Scribbles & Scribings

This year I was paying attention in time to play along with everyone else and signed up to participate The Sketchbook Project’s 2012 tour. My sketchbook arrived this week and it’s just waiting to be scribbled in.

What’s this all about? It’s an endeavor by the Art House Co-op to collect sketchbooks filled by anyone who wants to participate and take them on a touring show before adding them to the permanent collection of their gallery, the Brooklyn Art Library. Head over to the Sketchbook Project website for more info, and to sign up for a sketchbook for yourself if you’re so inclined.

So now my job is to fill this little book up by the end of the year and send it in. I signed up for the theme “Encyclopedia of” which seemed like a good fit for me.

What will go in it? Maybe some brainstorming for my garden.  Maybe some warmup sketches for my fundraising pet portrait cards.  Most likely there will be a page or two filled in next weekend for Drawing Day (more on that later…)

Do you have your sketchbook yet?

At the Critterwings Zazzle store spring is busting out all over! It’s April 4 so that means we’re up to the 4th letter of the alphabet: D, for Daffodils.

I may be biased, but I’m loving the way all the Zazzle products look with my Floral Alphabet art on them. Here’s a sampler, but remember: if there’s a specific product that you’d like to see this series on that’s not already in the Flower Alphabet part of the shop, let me know and I’ll see if I can make that happen.

A for Azalea Flower Monogram and Name Mug

B for Begonia Flower Monogram iPhone 3G Case

C for Columbine Flower Monogram Bag

D for Daffodil Flower Monogram Address Labels

And don’t forget, you can also buy the entire Floral Alphabet series at my RedBubble store too, including the oh-so-awesome die-cut stickers:

… or really, more than enough! My rather liberal interpretation of this week’s Illustration Friday topic is one from my archives, but I’ve never used it for anything. The project it was drawn for mutated into a different format before I finished this particular drawing. One of these days I will have to scan it and finish it nicely, because I’ve always liked it, but at the moment I just have this rather poorly-shot photo to share. (click to enlarge!)
This piece is trickier than usual to scan, partly because of its size (16×20) and partly because it’s drawn on clayboard instead of paper. Although the texture is a dream to draw on with crowquills, and highlights can be scratched out like scratchboard, I can’t use my light table to trace onto it like I can with sheets of bristol — had to break out the carbon paper! And because it’s inflexible it doesn’t scan as easily on my home scanner. Also, it’s far more expensive than the bristol, but probably worth it for a very special project.

My weekends and most of my evenings are still being devoured by my studio-remodeling project. Why does painting a room always seem to take longer than you think it will?

Progress is being made, however. I was able to finish the walls and molding and put the shelving back where it belongs. I’m not able to start putting things away just yet, since I’m using the modular shelves to store the contents of the built-in cabinet under the window while it gets its turn under the brush, but it’s one step closer. And it makes it a heckuva lot easier to work in this small room.

The cats are still quite confused by all of this, especially when I close to door to the only room of the house with its windows open. But now that things are settling down a bit they’re making themselves comfortable. My tomcat’s going to be very disappointed when I fill the shelves back up.

Of course, I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t fretting over the details at this point. I’ve been prepping the built-ins while I decide if I really like the color I picked out for the cabinet doors. I fear it may be a bit too pink, but I’m planning on covering part of it with some kind of bulletin board anyway. I want to introduce a nice light green into the room too. I haven’t picked out my curtains yet, so those will influence any additional accent colors. I’ve still got a few stores to check out, but some of the stripes from JCPenny’s are looking pretty good. Haven’t seen one yet that I’ve fallen in love with tho…

Further updates soon! And hopefully some more drawings!

The short answer is: chaos!

To celebrate my finally achieving my MFA, and to give myself someplace a little nicer and more pleasant to work in, I am finally decorating my studio. It is the smallest bedroom in our house, but gifted with ample built-in storage. Unfortunately, even that is still not enough for my huge stash of reference books and the large flat files I use for finished artwork. Not to mention all the miscellaneous craft supplies, souveniers, and other junk I accumulate.

Way back when we moved in, lo these 2 years ago, it was the weekend before the beginning of the semester, and I was still in the MFA program. As a result this room was thrown together quickly and with little to-do, made functional enough for me to get by. In addition to all of my art supplies the room was also home to stacks of boxes and other bits of random furniture which we didn’t know what else to do with at the time. The room was packed. It was perpetually a mess, with only the area around my drawing table clear and only the art supplies I was using for my thesis work at all accessible.

So for the past few weeks the room has been disassembled as I’ve been going through all of the furniture and boxes and sorting out what needs to stay and what really should go. Among the things discovered when going through some of this buried “treasure”: two boxes of financial paperwork, my missing dip pen supplies, a stereoscope and large box of images to go with it, and a huge stash of family photo albums left behind by Dad when he sold us the house.

I don’t have any true “before” pictures; those accompanying this post are after the initial clean-up phase when I was testing my chosen paint colors. It’s the boldest color I’ve ever put on a wall outside of a theater production, but there won’t be a whole lot of the actual wall showing when all’s said and done.

Since I’m mostly only able to work on it on the weekends and some evenings, and I wanted to keep up my drawing as much as possible at the same time, It’s been taking over a month so far. The room had not been thoroughly cleaned in years, so the woodwork required a bit of scrubbing before I could start priming it. There is quite a bit of woodwork in this room considering its size. There was really no place to easily relocate the few large pieces of furniture, so I had to get creative about working around them.

I did have a little bit of help with this project: my resident Tall Guy painted the ceiling for me. It’s the one painting task he feels comfortable with.

And he wasn’t the only one “helping.” I suspect I could have done a little better without the contributions from the fuzzy faction of the household, but this one in particular was having a ball hiding under the tarped drawing table for her patented “surprise attack”

I’m almost done with all the painting… photos of the finished product coming soon!

So, not that I expect anyone is actually keeping that close of an eye on this humble blog, but just in case, I wanted to apologize for the downtime Thursday-Friday. Actually, my ISP should be apologizing, but they haven’t even given an explanation to me about what went wrong. Things seem to be up and running again tho, knock-on-wood. Carry on with your lives….

Welcome to my sketchblog! I figured the title of this post was a matter of tradition, right? If you don’t already know me, I’m a graphic designer and illustrator. This little sketchblog is a place for my doodles and sketches, experiments with different media and styles, and whatever other randomness it occurs to me to post. The work here will probably be a bit on the rough side compared to my professional work, an extention of my sketchbook really. If you like what you see here, take a look at my formal portfolio to see what it all looks like a bit more put-together.

That’s me… just a relatively quick self-portrait. Yes, most of my work starts out on that drawing table before passing through the computer. Lately I’ve been working a lot with black ink pen, and then adding colors digitally after scanning the artwork. I love my Micron pens! You’ll probably see a lot of them here, but don’t be surprised to see my colored pencils and who knows what else resurface as well.

Now, I’m new to this whole “blogging” thing all the kids are into these days, so please bear with me if there are a few bugs along the way. And have a nice day!