Category Archives: people

Illustration Friday: Perspective

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Christianna Posed
click to enlarge

This week’s sketch for Illustration Friday is a relatively quick ink drawing based on a photograph generously offered for use by a lovely lady from a RedBubble group devoted to portraits of fellow members.  I chose this particular image because not only is it a very sassy pose, but for the practice in drawing the human figure in extreme perspective — always a challenge! This image can be seen a bit larger in my RedBubble gallery.

Not much else to say this week except to let everyone out there know that Zazzle is having another sale! This week, through March 8, they are offering $4 off all t-shirts and other apparel items — including baby clothes and sweatshirts — with the coupon code 4OFFPATTYTEE

Here are a few suggestions from my Critterwings shop, although you can also customize your very own shirt too. 🙂

From the sketchbook

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TV Sketches

I haven’t been posting too many actual “scribbles” lately,  so just for a change of pace here’s a little something that emerged when I was supposed to be working on another drawing.

One of my “bad” work habits is having the TV on while I’m drawing.  This is, incidentally, pretty much the only way I watch most TV since it’s one of the few times I’m actually sitting still that I’m not in front of a computer. I make a point of picking shows for this purpose that are mostly dialog driven or aren’t actually all that engrossing, so I don’t have to watch the screen. I was doing this the other day and just happened to glance up when there was a particularly compelling scene, a dark room with dramatic lighting on the actor so that you only saw the very edges of his already pretty dramatic features. I had to hit pause and capture it, right on the page I was already sketching on. Extra points* for anyone who can name the show!

So even though I was “goofing off” with this one, this week I committed the last of the Chinese Zodiac series to paper and scanned it in. I still have to add colors, but they’ll be done soon, which means the whole series will be showing up very soon in my new Critterwings store… you know about the store, right?  I’m slowly adapting my existing artwork into new products — I added a few mugs with Butterfly images to the Critterwings Zazzle shop this weekend — so stop by frequently to see what’s new!

* Note: Points have no value except the warm glow of knowing that you were right.

Travis of the Meerkats

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Travis of the Meerkats

This is a rare (for me) portrait… a commission for a friend as a gift to her husband. Happy anniversary, guys!  (click the image to enlarge it)

Sorry about my unplanned absence… we were on vacation and ever since we came back we’ve been taking care of a few neglected chores around the house. Oh, yes, and this commission took up a bit of my drawing time, too. But I’m nearly finished coloring the next four images in my Chinese zodiac series, so you’ll be seeing them soon….

You Can’t Make Me!

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 You Can’t Make Me!

… and don’t go trying to change her mind! (Even if it is way past her bedtime…)

I am resolved to simplify things, if it allows me to meet my other resolution to post something new weekly. In this case, this week’s oh-so-appropriate Illustration Friday topic — the word is “resolve” — a fairly quick one in between working on a slightly more ambitious project.

This is also the first piece of new artwork to be scanned in with my most practical Christmas present: an A3 Mustek scanner. Now I can draw on my 11×17 paper without having to scan it in pieces and piece it together in Photoshop! Not that it was an issue with this one because it was so small, but as I said, I have more ambitious projects underway….

Illustration Friday: Late

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Running Late

OK, I can relate a little too well to this week’s Illustration Friday topic! Still a bit off my game with these from my crazy end-of-summer but I managed a quick doodle at the last minute. In all honesty, although I do push it sometimes and tend to finish projects at the last minute, I almost always finish them on time. Unfortunately for my husband, I can’t say the same about getting home in time for dinner!

Because of the topic, I’ll even post the sketches I started for last week’s Illustration Friday word, “strings.” These are beyond late, I’m afraid, as they never made it past the sketch stage in time to post them.

Strings