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….
The latest in my Chinese Zodiac series, The Year of the Snake is now available for sale at my RedBubble page, as notecards, prints, and T-shirts.
As an added bonus, this week through August 27 RedBubble is having an awesome 15% sale on all framed and canvas prints, so take a look around and see if there’s anything you like!
This image was drawn in ink with a brush pen and colored digitally; in the background is the Chinese character for the Snake.
The latest in my Chinese Zodiac series, The Year of the Tiger is now available for sale at my RedBubble page, as notecards, prints, and T-shirts. I’ve ordered one of the T-shirts being a Tiger myself and I can’t wait to show it to you! The rest of the zodiac are in progress, I’ve scanned in all the inked ones and a couple are partly colored already. This image was drawn in ink with a brush pen and colored digitally; in the background is the Chinese character for the Tiger.
(I thought I’d posted this last week, but I guess it didn’t “take”…)
In addition to finishing the Zodiac, I have plans afoot for this blog. Soon, very soon… 🙂
The latest in my Chinese Zodiac series, The Year of the Rat is now available for sale at my RedBubble page, as notecards, prints, and T-shirts. The rest of the zodiac are in progress and coming soon! This image was drawn in ink with a brush pen and colored digitally; in the foreground is the Chinese character for the Rat.
You are probably a Rat if you were born in 2008, 1996, 1984, 1972, 1960, 1948, 1936, or 1924, but double-check the exact dates if your birthday is in mid-January to mid-February because the Lunar New Year is on a different date each year. Wikipedia’s Chinese Zodiac page is a good starting point for more information about all of the signs and their meanings.
I have the next three animals scanned in, they just need to be colored, I hope to have one or two done by next week.
click to enlarge
Now, in full color! The Year of the Rabbit, from the Chinese zodiac, is now available for sale at my RedBubble page, as notecards, prints, and even T-shirts! I’ll be making more products available when the whole series is complete. Check out the details in this closeup:
I have over half the zodiac inked so far, with three that are still in the pencil-drawing stage and two that I’m still mucking about with sketches for. That mischievious monkey just refuses to cooperate! I’m still playing around a bit with the colors, that’s the thing about a personal project: there’s really nothing to stop you from tweaking it forever and ever and ever. But the plan is to finish this series by the end of September at the latest, and that’s including my vacation. And I already have my next project lined up….
Here’s a very rough scan of the next piece off the drawing board! Another dramatic close-up preview, this time of the Chinese Zodiac sign of the Dog. I may still be tweaking the drawing a bit, time will tell.
I’ve been working on this series in batches, which has the advantage of being much more efficient for me, but the disadvantage of not having any more finished work to show for a while longer. I have the next drawing half-finished and then one more before I start final scans on this set. I’ll need to figure out the coloring for this series soon; I keep thinking a looser approach than I usually use would be very fitting….
… hot off the drawing board! This is just a tiny preview of the next drawing in my Chinese Zodiac series: The Sheep. It was inked almost entirely with a Pitt brush pen, which doesn’t come to as fine a point as the Sakura brush pen but seems to be holding its shape better.
I’ll probably be a while trying to find a good brush pen, because I hate to have to lock the cat out of the room while I draw but I have trouble seeing any other way to keep an open ink jar handy and un-tipped-over. This one had a pretty good feel though, I’ll probably use it on at least a few more drawings to see how it holds up.
More will be on the way soon!
First off, a big hello to anyone who’s wandered over here from Dawn’s Dictionary Drama!
Although it doesn’t always reflect in this blog, I adore comics, cartoons, and graphic novels of all kinds. I do have some older sequential art work I should post here, but at this point in my artistic life I’m far more focused on my drawing than on writing. I have nothing but respect for all of those out there who have the dedication and the vision to see it through, especially all of those independent creators out there bulling their way through with little or no compensation.
While I spent last year experimenting with Illustration Friday, my friend John has taken that concept a step further with his strip. When he asked for some guest art, I was happy to fill in! He gave me three words in sequence, and I made a short storyline using his characters and those exact words in the dialog. Head on over there to see my story, starting with the first installment!
As if it wasn’t enough challenge drawing someone elses’ characters and John’s style is very different from my own! I also decided to draw this as much as possible with my brush pen. The practice is paying off, judging by how quickly I was able to ink my next piece….
Hi there! Sorry about the long absence, it was a rather frantic spring. Between a hectic period at my job, the siren call (although lately it’s been more like frantic screaming) of my much-neglected backyard, and some freelance work and other side projects which I’ll post more about soon, all conspired to keep me away from my blog. I’ll spare you the details, unless someone out there really wants to hear about very amateur gardening and a growing feud with the neighborhood rabbits.
Instead, I promise to start posting regularly again, even if it’s just quick little sketches like the one above, a portrait of one of the other demands on my attention. Even now he wants to know why I insist on sitting at my computer, and keeps tapping me on the face to focus my attention where it truly belongs: on him.
In the meantime, why don’t I leave you with a preview of what’s currently on my drawing table, awaiting inks?
click to enlarge
This week’s Illustration Friday topic fits very neatly into my current project: portraits of the animals in the Chinese Zodiac. This is the Rabbit, accompanied by a symbolic stone with his sign. I’ve already posted the Snake and the Ox, and more are on the way. I debated whether to include the stones in these images, but I really liked having a concrete sign of why I was making them… a talisman of sorts. It turns a simple drawing of a rabbit into a symbol of something more, representing one piece in a whole intricate structure of meanings with an ancient history.
These images will all be for sale at my RedBubble page, if you want a card or print. I’ll be making more products available when the whole series is complete.
I’m about one third of the way through drawing the series, although I still need to color them all. It’s been fun using the brush pen again… if I think I can cat-proof the arrangements I’d like to start using a regular brush with ink again. Along with dip pens, they’ve been sidelined in the interest of keeping the ink on the paper and off of the floor.
