While I have come a long way on over a month and half of drawing I still feel I have a long way to go with my art. I would love to incorporate more color and take my drawings to the next level where my art is more artist worthy and less of a doodle. Today’s offering for the daily art/ drawing challenge is one based on shells. At first I was going to do sea shells but came across a picture of a “Giant Turtle and Babies” which I did in a simple pen drawing with highlights of color.
It took me a while to settle on what kind of drawing to do for today’s challenge which if you haven’t guessed by now is rocks. The piece entitled simple “Rocks” comes from a picture I took of a rock formation surrounded by flower I snapped in Montgomery County. I can’t say I am totally enamored with the final effort but I like the overall look.
Today’s challenge was to draw some leaves. I didn’t want to draw just a tree so I decided to draw just a couple of leaves with the city behind. The piece entitled “The Last Leaves of Fall,” looked different in my mind then how it turned out. I drew the piece and then highlighted it with pen and filled in some of the details with colored pencil. I then touched up the picture digitally. Someday in the future I plan to revisit it, maybe redo it in acrylics or pastels.
Fire is the subject of today’s art challenge. I started out drawing the usual lantern but then I thought no. I wanted to do something else so of course I chose a candle but a candle with a special flame. The piece was sketched in pencil then redone in ink and filled in with watercolor and colored pencils. I hope you like it.
Today’s challenge was to draw a rainbow. I went through a number of idea with putting rainbows in different landscape scenes but thought to myself “how usual.” I decided to take a simple pen drawing of a women holding some balloons and add some color. The piece is entitled “Rainbow of Balloons.”
My wife often asks me “Why don’t you finish one picture before you start another one?” My reply to her usually comes out as a philosophical sounding statement, “An artist is as an Artist does…”
What does that mean? Well as an artist when inspiration hits I pick up my pencil or paint brush and let inspiration runs it’s course. Currently I am working on my daily art challenge, a few other odds and end projects and a commission project for a good friend of mine.
I handle all the different projects at once by working on a painted piece, then moving onto another piece of pen and ink, colored pencil or pastel piece while I am waiting for the first piece to dry.
I know a lot of artists can only concentrate on one piece at time. I don’t seem to be able to function that way. Maybe it is my adult ADD or just the fact I love to create up to the point that even when I am not spending time creating works of art I am doodling in pen and pencil. I have come to like many of doodles because they are more spontaneous and are done with less worry about the end result which is why I created my other blog Whoodles.
In the end when someone asks you what are you currently working on simply tell them a lot.
Today’s challenge was to draw or paint a puddle. I will have to do one later. Instead I went one better and did a pen drawing entitled, “The Quiet Pond in Winter.” The drawing is done entirely in pen with a little grey colored pencil highlights.
I saw this picture of a “Bonsai Tree,” and decided I needed to draw it in pen. I was going to color the picture in but when I did it seemed to loose some of it’s character. The colored picture is available to view on my Pinterest page.
I am often asked where I find inspiration for my art. First I consider myself more of an art doodler than a true artist. So with that in mind I just look around and paint or draw whatever tickles my fancy. While this may not help you with finding ideas to paint or draw here are some of the places I have turned to in the past when I got stuck in painter’s block.
1.Repaint a former piece. Take a former piece of art and re-imagine the piece in a different style.
2. Look to the masters. Go the library and get a book of paintings of your favorite artist My favorite is VanGogh. Take a photo or picture of your choosing and try to create a painting the style of the painter.
3. Look to what is today’s source of inspiration for many people, Pinterest. The website is a treasure trove of ideas for art and more. I often find something on the website which catches my eye then I go and try and create a painting or drawing.
4. Look for one of those of those sites like Something to Draw and scroll through the pictures until you find one you feel compelled to reproduce. Make sure the site you pick your photo from is truly a free to use site.
5. Take a road trip. Often times I will get in my car, cell phone in pocket and head out to take some pictures. The main thing when you do this is to just take the pictures and not try to find perfect art. I often find when you do that you miss some pretty cool pictures.
6. Take an art class where you learn something you don’t already know.
7. Find an online list where they challenge you to draw something each day. I am using one of those lists for each month of my drawing challenge. I find these list invaluable because they make me try to and draw things which I would never think of drawing before.
This is only a short list of ways to find inspiration for your drawing or painting. There are many other ways out there. Just Google it and you will find all kinds of ideas.
