Sunday Sketches and Faces #15 and #16

Since I have been sketching faces, I finally have something with which to join in Sunday Sketches with Blue Chair Diary

These two faces are from a mini-challenge that Ileana gave on her blog - to try to capture Elizabeth Taylor. Here are my two tries (and the photo inspiration).

#15 - pastels

#16 - Paint pens

Photo inspiration

Didn't quite get her - but it was fun to try! I'm looking forward to visiting everyone over the next few days! 

Have a great week.

Sunday Sketches - Sketching with Sharpies

I started (another) new journal this week - a little Strathmore Visual Journal to create "Sharpie" art. I first saw Sandy Coleman use Sharpies to create art and I thought I'd give it a try for Sunday Sketches with Sophia at Blue Chair Diary.

Skipping the pencil and just playing with the pens. here are a few that I have done so far...

"Psychedic Joy"

(that lighter yellow is the green below - odd the colours didn't scan better)

"Ribbit"

I'm finding these fun so far! Hope you have a great day and I will visit when I can which may be a bit late if it is as gorgeous a day as forecast!.

Sunday Sketches and Days 25 AND 26 of 29 FACES

Time for Sunday Sketches with Sophia of Blue Chair Diary! And since I have continued to work on my face sketches for Ayala Art's 29 Faces in February, I actually have something to show this week...

First up is another in my Scientist Series:

Marie Curie by EVA 

This next one I sketched just using watercolours but no pencil - but I really messed up the amount of water and damaged the paper where I was trying to add shading.         :(          Oh well - this is all a learning experience!

I'll be dropping by throughout the day to see your sketches. Have a great day!

Sunday Sketches and Day 12 of 29 FACES

For Sunday Sketches with Sophia, today I have another in my scientist series of faces that I am intermingling in my 29 Faces in February with Ayala Art. I'm trying to get used to adding shading to my sketches...

The "Green Revolution" in agriculture was largely started by this Nobel award winning scientist:

Norman Borlaug by EVA

Will be by later to visit you!

Sunday Sketches and my New FACES Sketchbook

One of the things I wanted to do more of this year was sketch faces. It's now July! Oops! But I am finally getting started - inspired by faces from old Vanity Fair magazines.

Can you guess who she is?

Advertising cologne...

Hope all the Sunday Sketching with Blue Chair Diary participants are well! I will be visiting you soon.

Sunday Sketches - The Canada Geese go for a Stroll

I have finally started my new sketchbook/journal "Walking in my World" based on things I see when out for a walk and loosely inspired by Julia Cameron's Walking in this World: The Practical Art of Creativity. I haven't really started the exercises in this book and guess I won't for awhile as a friend wants me to do The Artist's Way with her, so that will come first. In the meantime though I will go with my interpretation of the title and sketch things I see when walking.

This week I had a lovely walk around a small island in the middle of the river. Lots of ideas for further pages! To start off, here is a Mother (Canada) Goose and her chicks walking in their world... for Sunday Sketches with Sophia at Blue Chair Diary.

watercoloured

original sketch

new sketchbook/journal cover

Hope you have a great Sunday! I look forward to visiting you!

Sunday Sketches- Let Me In!

Playing around with pencil and index cards for Sunday Sketches with Blue Chair Diary and Daisy Yellow's ICAD and this is what came out...

At first I thought she might be being arrested. But now I think she is locked out and is pounding on the patio door after a late night swim in the pool. What do you think?

I will be tackling weeds and edging today (unless it rains) so I may take awhile to visit all of you but eventually I will! Hope you have a great Sunday!

***

Oh!!!! And in other news.....after I don't know how many years of nary a flower - my rhododendron finally bloomed!! Yay!!

Isn't it gorgeous?! I'd even forgotten what colour it was.

And my wisteria bloomed too - rare for it, but it has happened. This time it was almost invisible - where the wisteria has shot away from its fence and intertwined itself with the green smoke tree on the other side. (Crazy wisteria.)

Great to see a flower finally (on one of 5 plants) even if I almost missed it!

Sunday Sketches and Creative Tuesdays - Four Seasons Tree

Sundays seem so busy lately and I have been missing Sunday Sketches with Sophia of Blue Chair Diary! So this week I wanted to get back on track. I was thinking about the seasons recently and how we may have skipped one! Spring never seemed to come here or if it did it was so rainy that it was hard to notice. And yesterday felt like full on summer. (Yay!) Any decent day - the garden (and the weeds) call and I need to be outside working instead of inside on my computer. I did however make some time one rainy day and played with Creative Tuesday's (which I have also been missing lately) theme of "tree". I thought it might be fun to try my own variation of the Four Seasons Tree:

I have also been working on my pointillism tree painting (which if you're joining in at Paint Party Friday you've already seen).

WIP - Pointillist Tree

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's effort at Sunday Sketches and Creative Tuesdays but it may take me until the evening or when the forecasted rain arrives (sigh) to visit!

Sunday Sketching - Ideas Flying at Me

When I was on a plane last week, I was reading Stephen Pressfield's new book Do the Work (free on Kindle! Pressfield is great at helping with all the "resistance" that inhibits artists of any kind from producing well) and at one point I just felt compelled to stop and take out a pencil and start sketching. 

All kinds of ideas flying my way. (As always double-clicking shows off pencil work better.)

I'm not sure what more I'm going to do with this but I suspect I will redo it in my journal and paint it. (I drew it in my travelling moleskine journal and I really don't like the paper quality.) And then I will likely write thoughts on it too.

Hope you all had a great few weeks of Sunday Sketches while I was away! Happy Mother's Day!!

Sisterhood of the Travelling Sketchbook

For the next year and a bit, I am participating in the Sisterhood of the Travelling Sketchbook. It is a sketchbook round robin - our books travel monthly to the next participant and then we get our original book back at the end. Each month the "theme" is that month so it will be easy to remember! But the first spread is about one's self and a colour that has meaning at the moment. 

I thought I would show you my page spread and my sign-in page for this week's Sunday Sketches with Blue Chair Diary before it leaves for Australia to meet Nicola!

Sign in page (inspired by my favourite book!)

My colour page spread - purple inspired

Close-up views:

Page 2 (hat related to Word of the Year)

 Page 3 - A quote I love and favourite friend

Looking forward to seeing everyone's efforts for Sunday Sketches!

Sunday Sketches - more Mexican Sketchbook

I have been sketching a fair bit this week  - preliminary sketches/ideas for paintings, self portraits for an art journal cover and sketchbook pages - but for Sunday Sketches with Blue Chair Diary I thought I'd show a page from my Mexican Sketchbook that I am happy with. (Well I am actually loving the whole thing but I won't show it all today.)

This bird was fascinating to watch. I took several photos as I was watching him and was very impressed when he caught two fish at the same time!

Here are a couple more - the view from our balcony (sans basketball court)... not the greatest sketch but you see how pretty the resort was.

And the beach in late afternoon:

There are still some more to show you and about 8-10 more pages in one state or another of progress.  I wasn't sure if bringing art supplies with me on vacation was a good idea or not, but I am so happy I did!

I'm looking forward to seeing what you did for Sunday Sketches!

SPRING!

Wow! What a party! Wasn't sure if I'd get this done after this week's busy Paint Party Friday. I had a silly idea that seemed to cover both Inspiration Avenue's weekly challenge theme of "Hello, Spring" and Mr. Toast's Creative Tuesday bi-weekly challenge theme of "Springtime" .

I was having such fun with it though that I kept on going and here it is in time for Inspiration Avenue, Sunday Sketching with Sophia at Blue Chair Diary and a bit early for Creative Tuesdays!

Initial sketch:

All of these challenges are great fun with such talented artists participating! I'll be visiting them, will you? 

Sunday Sketching - Is Spring Here?

Time for Sunday Sketching with Blue Chair Dairy! I have been longing for Spring and there are some signs of it. But the ONE, the most important sign that Spring is here for me, is my first robin sighting. While I haven't seen one myself (my house and lawn are always the last to lose their snow), I have heard others say they have seen robins.  So for Sunday Sketches, I did this:

(final version)

(preliminary pencil sketch)

Maybe it might bring a robin to my house sooner! I still have some berries even if no worms may yet be accessible! And I think it is also time for my snowman to melt away until next year, so I am also making this my new header.

Looking forward to seeing everyone's sketching efforts!

Sunday Sketches and my Mexican Sketchbook

I'm baaacckkk.... and I missed you, fellow Sunday Sketchers with Blue Chair Diary!

I had a lovely week on the Mayan Riviera and relaxed. I didn't turn on my blackberry or connect to the internet (or the office) once. I did however take some art supplies with me and spent a little time creating a Mexican resort themed Sketchbook. So my submissions today are some of the things I saw when in Mexico. I did do some snorkeling but it was much windier than I expected and there were either yellow or red flags on the beach - no calm water green ones. So not as much snorkeling as I would have hoped for but enough to make me smile and enough to see new (to me) creatures.

Here are a few of my sketches of what I saw:

A Sting Ray sleeping in the sand, partially covered! He was @ 4 feet wide! Saw 3 in different areas!

A charming sea turtle swimming along and grazing on the sea bottom. 

A leopard ray as graceful as a bird in flight. I don't really know if this ray is called that but his spots were very reminiscent of a leopard's.

And these are what I took with me for creating:

New Sketchbook (now about half full now and I have more ideas from the trip to finish it up later this month! More posts with pictures to follow!)

Paints and water brushes (LOVE these brushes!!!)

Pens

I am looking forward to visiting all of you but I have friends visiting from B.C. so I'm not sure how much internet time I will have or when, but visit I will! 

I hope all of you who are interested in painting more will come and paint and party with Kristin and I starting on Friday (March 18th) for our new Paint Party Fridays!!!

We're excited to have you join us!!

xo

EVA

Sunday Sketching - Dreaming of Fishies

One of my favourite activities is snorkeling. Not something I can do much of in the cold white North. It doesn't take much to make me happy, just fishies - even a few Sergeant Majors will do it - however the more the merrier! It has been a while since I have been South and I have been yearning to go again. Finally I've scheduled a week in March on the Mayan Riviera where it sounds like there is good snorkeling off the beach at the resort.  Meanwhile, I dream of....

(Initial Pencil Sketch)

I wasn't around the past few weeks of Sunday Sketching with Sophia at Blue Chair Diary and I have seriously missed all of you and the sketching! I'm looking forward to today's visit! Hope this finds you all well!

Sunday Sketching - Happy Anniversary Sophia!

It's been one year now that Sophia has been hosting Sunday Sketches at Blue Chair Diary! Congratulations Sophia!! I just looked back and the first time I participated was 21March2010. That sketch seems like so long ago!!

My simple sketch seems fitting for your anniversary:

Sophia, yours is my favourite weekly challenge! You have attracted a wonderful group of loving and supportive artists and I always enjoy and look forward to our weekly visits. I have been thinking about its structure a lot as Kristin and I are busy concocting something fun to complement your challenge. (Stay tuned to find out what you've inspired! Details soon!!) IMHO (in my humble opinion), your challenge doesn't need to change at all! All the components work very well!! 

Has it inspired me? Yes! Every week I participate I create something I otherwise wouldn't have. It helped me through the Sketchbook Project as I could work on my efforts for it and be accountable here. The weekly Mr. Linky check-ins are fabulous for ensuring I actually accomplish something!

Has it touched me? Yes! It has introduced me to people I would otherwise never have "met" and I feel like a small part of their lives as they are of mine. I'd never have expected that this sense of community could be created in the blogosphere and it has, especially here. Very enlightening and very touching.

So thank you again for your wonderful Sunday Sketching challenge!! You are the best, Sophia!

(Below are the two simple pencil sketches I worked on today. The bottom was first but the top one was the one that called to be painted and presented! Maybe I'll colour the other later... now must go to grocery store, get ingredients and make chili!)

I look forward to visiting with you all a bit later!

After one late night too many of Porky's dueling banjo....

Farmer Brown said "Enough is enough"!!

Painted Sketch

Initial Pencil Sketch

Kristin recently introduced us to the Dueling Banjo Pigs blog (amazing illustrations - funny, witty and way better than my meager attempt) and since then thoughts of a pig playing the banjo has been invading my brain. (Bizarre) And this is what came to mind. A bit macabre. Am I sick or what?? 

I'm off to see what everyone has done for this week's Sunday Sketching with Sophia at Blue Chair Diary! Have a great day!

Sunday Sketching - The Magical Scarf

I find it bizarre how one word can influence so many sketches! SCARF. Not quite the word you'd think would be inspirational but that it has been! Mr Toast's theme for this week's Creative Tuesday continues to influence my sketches. So for Blue Chair Diary's Sunday Sketches with Sophia, I have another crittter, this time with a magical scarf that is taking him to his heart's desire!

Kristin and I have an idea and we are hoping you would like to play too. Stay tuned! But until we work out the details and make a big announcement, I have a question for you:

Who loves to play with paint? Are you? As much as you'd like?

Will drop by to see your Sunday Sketches soon! Have a great week!

George the Giraffe wasn't so sure about skating after all...

My challenging "I'm sorry I forgot you..." themed Sketchbook Project is finally finished and mailed off to the Art House Co-op in Brooklyn! Yay!! So my Sunday Sketching has lost its forced focus. What to do now? I'm free! (And lost and confused! lol)

Actually, I was inspired by a lot of different challenges this week. First I saw Inspiration Avenue's Weekly Challenge theme of "Colour" (I know the spelling has changed and Americans don't like U(s) but like many Canadians, I do. So while I am usually a meticulous speller, some of my words still deliberately have U's in them).  I immediately thought PURPLE.  My Word of the Year is PROPEL and those two words seem to be meant to go together for me!  

Next I read Mr. Toast bi-weekly theme of "scarf".  Hmm purple scarf... And I always love Sophia's Sunday Sketching, CED2011 and enjoy Dan's Web of Whimsy. This whimsical image of a giraffe attempting to skate started to creep into my mind...

And became much clearer with the addition of the colour PURPLE!! (Dang, that photocopier makes purple look like deep blue!)

This is my submission to all of these incredibly inspiring websites and challenges!! 

One of the things I want to do more of in 2011 is art journaling (and painting - on canvases vs on paper). I am working on an art journal page to help me brainstorm ideas of things that might help propel me forward OR help me to propel others forward. Participating in these challenges is one great way to do that!

I am looking forward to seeing what you have created for one or other of these! If you haven't visited the others, please do. There are great people with wonderfully creative ideas and fabulous art in each of them!

Inspiration Avenue

Sophia at Blue Chair Diary's Sunday Sketches

Mr. Toast's Creative Tuesdays

Whimsical Wednesday

Creative Every Day

What else do you enjoy participating in?

I look forward to seeing what you've been up to creatively!!