More daily drawin's and inspiration...

My Trainwreck Journal

I was watching this.

I hope everyone is enjoying a lovely holiday season. I, for one, am glad it's almost over. For my last post of 2017 I'm pleased to say I stuck to my guns and managed to draw something every day for my personal 21 day challenge. I didn't always complete a piece in a day because I usually have more than one thing going on at a time. I worked on this piece above over a couple of days, inspired by the Buntstiften YouTube channel: Watching her draw and listening to the music is mesmerizing. She's the master of elegant and sweeping curves.

I also thought I'd wrap this year up with some links to my favorite sources of inspiration. I spend waaaay too much time watching YouTube videos, but I like to think it's paid off;-)

Dutch artist and illustrator Koosje Koene does a weekly "Draw Tip Tuesday". That's what started my whole "Inktober" plan. I've been watching these for a couple of years now. Love, love, love them;-)

These 4x6 pen and ink drawings are done on BFK Rives illustration paper. Normally I use the very inexpensive Strathmore Skills pads but I was inspired by a "Paper Haul" video by mixed media illustrator Kendyll Hillegas. She does the most amazing food illustrations (among other things).

These illustrations were inspired by Alphonso Dunn's Inktober video. His videos were my greatest discovery this year.

Backlit Gingko leaves

4x6

from a photo found on Pinterest

Texture Study

4x6

from a Pinterest photo

more texture study

from this Alphonso Dunn video

9x12 watercolor experimentation

I found a whole stash of these sheets I'd stowed underneath a pile of paper pads and forgot about. Sometimes I'll cut them into tiles or ATC's for Travelling Tangles or more often, I just cut them down into 4x6 sheets and use them for  playing around with my dip pen and inks:

various stages of completion

into this

Look what Santa brought me!

I became totally obsessed with pen and ink while watching The Diva's Inktober videos. She used a different bottle of ink for each of the 31 videos. I also became obsessed with fountain pen drawing and joined two Facebook groups Fountain Pen Sketchers and  Artist's Journal Workshop to amp up my drawing game.

Throwback Travels

Santa Fe, New Mexico

September 2001

from a photograph

I spent a lot of time on this one. I need to work on my value scale.

Untitled

Thanks so much for stopping by! Your thoughtful and generous comments delight and inspire me;-)

Some Daily Drawing Practice

Texture

4" x 6"

dip pen and various inks

So began my first week of daily drawing after last weeks post, not in any particular order, inspired by this video  and this video by Alphonso Dunn. Not everything is "finished" and some are just exercises. Here's a link to his series of Basics and Fundamentals if you're interested in exploring pen and ink drawing.

This first one started out as an exercise. I was practicing a wet on wet technique I came across on another one of my favorite YouTube channels, Studio Jess. She calls it Cosmic Moons, 

before pen and ink

"Toodles"

Perhaps a Throwback travels series?

Continuous line drawing...sort of

A page from my Trainwreck Journal

Frost Flower, Printemps and Rumpus

Shading and Hatching practice

Just noodling around

I usually have something like this going on all the time, for when I feel like drawing but don't have the bandwidth to start something.

"Why, oh why you draw so much and ignore me???"

Thanks so much for stopping by! Let me know if you have any questions about what I shared today. I tried to keep the chatter to a minimum;-)
As ever, your thoughtful and generous comments delight and inspire me.

🎄❄HAPPY HOLIDAYS⛄🎁

Diva Challenge #345 and other drawin's

Diva Challenge #345

Happy Holidays

This is the last Diva Challenge of the year and Laura posed two options: a Zendala or something holiday inspired. I was in a bit of a quandary as I don't have any zendala tiles and I'm a bit of a holiday theme curmudgeon when it comes to Zentangle.

I went rogue because I really wanted to finish this one up with my eco-print Cosmic Garden series.

I was inspired by Joey's use of a snowflake string for her challenge this week and though I didn't follow her challenge guidelines at all, I think it's as close as I'm gonna get to anything holiday. I'm using Phroz or Fasset (can't remember which is which) on the snowflake.

I would like wish all of you a joyous holiday season and thank you for all of the inspiring feedback you've given me.

For the next 3 weeks, I've issued myself a little challenge inspired by this video from my favorite You Tube art teacher Alphonso Dunn. He's got two videos of 7 simple tips for drawing everyday. I'll post some things  on Instagram, michelewynne9 as well as here. I suspect most of you are directed here by the Diva's linky so if you want to see what I'm doing for the next 3 weeks you can use the email thingy at the bottom of the sidebar to be notified when I post.

Here are a few things I've been working on:

Little Pieces of Art series
Tree Frog

pen and ink

The idea is to draw some thing every day, from drills and texture practice to abstract to finished illustrations.

More tree frogs

I love them

In my handmade journal
Perspective
Simple Pleasures Cafe

I started this over a week ago and though I bit off more than I could chew in terms of complexity I was determined to finish it today.

Gifts in progress

These resulted from several water color practice sheets I had laying around. I cut them down into 4 x 6 pieces. When I want to noodle around with my dip pen I'll grab one of these cards and do what comes organically. I've had them sitting in a box for months. Yesterday I had the brilliant idea to cut them all down to 2" squares and now I'm going to laminate them and glue magnets to the back and distribute them as stocking stuffers to the baristas at Simple Pleasures.

"Trainwreck Sketchbook"
one side shaded

Untitled

Thanks so much for stopping by. Your thoughtful and generous comments delight and inspire me 😍

Diva Challenge #344 and sketchbooks

Diva Challenge #344

"Use my Tangle" Monday

featuring After-glo by Carole Ohl

additionally: Aquafleur, Bunzo and Sandswirl

Eco-print tile start

I was happy to see Afterglo turn up on this weeks challenge. It's one of those patterns I thoroughly enjoyed when it first came on my radar awhile ago and then I forgot about it. It's a great fit for my Cosmic Garden series too. 

Laura noted that Vonnie, a member of the Zentangle community recently passed away. Vonnie was an active member of one of my swap groups as well as in the Diva's chat room when Laura was live streaming videos of the challenges. This is for Vonnie.

Here are a few things I did in my DIY art journal this past week;

A trip to Japan Town to Maido my favorite pen store

 and Daiso for a haul of cheap art supplies

This store is Bananas!

Butternut Squash Soup

The kitchen has been sadly inactive of late. In an attempt to get myself motivated for my annual Christmas cookie baking marathon, I spent a day cleaning, re-organizing and cooking.

Simple Pleasures Cafe

Noodling around and feeling the Zen

Aimee sunnin' herself

Thanks so much for stopping by. Your thoughtful and generous comments delight and inspire me!

Diva Challenge #343 and Sketchbooks

Diva Challenge #343

"Dewd"

The eco-print I started with

I had a feeling this one would appear sooner rather than later. I played around with Dewd a bit when the video first appeared a few weeks back. It's not as easy as it looks. I figured Dewd would be a great addition to my eco-printed series. I also had another go at Paradox. This was really fun to draw. After the first row of Dewd, I thought it might be better to just do straight up stalks, but I was already invested. 

Sketchbook stuff:

After days of deliberating how to start the new DIY sketchbook I shared last week, pondering themes and whatnot, I just dove in with a prompt I saw on Draw Tip Tuesday earlier this week. It seemed like a bit of a train wreck as I moved through it and that was the intent. It took the pressure off of any thoughts of perfection. In the end the black background really pulled it together.

The first page of my new sketchbook
Gratitude with Attitude

I'm working through my first attempt at a handmade bound book:

Little Zen Menu November prompt mash-up

Zendala string #103, Less is More (in my world) and a little Betweed

This is the Fearless, Fun & Funky sketchbook. It's a hot mess. The pages are all wonky because my punched holes are off-alignment, the spine is too wide so the whole thing lies crookedly and the thread work was really clumsy (hence the washi tape)...but, it's all good. I decided to really have fun with it because there is nothing I can do to mess it up any more than it is.

First I threw a bunch of watercolor at it, using some cheap paint I got at Daiso for $1.50 for 8 tubes. I had fun swirling around the colors and then closing the page to get a mirror imprint. Then noodled around with lettering and using various black liner pens. I had a bit of a scare when I clogged up my new Lamy fountain pen. I should have known better because the cheap paint was very chalky. I did have great success with a really inexpensive Pentel Stylo.

I'm getting back into the Little Zen Menu prompts from the Facebook group Tangled & Journaled Too.

LZM: FeatherFall/Mooka

LZM: It starts with one small circle  within another circle

This was a mash-up of several prompts including:

watercolor, Zendala String #116, Huggins and Printemps, Joki, Cruffle and Dark

YogaCat
🐾😼❤

 Thanks so much for stopping by! Your thoughtful and generous comments delight and inspire me😉

Diva Challenge #342 and other stuff...

Diva Challenge #342 

Duo Tangle featuring "Paradox" and "Bunzo"

I had this idea early on in the season to do a series on eco-printed tiles and they've been looking a bit like cosmic gardens. "Paradox" was a challenge to this idea but after taking a  peek at Margaret Bremner's blog post on Paradox, I was determined to make it work. I always have trouble shading Paradox to my satisfaction and I can't say I'm all that crazy about the results but, true to Zen form, I enjoyed drawing this.

One Travelling Tangle this week:

My finish...

...to this fun start by Annmarie Slaby

I finished my concertina sketchbook:

I'm really proud of myself for attempting and sticking through this. This type of drawing was so far out of my wheel house but as with anything you just gotta make the time and practice, practice, practice. I really liked this format and I'm gonna do one of these again, but next time use it to it's full potential of seamlessness and more panorama drawings. I really had a good time with this and learned so much.

Today I've been home nursing a cold and I made my next sketchbook, trying Coptic binding (following this tutorial on the Sea Lemon You Tube channel). This is my second attempt making a  bound sketchbook and I have to say I've impressed myself with the improvement.

This is a 4 x 6 inch book

bound in a landscape format

Front

I used pages from a Crate and Barrel holiday catalog

to cover the cardboard covers

I really loved these photographs
and there was no text in the way;-)

Back

the catalog pages were pretty thin 

so the paper wrinkled from the gluing process

Inside the covers

I used a sheet of paper from a Disneyland Hotel notepad

I like how flat the pages lay

Aimee's not impressed

Thanks so much for stopping by. Your thoughtful and generous comments delight and inspire me 😉