Toad in a Boat

It’s time for Sunday Sketches! I worked on my add-on drawing some this week. I just kept my box of colored pencils on the floor next to the sofa and each evening, if I wasn’t too tired, I added a little something before bed. I’m having a really busy weekend and falling behind on my sleep so it will probably be Monday before I make the PPF and SS rounds but I am anxious to see what everyone has been up to, since I missed last week..

It’s Paint Party Friday and I am actually  putting in an appearance this week, unlike last week. Unfortunately, the painting is still not finished. The flower needs more work but it is still too wet to take more paint so you are getting the WIP this week. I don’t know why this one is giving me so much trouble but honestly I’m about tired of looking at it. I think I’m having trouble because she isn’t a real person but just out of my head. Anyway, it will need a title but nothing occurs to me. Please leave title suggestions my dears!

Tam over at Willowing/ is having a Big Massive give away to celebrate over 5000 members in her ning group. She is giving away lots of prizes, including her own art prints, access to the self study groups, and even a place in her new Life Book course. Head on over there to get the details and enter! If you aren’t already a Willowing member, the membership is free.

I just realized it’s been over a week since I posted here. I’m in the middle of some DIY projects for the house. Most of the painting I’ve been doing has been painting shelves, frames, ect. and not paintings but I have done a bit of that, too. This is Patty. She isn’t new but I haven’t shown her here before and frankly, I’ve got to get that ugly cow below to scroll down so I don’t have to keep looking at it, LOL. Patty is much prettier, I think.

I did work a little bit on my oil painting. Here’s a tiny snippet of that to the right, just to show I have made some progress. The frog has put in his appearance. It’s wet so there is a glare. Hopefully, the whole thing will be ready to photograph by Friday for this week’s PPF.

This week’s Summer of Color theme is Brown and the bonus is a pop of color. Matilda here is all gussied up today because the new bull is due to arrive. I sketched her in my regular sketchbook and then painted her with watercolor but the watercolors just weren’t working right for me today. Brown is not really a watercolor kinda color, LOL. So I scanned the painting and painted right over it digitally with GIMP. Still not great but better than the mess I had before.

I recently got the book, Keys to Drawing with Imagination by Bert Dodson. It’s really interesting. It isn’t a how to draw book, but a book with exercises to help you be more creative in your drawing. One of the exercises is called an add on drawing. You just add a new drawing or doodle to the same sheet of paper each day until the paper is full. You don’t worry about relative size or perspective and you let the images overlap. The idea is that it is easier to think of one small thing to draw each day than to think of 20 things all at once. I started this little drawing this week and have been adding one thing each evening before bed. The weird white thing in the center is a bird skull but since some of the beak is hidden behind the lizard it is hard to tell on the scan. These are colored pencil on brown kraft paper.
If you have some time, check out all the other Sunday Sketches participants. It’s always fun to see what everyone is working on.

Happy Paint Party Friday! Just playing around while waiting for the oil painting to dry so I can work on it again. This is mixed media on a catalog page. It’s a self portrait, but my nose isn’t that big! At least, I hope not. It’s not great but I really enjoy working on these catalog pages with the watercolor and gesso. It’s a lot of fun to  just play and see what will happen. This one has a good bit of graphite in the background, too. Adds a nice grungy look.

I’m still enjoying Carla Sonheim’s Drawing Lab so for this week’s Sunday Sketches I drew a little imaginary animal on some junk mail, adding gesso and watercolor. This was done on a page from a Serena & Lily catalog. I gessoed up a few pages so I’d have a few on hand. Carla will be having some online classes in August and I’d love to take one. I’ll have to wait and see.