Here are a couple more of my little sketch critters, dubbed “house gryphons” by a friend. These were so much fun to make! Check out the first batch if you haven’t already. I’ve also been getting some great sketches from the other artists in the trade.
There’s just one more set left to go…
Where did the summer go? Oh, that’s right… between client work, an illustration-heavy project at my day job, and general craziness all the way around, I’ve had very little time for “just for fun” drawing. That’s one of the reasons I like the Doodle Swap Project, a little club of artists and designers who all make tiny trading-card-sized artworks for each other. It gives me an excuse to do some quick, small, simple drawings that I don’t have any time to overthink because they have to get out the door fast.
This time around the theme was “hybrid animals” — chimera, creatures made up of two or more different unrelated animals. Perfect timing for me, since:
a) the idea for little gryphons that are a cross between songbirds and housecats (instead of the more traditional eagles and lions) has been kicking around in my head for a while, and
b) “Backyard” and household fantasy creatures are the theme of my Sketchbook project book. More about that one later…
So, this was a little bit of two birds with one stone. Or something like that. Here are the first few of the cards, I’ll be posting the rest soon. They’re all 2.5 x 3.5 inches, drawn with ink and watercolor pencils on bristol paper.
Anyone else think that these will make nice little notecards? 
But before that, just a reminder that this weekend I’m participating in the MS Society’s Chesapeake Challenge walk, so it’s your last chance to make a donation for a free pet portrait. It’s looking like it will be a bit of a scorcher out there too… Get all the details here, and do it today!
I’m going to make a confession here: I love school. I’ve always loved school. I like taking classes, I like learning new things, I’d probably be in school forever if I could. One of the things I like about taking classes is that it’s quiet time to sit back and passively take new ideas in, giving the parts of my brain that are always solving problems a little break.
If it’s a lot of factual information, I’m actually not all that passive about it. (I am one of nature’s obsessive note-takers. And not the interesting, oh-so-pretty artistic kind of notes. I filled an entire steno pad with my cramped chicken-scratch at the last training conference I attended.)
But if it’s more abstract, theoretical, or subjective information, I don’t write a lot of notes down. That’s when my pen does other things.
Sketches like these actually help me focus and process what’s being said when either a) it’s not something that I need to capture exact phrases for or b) I’m starting to zone out and would otherwise be falling asleep. I’ll typically keep a separate page — or as in this case a separate notepad — handy to separate these meanderings, a habit I picked up in high school when a rather nasty math teacher kept yelling at me about doodling in my notebook. (I got straight A’s in that class, you bitter old hag!)
This time around it wasn’t Shakespeare or philosophy or even math, but a training seminar at my office. It was a good seminar, but loooong 4-hour sessions meant I needed to stay focused. So, time to sketch! Fortunately I have plenty of little sketchpads in my office, gleaned from years of attending design conferences.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have my Sketchbook Project book with me, because I really liked how some of these came out. It was a 4-day class, so there are more sketches to come!
In case you didn’t know, yesterday was Drawing Day! Actually it’s the whole weekend, which is good for me. Yesterday had the most perfect, beautiful weather and I just couldn’t stay inside drawing… or even hunched over a sketchpad outside. By the end of the day, I was as exhausted as my cat, who for a change sat still long enough for an extended portrait.
She’ll be showing up at my RedBubble site shortly (and yes, that’s not all just “fluff,” the little tubbo…) I did a few scribbles in my sketchbook too, trying to decide on what sort of things to put in my Sketchbook Project book. I fear the challenge there will be picking subjects that I can draw in such a relatively small space… good practice for the pet portraits I’m doing for my MS fundraiser (this is the last week to participate, now with lower donations for art!)
Today is “exercise and more gardening day,” weather permitting. But there will be some more drawings tonight… especially if it really does rain today, which looks like pretty good odds at the moment.
Why is my cat giving me such a look? Probably because I’m not paying enough attention to her. And what could me more important than pampering the cat?
This year, I promised myself I was going to do something for myself and for others: I’m going to participate in the Walk MS Chesapeake Challenge. This event is 2-day, 30-mile walk that supports the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Money raised goes to support research, advocacy, and services for those affected by MS. I have a page set up there for donation sponsorships, and I’m hoping a few of you will help out.
Why am I doing it? Aside from a need to get off my rear and and get some good exercise for a change, it’s to support a good cause. Our lives have been touched by MS. My husband’s mother suffered from very severe MS symptoms and was housebound for years. By the time I met her she was about to get out and about (with assistance) thanks to new breakthroughs in treatment made possible by ongoing research efforts like those at the MS Society. Sadly, she passed away before she ever became my mother-in-law; I have a friend today who benefits from even newer treatments who will hopefully never go through what she did.
Because this is such a large event, I need to do fundraising on a scale I haven’t tried before. For that I’ll need your support. And just in case the warm glow of making a tax-exempt donation to a very worthy cause isn’t enough, I’m sweetening the pot a bit.
How can you take advantage of this amazing offer? Just go over to my donation page at the MS Society website and make a donation in the appropriate amount. Be sure to include your name on the donor list so I can confirm your donation and put e-mail address in the “Personal Note” section — I need it to send you information on how to get your drawings!
FAQs
Why only pets?
What if I have more than one pet/there’s more than one pet in the photo?
What kind of sketches are we talking about here?
How do I get my sketch?
When will I get my sketch?
What kind of photo should I send?
Can I use my drawing on my website/as my logo/in a book?
Is the MS Society site safe to use?
Where are those sample drawings you mentioned?
Any other questions? Drop me a line at contact@stephaniesmith.com… and thanks in advance for your support!
Just when you thought I’d given up on drawing anything but flowers, it’s time for something a little different.
I’ve had the fun of participating a few times in the Doodle Swap Project, a group of artists and designers and other creative folks who create tiny works of art and send them to each other. The “Doodles” are in the form of Artist Trading Cards, where the only limitation is that the finished size is relatively flat and 3.5 x 2.5 inches. The theme for this round was “Under the Sea” and I’ve been getting some lovely interpretations in my mail the last week or so from the other artists involved.
Mine are all ink sketches made with Micron pens on bristol paper, based on photographs I’ve taken over the years… most at aquariums, but a few are from a trip to the Caribbean we took a few years ago. Fish are so alien compared to the animals we see all the time, so many interesting shapes, colors, and patterns. I don’t even have some of the more exotic varieties in my collection here.
Quick little projects like this are a refreshing break from larger, lengthier projects. Plus, they’re a source of ideas for other things. I may do something more with these scans before I put them aside completely. In the meantime, enjoy the whole set!
We recently escaped the cold winter weather for a week in warm, sunny Mexico. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh…..
The fact that it was snowing when we left home made the trip all the sweeter.
I did a little bit of sketching, but I spent more time snapping photos. Some of them will be fodder for the drawing table, some were just for fun. But this particular sketch was drawn from a lounge chair on the beach while taking a little breather. I have a few more sketches to post, watch this space…
One of the things I like about being at RedBubble is the great community of other artists there. I recently had a chance to collaborate with a whole bunch of them in a project to make a child’s alphabet, each of us illustrating one letter or number. The project is wrapping up and soon a set of prints will be making a grand tour of various schools and child care facilities starting in Scotland.
My contribution, as you can see above, was the letter “F” and it was great fun to make! It and all the rest can be seen in this thread at RedBubble, where you can buy cards or prints if you like. In the meantime, I’m working on my own somewhat simpler alphabet project and hope to have it done soon.
I haven’t talked much in this blog about comics, but it’s true… our house is full of them. My husband has been collecting since he was 12, while I discovered them later in life. I’m not a big fan of the traditional superhero genre tho, I usually prefer fantasy stories instead, and have become a voracious reader of various online comics. So while he was eager to crawl through the bins at Baltimore Comic-Con a few weeks ago, I’d been saving up my mad money for this past weekend, and my annual pilgrimage to Bethesda, MD for the Small Press Expo.
SPX is one of the longer-running conventions for independent creators and small-scale publishers of comics of all kinds, and increasingly the webcomics folks have been joining in to sell their own “dead tree” editions. This year I also made a detour to a brand-new conference taking place just up the street, Intervention, which was focused more exclusively on the webcomics crowd. Both had authors in attendance I wanted to meet and books I knew I’d want to purchase — Intervention had a few folks who rarely come to this area — so I bit the bullet and paid the separate entry fees… and then spent WAY too much on books! Both also had their share of vendors selling artwork, small crafts, and other fun stuff. The set of tetris magnets I bought is already racking up points on my refrigerator.
Yup, I’m glad I brought the backpack! (I was also hauling around my own sketchbook and camera… not that I ever took either of them out, I guess they were just there as extra ballast) If anyone I ran into this weekend is reading this… HI!!!! It was great meeting and talking with all you wonderful artists/writers! I envy all of you with the drive and dedication to your artform, especially knowing how hard it can be to make a living at it. Kudos!
Would I attend both again next year? Well… honestly the higher entry price for Intervention made it a little hard to justify for me. I don’t generally hang around for the programming at these things. I think I’ve attended 3 panels/presentations in all the years I’ve been going to SPX. I do a round or two through all the tables and then call it a day. And this year in particular I had to leave around 4pm to meet friends for “The Day the Earth Stood Still” which was showing that weekend only at the AFI Theater. Yes, it was an all day geek-fest. I guess I’ll have to see what happens next year. For now I just have to figure out where on my groaning bookshelves these are all going to fit!
If there’s any interest, I can go through my stack of books in more detail…
I’ve finally scanned and posted the last of my flower trading cards. I’ve already started working on the full-size versions, and have the first few scanned. I’m in the process of cleaning them up and coloring them right now. Some of the final artwork will be a bit different from these small ones, but that was part of the point of making them: to see what worked and what didn’t work. In fact, I’m still not 100% decided on which flower to use for two of my letters, so I did both:
Gerber Daisy or Gladiolus?
Snapdragon or Sunflower?
Decisions, decisions… there are just too many flowers that begin with “S!” Any opinions out there?
To see the whole series, check them out here and here and here and here and here…. or just check out the whole set in my Flickr account.
With the intense heat wave the Atlantic coast has been having, it’s hard to think of something as fresh as spring flowers! Even the summer-blooming flowers in my garden have been wilting in the sun, despite my efforts to keep them watered. And I’m feeling a bit squirrely from hiding indoors so much… I miss the outside! We had a respite this week with some much needed rain, but now the hot is socked in again, with extra humidity on top. Even knowing we’re not having the worst of it is poor consolation. Thank goodness for air conditioning!
