Snowy Day in Africa?

Click to animate.

Animated Polar Bear

Yes, it is animated, but you have to click on the photo to see the animation.  It is not animated right there on the page.

5 Digital Versions of One Bear

Original

Cool Colors

Charcoal

Cartoonized

Watercolor

Van Gogh man and leaf monsters

It is very quiet in the blogosphere these days.  I like blogs better than Facebook or tumblr or twitter, but it seems that people are all about the social networking sites these days.   It may not seem like I do like blogging so much, as I haven't posted much at all, but I feel like I am posting to nobody and that defeats the purpose.  I don't know if I'm going to continue blogging, but I may just come around and post once in awhile, just as I have been doing.  So, here is a post, whether anyone is going to read it or not.   First I will post my Van Gogh man (the book is across the room now, so I can't post the actual name of the painting, as that would involve getting up or googling and I appear to be too lazy tonight to do either).  He was done with my Staedtler pens which are fine point, so this is quite different from the Sharpie version that I posted on an earlier date.  I do think that this guy (well, the guy that this guy is based on, anyway) is my favorite of Van Gogh's portraits.  

And next I am going to post my leaf monsters.  When I was out walking one morning, I was crunching through the leaves and thinking about how much I love walking through them and wondering if I could use them for some sort of art project.  I picked some up, brought them home, and inspiration struck.  I love drawing faces on things.  If you look at any of my college notebooks from my undergraduate years (and ridiculously I still have one or two), you will see that I drew eyes and faces all over the margins.  And I see faces in everything--in campfires, in peoples' clothing, on floors, on ceilings, etc...  So, I drew faces on the leaves.  I only had a limited number of leaves, as some shriveled and died before I got to them and were too fragile for me to use.  So, I was limited to three and only ended up liking one of them--the one in the middle.  

So, the one in the middle (we'll call him Goldie Leaf) had to go through a photo shoot of sorts (well more of a scanning) where he got to hang out in Van Gogh's paintings.  I did a bunch, but will only subject you to two of them for now.  

You may recognize the masked man as the source of inspiration for my Staedtler pen sketch.  

And I thought he looked like he belonged in this painting.  He visited the more famous Starry Night painting as well, but I like this one better.  But, upon thinking about it, I might as well post Starry Night with Leaf Monster too as he looks like he is flying.

Whew!  This turned out to be a long post.  

A pen sketch

Hello blog buddies, if there's anybody out there.  I was pet-sitting earlier and wanted to sketch and having the Rembrandt exhibit from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts fresh in my head, I decided to sketch a Rembrandt.  I guess I can call this one Rembrandt after Rembrandt, as it is after a Rembrandt painting of Rembrandt himself.  Not a good likeness, as it was done with a pen, so no erasing, but I rather like it as a sketch.  I am really glad that I made it to the Rembrandt exhibit, despite the crowds that stood in the way of taking a good long look at most of the paintings.  Really, nobody painted portraits like Rembrandt.  He was quite the master.  I was able to get a close look at some of his sketches and etchings (people were more into the paintings) and I really liked that.  As much as I like paintings, drawings and sketches can sometimes be even more interesting (or just as interesting) to look at and they are never appreciated as much.

Contemplative polar bear

Tonight I just have a little sketch to share.  It is another sketch of one of the Como Polar Bears.  It felt good just to do a little graphite sketch.  It is either Buzz or Neil.  I hope it is Neil, as I have already painted Buzz and sketched Berlin.  I don't want Neil to feel left out, as I know he must certainly read my blog.

Buzz and Berlin

OK, here are two polar bear efforts.  As the title says, they are Buzz and Berlin and they both reside at the Como zoo.  Buzz lives there with his brother Neil (or is it Neill?) and Berlin is a temporary resident, as her home in Duluth was flooded.  Anyway, Buzz was done in acrylics and Berlin is an Inktense pencil sketch.  Thanks to jb for letting me use her fantastic photos.  That's all.  Nothing more to say this morning.

Van Gogh Sans Ear... What?

Since I promised myself I would draw this weekend and the weekend is drawing to a close, I just scribbled this out on time.  It is another Sharpie sketch based on a Van Gogh.  One does not have to say a Van Gogh painting in the case of Van Gogh.  One can just say a "Van Gogh."  And my apologies to Vincent--it was just a quick Sharpie sketch after all.











I also wanted to share this, as I love it when I give someone something that I have created and it "sprouts" more creativity.

Artichoke

Well, I thought I would start blogging again so that I would be inspired to draw new things, but since I did work today and I am tired and don't feel much like doing much of anything tonight, I thought I would post an old drawing.  Well, not that old, but something that was drawn after last Halloween (it seems that one of my last blog posts before the latest posts was from last Halloween) and before today....  This is an artichoke.  I love the look of artichokes, but when I buy them, I seem to not know what to do with them.  I did buy one artichoke at the beginning of the summer and it just withered in my refrigerator.  But as for other vegetables (well, maybe fruits in this case--avocados are a fruit, aren't they?), I did make avocado pudding tonight.  It is good but a little bit too chocolatey.  It was very easy to make and I do think I will make it again, but maybe with a bit less cocoa and a bit more vanilla.  My recipe called for one avocado, 1/4 cup of agave nectar or maple syrup, 6 tbsps of milk of some sort (I used coconut milk), 1 tsp of vanilla and 1/4 cup of cocoa.  You blend all of that in the blender and then it's pudding.

The Queen

It seems like the queen has been in the media a lot lately with her Diamond Jubilee and then the Olympics.  Yes, I just know her as the queen, not as a queen of a specific country.  All other queens seem to be less important, don't they?  She is The Queen.  Anyway, why did I draw a picture of the queen, you may wonder?  It was for one of my co-worker's retirement.  She loves the queen and anything British.  And even though it is not an exact likeness, she loved my version of the queen and said she is going to actually frame it, which I found quite amusing.  So, here she is, in all of her royal glory.

New Look

OK, yesterday when I posted, all of my sidebar stuff went down to the bottom of my blog. So, I decided to do a blog redesign and reload everything, etc... But as you can see, my stuff is still on the bottom. Well, the picture (at the moment 2 pictures) is at the bottom--the other stuff isn't there because I removed it. I am going to give up, for now, as it is driving me crazy and I have to get going. My old banner was awful and outdated, so I made a new banner. I may keep this one and I may not. I had it stretched out all along the top, but it was too big and intense. Gigantic, close up yam heads can be a bit frightening. Before I go, here is another Sharpie sketch based on a Van Gogh. I still have a couple more of these that I haven't scanned yet. OK, I just did a preview and my stuff on the bottom seems to have moved to the top. There you will see you can subscribe by e-mail (jb asked about that). I don't know what is going on, but it is odd. I spent all of this time on the template editor trying to fix the problem, when all I had to do is post. Weird.

Edited to add that it did not fix the problem.  When I did a preview of my post, it did, but when I posted, it reverted back to the way it was.  Grumple.

Two Van Gogh Sharpie Marker Sketches

I see my last post was from April 29th. Have I lost the blogging bug? I blogged regularly for several years and seem to have gotten out of the habit. Am I just sick of it or am I just being lazy? Have new forms of social media taken the place of mhy blogging? It's not that I love Facebook so much. I really don't. I am going to try to blog again. Maybe that will stir up my drawing bug again. It's not that I haven't drawn at all, just not as much as in the past. Here are two (well, the title says it all)... I won't repeat myself. I just did these quickly and had fun with them. Obviously you can't erase with Sharpie markers. They are quite permanent. Oh, and I should mention, I do now have a flesh colored Sharpie. My wish came true...

A Blue Elephant...

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Hey faithful blog buddies (if any of you are still out there). It is time to do a new post. It has only been 6 months since my last blog post, after all. I have not been drawing much, I do have to admit. And blogger has completely changed in the meantime. This is a whole new format that I am posting on. We'll see if it actually posts. Anyway, last night I did draw and I produced this elephant that I am still working on. He is not actually blue. I just made him that way in my photo software. I guess I cannot say that I am like the elephant that Dr. Suess is talking about, as I have not been a faithful blogger. Will I continue to blog after this post? Who knows... We'll see.