Altering Photos

I've been playing around with my tablet lately and discovered types of layers in my sketchbook--I didn't realize it had that! So, I did some altered photos of my kiddos for Halloween.

Here are the before and after photos:

My boy, turned into a robot

My 2nd daughter turned into a troll

 My oldest daughter turned into a siren.

Cupcake lover

This is a drawing of a girl who may or may not be totally obsessed with cupcakes. This was me just trying to do my own stuff for a bit and really enjoying not being told what to do! I had fun with the pin-up style hair and making it just as cheesy and fun as I wanted.

Yes, she looks like her cupcake--that was intentional :)

New doodles

 I've been experimenting with the new 2 in 1 tablet / laptop thingie that I got for Christmas. It works pretty well, but has a few glitches. I got it to run photoshop--but there's not enough RAM. Oh well, there's another sketching program on it and I used these two drawings to experiment with the tools and colors and see what I could come up with. I had fun doing it and enjoy the results.

Homage to Tori

This isn't the greatest photo, but this is a drawing I did in pencil and white charcoal of my good friend's daughter, Tori. Tori was diagnosed with a rare disease a year and a half ago and has deteriorated a great deal since that time. She went through a bone marrow transplant in the hopes of stopping the disease, but it didn't work. She was a sunny, cheerful, happy teenager--now she is a happy but nearly comatose girl. It's been a tragedy seeing her fade away before our eyes. I did this for my friend in the hopes of cheering them up and giving them something to always remember her happy smile.

Love you, Tori!

Here is their family's website (they have two other children with the disease and two without it.)
http://www.campbellmld.org/

Swirly inspiration

This one is inspired by another person's doodle. You can find that drawing here: http://daniellemariealdrich.com/Sketchbook

I saw her sketch and just had to figure out how to do those amazing swirls! It was fun to do and a good reminder that I really enjoy drawing. (yes, sometimes I forget)

The Tree of Life--from a new perspective

I was commissioned earlier this year to do a drawing of the Tree of Life. (by earlier I mean at the beginning of the year--I know, this took me way too long)
Anyhow, I finally finished it after countless hours of drawing and lots of agonizing. I've not ever done a landscape drawing before and it was a huge challenge for me.
It turned out exactly how I wanted it to and I'm quite pleased.

Then, Rob did something amazing and found me someone who would do a really high quality scan of it. The scan is amazing and I can even blow up the drawing from the original size of 9.25 x 12 inches to twice that big--maybe more! Then we found a place nearby that will make prints that look amazing--they look like a pencil drawing! It was a truly exciting moment to see my own artwork printed out like that. I felt like a real artist--silly, I know.

Therefore; prints are available! Contact me for pricing. 

Upcycled DVD case = kid's pizza activity

I've been trying to come up with something I can use our old DVD cases for--we have so many of them!
So, I was thinking that my little boy's activity bags would be much more organized if they were inside of cases...
Then I looked for activity bag kits that would fit and my favorite is the pizza. It works perfectly with the DVD case

Here's the how-to.

1.  Cut the center out of the DVD holder. You don't want that part sticking up in the middle.

2.  Put your dough colored felt over the circle and craw a line around the outside. You'll want the dough to go over the lip so the crust sticks up a little. (I've been thinking this would make a cute pie activity too with the crust that sticks up) Then cut it out.

                              (excuse the paint covered hands...we're repainting some rooms)

 3. Glue it on.  Elmer's white glue didn't work at all. Rubber cement worked okay, but it helped a lot if I scratched the surface up with my razor knife first.

4.  Then start cutting out sauce, cheese and toppings.

 I ended up doing 10 different toppings, all different numbers as an added counting bonus :)

they are...
1 sauce; 2 cheeses; 3 green peppers; 4 anchovies; 5 onion slices; 6 pineapple bits; 7 olive slices; 8 mushrooms; 9 sausages; 10 pepperonis

5.  In the side opposite the crust, we are putting the menu--at our house it says: Campbell Pizza Parlor on the cover. Then inside the kids are making up different types of pizzas to go on the menu, like each kids' favorite, the most gross, everything pizza, cowboy pizza, etc.

I didn't realize how much my girls were going to get into this (they're 8 and 11) but they love it even more than my little guy (4). Now I'll have to make a few more and a couple fruit pie ones, too :)

steampunk owl

 This was a church doodle that I did on lined paper in ink. I spent a couple hours trying to remove all the lines--the shortcuts didn't do what they were supposed to. Then I spent a couple more hours coloring it. I love it :) I guess I love all things steampunk anyway, but this one was fun. I didn't agonize over it like I did with the fish, just did it quick and got it done.

Steampunk Fish colored!

Finally finished coloring it! The background gave me fits, I just couldn't get it right and tried several things. I'm quite happy with it overall.

If you'd like a print, let me know. 8x10's are $10.00

Pierrot / Harlequin clown

 So, when I began the sketch, it was with the black-and-white Pierrot clown in mind. I did my own style of ruffles and clothing--everything from my head (it probably would have been better with a reference photo, but oh well) Once I began coloring her, she turned into a colorful Harlequin clown. I'd seen a photo of a clown kissing a ballerina and the colors wouldn't leave my head. Be that as it is, I absolutely love the way the colors turned out! The background color was a happy accident and I learned a bunch more about Photoshop along the way. Thank goodness for that since I'm basically teaching myself how to use it.