Category Archives: art

Journal52 – Week 29

Posted by melydia on February 25, 2017 1 comments

This isn’t an especially good drawing; I just like how the colors turned out.

Journal52 – Week 28

Posted by melydia on February 24, 2017 None comments

My friend’s dog Jasper was dozing under my chair, so I snapped a picture of him to serve as my model. This was more experimenting with fonts. I don’t think of myself as good at lettering, but this was fun.

Journal52 – Week 27

Posted by melydia on February 23, 2017 1 comments

I do a lot of playing with materials in this sketchbook, and I like how this one turned out. I started with a layer of colored pencil (Prismacolor Art Stix), drew the firework shapes with a black marker, then used gel pens (Sakura Gelly Roll) for the color.

Journal52 – Week 26

Posted by melydia on February 22, 2017 1 comments

The prompt was Barefoot and I drew my wonky feet, but when I went to color them, I grabbed a marker that turned me distinctly orange. So I threw some green on there and became The Hulk. As you do.

Journal52 – Week 25

Posted by melydia on February 21, 2017 None comments

I’ve never been very good at drawing bottles or cups, but I liked how the letters turned out.

Mom

Posted by melydia on July 15, 2016 None comments

This is my mother. After seeing how quickly I was able to draw my dead artists and my selfies, she requested that I draw her. Rather than make her stand around for an hour while I figured out her face, I snapped a quick cell phone photo and sat down later to draw.

Most of the reason I like to draw dead artists is because they don’t complain if I make them look wonky. So I was extra careful on this picture, telling myself that if I screwed it up, I didn’t have to show her. But it turned out okay, if I do say so myself. It helps to have such a beautiful model.

More Selfies

Posted by melydia on July 14, 2016 1 comments

Koosje Koene is the master of the selfie sketch. Inspired by her sillier self portraits, I snapped a few quick pics of myself with my cell phone one night and drew one of them:

Does it look much like me? I dunno. Some folks seem to have recognized it. But it sure was fun to draw. A friend asked me to draw a smiling selfie (she said I wasn’t recognizable without a smile, which is sweet of her), so I did:

I overdid the chin a little bit but overall I really like it. But you know I couldn’t leave it at that:

The show through from the next page is pretty bad, but oh well. It’s just a sketchbook. If I cared more I’d take the time to do more post-processing. But too much of that sort of tedium causes me to make this exact face. We try to avoid that in my house.

Trying out Moleskine (again)

Posted by melydia on July 13, 2016 3 comments

Moleskine has long been a favorite among the sketching community, and for a long time I really couldn’t understand why. I’d used loads of their notebooks and frankly, they kind of suck. The paper is extremely thin and smooth, meaning that ink smears and bleeds something terrible.

Not wanting to completely dismiss the brand, though, I picked up one of their sketchbooks and tried it out with my regular art pens. And you know what? It was fantastic. The paper is thick and sturdy with minimal show-through and no feathering. It’s lovely to draw on. I now understand the hype.

So now that’s my purse sketchbook. I was at a party and decided to do a couple of sketches – the hosts’ cat on his kitty tree, and my foot among the assorted detritus of eating and playing video games. Fun times. Maybe this new sketchbook will actually cause me to draw more while I’m out. That’d be nice.

Sketchbook Peek: Manassas Train Station

Posted by melydia on July 12, 2016 None comments

I was wandering downtown Manassas and decided to take advantage of the lovely weather to draw the train station there. I sat in the gazebo across the street, which seems a common location to take photographs. To be honest, I’m notÂ at allÂ happy with this; I’m simply not very good at drawing buildings. But you know what? That’s why we practice.