night in this weather is beyond me. He goes somewhere nearby that's safe and dry and just shows up to eat. So I guess he's OK, but you know how it is when you're a 'mom'- you worry.
Anyway.

I hope to finish up a commissioned project today (which I probably won't be able to show), then am onto the next one. I'm doing several pieces for people to give as Christmas or 'other occasion' gifts, and can't show them because, well, someone might see them. If you would like to have me do a piece, I can still work in a few more in time for the holidays. People are doing candy, still lifes of food, and some with objects that have special meaning. They can be small or large, and done to work with a room's color scheme or whatever you like. Just send me an email and I'll be happy to work with you on your idea.

Stay dry everyone ~
Go Giants!!!!

Illustration Friday - Racing

Vroom vroom!

Sneakers can go pretty fast (especially ones drawn with colored pencils).

Bad little gummies

No, these are not finished. And they most likely never will be. I just wanted to post something about how things don't always work out, but that's OK. (And I also wanted to post some COLOR after those last couple of very black posts!)

I had the bright idea to do some gummy bears, and decided on 3 red ones. I picked through the bag trying to find ones that actually had features and looked like something other than blobs, but really, they were all pretty blob-like. Also, these were extra small, which I don't think helped.

I took some reference photos and was all excited to try to capture them in colored pencil. But for whatever reason - distraction, lack of focus, starting with the wrong color - or some combination of all three, this is where I've ended up. The one on the right is burnished to death and can't possibly take any more pencil.

I wanted to get that beautiful translucent light that makes them look like what they are, but I juuuust missed it. Then I got kind of mad and just started 'coloring' aimlessly, hoping I'd hit it right by accident, but of course just got further off the mark.

So I will probably try these again, in a different 'pose', and see what happens. It was fun to try these, and although I'm bummed that this one didn't work out, I learned what I did wrong, and will hopefully get it right next time.

Making Black with pencils

(click on this to see it bigger on another page, if you like)

(this is the same swatch board, only switched to greyscale)

In the last post I was talking about black colored pencil and said I should do some swatches.

So I did.

(I also have to say that I misspoke about the Polychromo black being a blue-black - it isn't at all, its rather grey in fact. I must have tweaked the image in Photoshop at some point and corrected the color for some reason. So apologies.)

I did a 1 inch x 2 inch swatch of all the blacks from all the different brands of colored pencils I have. This is by no means a complete list - I don't have any Luminance, or Verithins, or several others. What I DO have (and swatched) are Polychromo, Prismacolor, Coloursoft, Blick Studio, Lyra Polycolor, Graphitint, Inktense and Derwent Drawing. I also did some graphite - Cretacolor Monolith, Prismacolor Turquoise, and Staedtler Mars Lumograph 100. Then I played with making some combinations of colors to try to get a sort of black without using any actual black.

I was surprised at the results of this little swatching exercise, I must say!

I used a piece of white Stonehenge for the support, used a tight circular stroke and light pressure to build the color, and kept them all "dry" (Inktense and Graphitints can be used with water) since that's how I like to work - dry. I also didn't burnish or use a blender or anything like that. Just straight pencil.

Check out the second version of the swatches, which I switched to greyscale in Photoshop.

The really blackest blacks by far were the Coloursoft Black, Prismacolor Black and Inktense Black.

Lyra Polycolor Black Medium and Derwent Drawing Ivory Black were the next 'blackest'.

Then after that everything was a bit disappointing. Oh, they'd all work as 'black' just fine, depending on the value range in a piece, but most were more like a nice dark or medium grey rather than inky black.

Lyra makes 3 blacks - Medium, Hard, and Soft. The Black Hard looks a lot like the Cretacolor Monolith 8B Graphite.

The Polychromo Black is a very warm dark grey, really, and has a very tight good coverage.

The oil based ones (Polychromos and Lyras) are similar in the way they 'feel' going down, the Blick Studio feels dry to me, the Coloursoft is "like buttah", etc.

Each one has its pluses and minuses - one might be 'grainier', one might have a softer look, one might be a perfect black for shadows on concrete, one might be a perfect black for something else, etc. etc. etc.

I had fun playing with layers of color to try to make black. None of them came out actually 'black', but in a piece with a particular color scheme, they could all work I guess. The one thing I did find is that its very easy to make grey or brown, but a really dark black is another thing.

The first swatch (on the right column) is Prismacolor Black Raspberry and Indigo Blue. The second one is Prismacolor Dark Green and Black Grape. The third is Prismacolor Sepia, Black Cherry, Imperial Violet and Violet Blue. After that we have Polychromo Chrome Oxide Green, Dark Indigo, Mauve and Sepia. The the last one is Coloursoft Dark Green, Indigo, Purple and Brown Black.

You could go on forever trying different combinations.

Whew!

I should really do this with all of my colored pencils - I've done it with all my watercolors and gouache, and refer to those swatch boards almost every time I paint! So let's see ... 132 Prismacolors, 120 Polychromos, 72 of this, 72 of that ... sigh. Sounds like a semester - long school project, doesn't it? Well, maybe I'll do a few at a time. I know that I do get frustrated with my Prismas, since a lot of the lead colors don't seem to accurately match the wood casing, and with the Polychromos so many of those cool pinkish reds like Geranium Lake look very much alike sitting in the tray next to one another.

You're welcome to pull this off to use as reference, but really, I suggest you make your own swatches because the whole point of the exercise is to understand your pencils and to have a 'live' set of true color swatches to refer to.

Have fun!

Illustration Friday - Spooky

Not new, but still spooky.

I love working in black and white. This was done with my trusty black Polychromo pencil, so technically its colored pencil, even though its black and white. This 'black' is a rather blue black. There are so many 'blacks' out there, depending on which pencils you use. I think I might actually do a swatch board to sort them out. Of course with colored pencils its nice to make interesting blacks using dark colors like Prismas black cherry, grape, raspberry, etc., or some combination of other colors, but sometimes you do need to just use plain black (like for black and white illustration work).

And then there's graphite ...

OK, its settled, I'll do some swatches. Can't believe I never have!

Yesterday I had fun at my little 'do' out at Lyon Village. I took my small fruit drawings in the fancy frames as well as some prints of candy, etc., and enjoyed an afternoon of kids modeling cute clothes (some were very shy, and some have 'future runway model' written all over them and had perfected the twirl and pose), cake, and general good will. And I met some cool people! Thanks so much Lisa and Dennis for stopping by - and thanks to those of you who bought some of my art. Its always nice to know its going to a good home.

It rained today. Just a bit. Yay. Civilized Fall weather at last. Its grey and cool and I'm happy.

Gala Apple and Red Pear

Two more little pieces done.

A Gala Apple ~

and a Red Pear ~

and both of them framed ~

If you're in Sacramento this Saturday, I'll be at Lyon Village (in Sierra Oaks, at Munroe and Fair Oaks Blvd., across from Loehmann's) at a 'do' put on by A Cottage Affair. There will be a kid's fashion show, other artists and artisans, snacks, music, the whole shebang. From 2 - 4.

I'll be bringing these pieces as well as some prints of the candy art and whatever else I can manage to get together by then. After the show, these (if they don't sell on Saturday) will be in the Cottage Affair shop, if you're interested. The owner's name is Kathy, and her number is (916) 480-0971 if you'd like to call before you head over there.

I'd like to get one more piece done before the weekend, but not sure if I can swing it. A Bosc Pear maybe?

Figs, frames

Two little fig drawings, each 5 x 5 inches, in these cool fancy frames I found online. These are actually two of the more understated frames - some are really over the top! I plan to do art that will go well with them, if I can manage to figure out what that is, exactly.

The fun of ordering these is that you don't know exactly what you're going to get - since they're all a special price, they can't guarantee any specific style or color, so you just take your chances. I ordered 20, and 18 of them I'm completely happy with - the other two are sort of a snooze. Most are some variation of gold or gold leaf, some are brown, or brown with gold, etc. So it will be fun to now fit the art to the frame. Some are just begging for a piece of chocolate I think. No problem there!

The other thing was they didn't come with glass, so I had to have that cut special. Still, they were a deal I think. Now if I can just sell them ...

Oh, the figs are both Prismacolors on Stonehenge.

How to Make a Book

I found a wonderful set of videos done by illustrator Lynne Chapman on how to do a picture book. She goes through the process of creating a book from start to finish, using her newest book, Bears on the Stairs, as an example. Informative and fun and entertaining, plus she has that neat British accent!

I'm not allowed to embed the actual video here, but you can click the links which will take you to her blog posts where you can watch them legally, and also look around at everything else she has going on (I love her sketches of people on the train!)


Her blog.
Blog post with first video.

Blog post with second video.

Thanks for letting me share Lynne!

~~~~~~

Also, I finished the orange Tootsie Pop.

Can't decide whether to do more candy next, or something more nutritious. Oh, I'll be doing lots more candy, yes, but I also have to get some 'real food' done, so may shift gears for a few days.

The weather is finally turning cool enough to really feel like Fall, so I'm happy. My knitting needles and yarn are beckoning so I'm going to try to work in a bit of knit and purling here and there. I like that it gets dark earlier - I get more productive in the dark evenings.

There's a new yarn - a Malabrigo Rios - which is 100% Merino wool, but also washable. If you know about these things, you know that wool usually 'felts' in the wash. So washable wool is a pretty cool thing. I may have to get some to play with. Oooh, a trip to the yarn store - sounds dangerous! to my checkbook, anyway. We'll see.

Today is a colored pencil day, so better get back to it.

Go watch those videos - they're cool!

More sugar

Halloween's around the corner, and I am in full candy-inspired mode. I loaded up on 'inspiration' and 'models' at the store the other day and now the challenge will be to not eat it all before it gets drawn!

I don't know what Halloween is like in the rest of the world (or if you all even do Halloween), but here in the USA the shops have aisle upon aisle stocked with nothing but candy - little mini versions of regular 'bars' of chocolates, plus umpteen bags full of cavity-making confections. Its crazy, really. And a little obscene. But I love it.

Here's a WIP of an orange Tootsie Pop -

I'm using Polys and Prismas on Stonehenge, and its 5 x 5.

Here's how it began -

And here are two more taffys I recently finished ~

Strawberry Banana

and Blueberry

The taffys are for sale. I'm doing a series of 5 x 5s on a 6 x 6 piece of paper. Not sure how many I will do, but will continue on for a while - besides candy I have to do some 'regular food' ones to frame, so there's no end in sight for the moment.

I ordered some fancy 5 x5 frames online and love them - but they came with no glass, so I had to go get glass cut special. And they have the nice wire and eye-hook dealie hardware for the backs, which I will be struggling with, I'm sure. A framer I am not. I'm sure there will be a post about all of that coming up soon!

Back to candy for now ~