A not so great little elephant with characteristically scrawny legs...

So, I did squeeze out a small painting tonight. Unfortunately, I'm not overly thrilled with it, but I will post it anyway. The one thing that stands out for me, after painting or drawing several elephants, is that they have incredibly scrawny legs. I wonder how they hold up all of that weight on such scrawny legs? They don't seem wobbly or weakly, so the legs must work fine. But, I would think that they would benefit from legs with a bit more heft.

boy and girl faces

Here are two more face sketches. I did the two of them together in about 20 minutes. I'm trying to not spend much time on them. The boy I developed a bit more with shading, but I wanted to keep the lines on the girl sketch to a minimum (that's actually more difficult). It's so hard when you can't erase. You just have to work with the mistakes and keep on going. I think at the rate that I'm going, I dare to say, unless my enthusiasm peters out, the project should be 50 faces in 50 days. That's what I'll shoot for. I may be back later with a painting, but then again, maybe not. I've already taken my car for an oil change, done the dishes and vacuumed. I think I deserve a bit more play time.

Hope everyone is enjoying the nice weather. I went into work yesterday and said to the people in the break room that it was such a nice day. It was about 58 and cloudy. Most agreed that it was nice, but we there should be a bit of sun too. Yesterday I got my clouds (it has been sunny so much this summer--let a cloud lover have a day or two of shade) and today they got their sun. I do have to say I do even like this sun. Balance is always good.

Faces #1 and 2

As I said, fall appears to be here. Even though I know summer could come back any moment, with its sunny disposition and easy to please, uncomplicated nature, I am going to take full advantage of fall this week, and start a new project. Yes, fall is the time for projects, isn't it? Anyway, I would call this a Face Per Day, but I don't think I can stick to something like that even though I can be fairly disciplined when I want to be. Maybe a few faces per week would be a more workable goal. I just want to do this because I have felt very rusty when I have attempted portraits lately, so I want to sketch and try to lose the rust. Anyway, these are going to be quick sketches, mostly with a pen, just to loosen myself up and get a feel for faces. It won't just be human faces, even though I'm going to focus on them, so animals will be part of it. As these are quick sketches, I will still be posting whatever else I am working on. There is this painter who has a painting per day blog and has lately been posting faces that she has been painting of mugshots. They are really interesting and I suppose the photos are public domain, but I will not be using mugshots. Anyway, this is face # 1 and it was about a 5 minute sketch. Not very lovely, but it was quick and loose and I enjoyed it.

Edited to add, now that I think about it, what I am going to do is work towards a specific number of faces. How about 50 Faces? 50 Faces in two months?

Edited to add another face. I guess this guy thinks he is Jack Sparrow.

Blue rhinos on a cloudy afternoon

I have been fairly prolific this month so far, especially compared to last month. I even have a couple of things I have done that aren't scanned yet. It's the taste of fall in the air. Fall is a time when the creative urges really come a callin'. As everyone here knows, I heart fall.

These guys are fairly small and as you can see, are monochromatic. They're not bad, but they could be better. I just feel stuck as far as painting goes. I think I need to look through some books and study techniques. I tend to not like to do that, but I think it would help. I like to just dive in willy nilly. Who wants to read the instructions?

I'm now feeling the urge to bake some brownies, but I would have to go out and get a mix for that. I have flour, cocoa, sugar, etc, but not baking powder or soda and I'm sure one or the other is needed to bake them from scratch. I never have those two items in the house. In fact, I've probably never ever bought baking powder. I guess I can live without them. It's not like if I did bake them that I would eat them all. I'd bring them to work tomorrow, but I'd probably stuff at least a couple of them in my mouth today, I am very much enjoying not laboring on this Labor Day. Although I'm sure we'll pay for it tomorrow, with the library being a madhouse and all. People can't handle it when the library is closed for a day and we always end up suffering for it the next day.

Edited to add, wow, I actually found a recipe for brownies that doesn't call for baking powder, so I guess I'll be making brownies after all!

Edited again to add that the brownies turned out great.

One more edit, just so I can link this fun little thing to play with.

Two portraits, one leonine...

I'll let you guess which one...



I started drawing the lion yesterday, but then today felt like drawing a person, so I went through the wetcanvas photo archives looking for a photo with character and found a photo of this man. It says in the description that he's a railroad worker. How about those ears? As I've said before, it's always a little strange just picking a photo of a stranger to draw. I'm sure he has no idea that someone has been studying his face tonight. But then again, hopefully the photographer let him know that his image was going to be added to the wetcanvas photo archive. In that case, maybe he does sometimes think "oh, maybe someone is drawing me right now."

In other news, right now I'm starving. All I've had today is a couple of small pieces of bread and a tomato. I've been busy all day long (not just drawing) and just kind of kept forgetting to eat. I am going to have to scrounge for something now. No more bread though. I ate it warm from the oven (yes, I said oven. I just used the bread machine for the dough this time and baked it myself) and ended up with a bread tummy ache. That might be the more logical reason why I haven't eaten much today.

The rhino mania merchandise is now available...

I've been waiting for this, but too bad everything is so expensive. Also they have to come all the way from the UK.

From whimsical electronic drawings to very serious gorillas in graphite

You may recognize these guys as gorillas I have drawn before, but this one is from a slightly different shot. I was very interested in the way the gorilla on the left is studying his/her hands(even though the right hand gorilla's face is more of the focal point). I've been working on these guys for a couple of days and they're 11x14, so I couldn't scan the entire drawing. I had to cut off much of the gorilla on the right, but I kind of like the crop anyway.

I slept for 10 hours last night. It seems that since I've been home from vacation, I've been out doing things constantly and then I had to work yesterday, so I was zonked last night. I actually fell asleep at about 10:00. And yes, even night owls have to swallow our pride and do this once in awhile. So, I shouldn't be able to say that I'm sleepy, but I kind of am. I think it's the mixture of the weather and the idea that I have to go to work. But I will probably wake up a bit when I actually do get up off the couch. Have been reading and computing (with a tiny exercise break) all morning.