Thursday, April 25, 2013

Sketch... Summer Sexy

Summer's going to end soon... Enjoy it while it's still here!  =^.^=


Yummy pastry...  with custard filling and blueberry topping!

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Sketch... Sunshine-y Summer Day!

Summer...  Don't you just love it?!  The sun is sunshiney-day sunny, the sky is blue of the blueist of blues...  Hear the ocean waves?  They're calling you, come play with them they say...  But if you can't swim, stay in the kiddie pool! ;-)


Monday, April 15, 2013

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Sketch... Endless Summer!

Yay for Summer!  Those wonderful few months when things slow down and people here go into that leisure mode.  Time to hit the beach or the pool!    =^.^=

Loving this summery song by Oceana - Endless Summer...  Really fun music video - loving the song, the beat, the colors, the fun fashions, the dance choreography... everything!  

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Illustration... Colored Pencil Magazine contest entry...

Update (12/17/2013):  Joined the art challenge again, for the month of November.  Still didn't win, but it's okay with me. Always fun to take part in it, especially if it's for a portrait challenge photo!  Hope the next portrait challenge photo will be soon, can't wait to join again...  Anyway, clickie-clickie (here) to see my recent November art challenge entry... =^.^=

Joined the Colored Pencil Magazine's Monthly Art Challenge contest for March...  First time ever to join an art contest since art school!  The fun part was you have complete creative freedom with your entry as long as there is still some semblance of the reference photo provided.  The reference photo for the March challenge is by Sally Ford.  Materials I used are Canson 9" x 12" watercolor paper,  a mix of Derwent and Faber Castell watercolor pencils and an 8B graphite pencil.  And yeah, I deliberately left out the eyes, as usual... ;-)


I decided not to make my sketch look like the reference photo.  Initial rendering with a light grey color... got this tip from one of the CPM's fb posts.  Grisaille technique I think it's called... Maybe the grey wasn't dark enough.  Anyway, gave it a wash with a wet finger.  Could have used a brush, but using your hand/finger is just more fun and produces a different effect - soft and textured.

Here I added some light brown for the skin, a base of blue for the hair and layered on a darker brown... building on my color layers...  Each color layer gets its own wash.  

After the washes, I gave the color and shading a bit more definition with the more colored pencils  but without any more washes.  A final touch was with an 8B graphite pencil for the darkest darks, smudge it a bit to give the colors a slight "aged" tone...  

Monday, April 8, 2013

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Sketch... Hello again, Summer!

Meow there, Summer!  Nice to see ya again!  How ya been?!  =^.^=

A cute, little purple summer shorts with polka dot trim... 

Monday, April 1, 2013

Sketch... Easter bunny

Meow there!  Happy Easter Sunday!  Well, to some of you... It's already Monday here...and April Fool's Day as well!  Uh-oh...  No pranks, pleaseeeeeeeeeeee!  =^.^=

This is my take on the Easter bunny girl... A bit of Anime/Manga inspired look.  

The proportion's a bit off since I freehanded the sketch...
(without the 9-1/2-heads guide)