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April recap

| terriaw

In April I continued participating in weekly character prompts, including a guy skateboarding with his furry pals, girl smiling for the camera, and a girl chilling out with her kitty cat, using photo prompts provided by @housecatillustrations.

I went for a walk in a park near my office for a lunch break and came across a great horned owl feather, a pearl crescent butterfly and lots of violets in the grass – a lovely spring day – so I filled up a page in my sketchbook. I finally got a new computer so I can scan my illustrations and Photoshop them again. I used this illustration to test a new art print/postcard.

I watched a replay of one of Sarah Von Dongen’s Patreon live drawing sessions with floral photos for inspiration . I used to draw flowers a lot but I’ve been focusing on drawing people and animals so much lately. This was a really relaxing page to work on.

I continued to practice drawing faces and portraits in the month of April, and finally started life drawing, which was quite fun. I have a lot of unfinished sketches in progress with lots of ideas in-the-works that I hope to share soon.

So many ideas to illustrate, never enough time!

March recap

| terriaw

In March I continued to have fun participating in weekly character prompts, including two girls sipping drinks in a magical garden, a sparkly lady ready to go dancing, a fella and his doggie out for a bike ride, and three ladies enjoying coffee on a park bench, using photo prompts provided by @housecatillustrations.

I participated in a zoom live drawing session recently and the challenge was to draw famous masterpieces. I was intimidated at first so I just dove in with the Mona Lisa first, which was so much fun that I couldn’t stop so I kept going with a few more famous portraits.

I dreamt up this fun fashionista character sheet full of accessories that could tell his story.

I’m always practicing drawing people in action so it was fun to fill up this page with people golfing.

I also filled up a couple more pages with water and woods wildlife characters.

So many ideas to illustrate, never enough time!

February recap

| terriaw

In February I had fun participating in weekly character prompts, including a sharp-dressed man, a garden girl, a girl and her lil pig, and two fellas who love butter, using photo prompts provided by @housecatillustrations.

I illustrated this girl rockin her green jumpsuit with her poodle rockin a matching green bow, using a photo reference from @sarahvandongenillustrations Patreon.

I’m close to filling up a sketchbook, working on finishing a few spreads. I illustrated these sharp-dressed guys in three-piece suits, which I don’t see too often in real life anymore.

And I had fun illustrating this page of portraits of famous people from history.

I have been practicing mixing paints for a variety of skin tones so I prepped a few pages in my sketchbooks to practice drawing more faces and fun portraits.

So many ideas to illustrate, never enough time!

January recap

| terriaw

January characters

In January I had fun participating in weekly character prompts, including a neon girl, a boy with his bread basket, a colorful woman at a cafe, and playing dress-up to read a children’s book, using photo prompts provided by @housecatillustrations.

I illustrated a few more characters using photo references from @sarahvandongenillustrations Patreon.

I’m close to filling up a sketchbook, working on finishing a few spreads I started last fall. I’ve been drawing people so much lately so this spread of animals from water to woods was fun to do, using a variety of media from gouache to watercolor and colored pencils.

So many ideas to illustrate, never enough time!

Plans for 2023

| terriaw

I love making lists instead of resolutions so I made this list of things I want to work on in 2023.

Illustration Side Gig:

  • Storytelling and Picturemaking– create illustrations and pictures that are more vignette-oriented with interesting scenes or dynamic compositions.
  • Cafe sketching – go on location and practice drawing in cafes or live drawing. A bonus for this goal would be to find some local sketching friends to get together with.
  • Family tree – illustrate portraits of my family and ancestors. I also want to do some character sheets of a few family members.
  • Submit portfolio – to find an agent or publisher for freelance illustration work.
  • Binge art day – block off one day a month to binge making art.
  • Improve sketching – do more mind map brainstorming, use more vibrant colors, add personal things to illustrations, do more loose sketching.
  • If there’s time, create a character a day for Advent season.

House:

  • We need to replace the fence in our backyard
  • I want to build a garden shed or greenhouse in the backyard, ideally to double as an outdoor art studio)

Finances: Save!

Travel:

  • Be a tourist more, get out more, locally and beyond.
  • Renew passport in preparation for a dual citizenship application.

Finally, I want to celebrate life more! Cheers to 2023!

2022 Recap

| terriaw

I went through my photo library from 2022 to find the good moments, and there were a lot considering it was a weird year.

I filled up a lot of sketchbooks and made a lot of art. Looking back through my sketchbook art, I always wish I made more art but I am excited to finally be drawing people! Here’s my top nine according to Instagram:

Here’s some of my own personal favorites, some duplicates with my Instagram friends:

I am so grateful I got to travel to Naples, Florida early in the year for some rest and relaxation and one of my favorite things – beach time. I also got to spend time at the lake house on Lake Michigan in Door County and go on a few adventures close to home. If I had to pick some of my favorite adventures from this past year, I would choose these top nine, and some fun nature photos below that:

My dad unexpectedly passed away this year which was tough so I’m happy to have found some good moments that made me happy. Cheers to 2023!

December Art

| terriaw

Art Challenge from December was #Advent_Challenge2022.

I love making Christmas art and I went more playful with this year’s challenges.

12/1 Christmas Dinner – I illustrated a fox and a bear wearing their Christmas sweaters, sharing hot cocoa under a starry sky with mixed-media – gouache, colored pencils and gold ink.

12/7 Surprise Visit – St. Nick stopped by to make sure you’ve been good this year.

12/13 Grandparents – portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Polar Bear in their Christmas sweaters.

12/19 Elf – a fox and a bear wearing their Christmas sweaters and elf hats, decorating a tree under a wintery sky.

12/25 Snow globe – Peace on Earth from a snowy gingerbread house.

I had a lot of fun with last year’s Advent Challenge so I was excited to participate again this year.

Hope you’re enjoying a festive holiday season! I will be back soon with my year-end recap.

November to December

| terriaw

November Recap:

In November I had fun participating in weekly character prompts, including a Girl in the hollow, Croissant girl, old guy reading in cafe, folktale girl, using photo prompts provided by @housecatillustrations.

I challenged myself to practice drawing more critters and people including, semi-blind contour continuous line drawings which was more fun than I thought it would be.

Art Challenge from November was #Folktale2022 week.

I didn’t read folktales or fairy tales as a kid – my mom thought they were too scary. Since I’ve been focusing on practicing drawing people, I decided to interpret each prompt word through a character:

I tried to limit myself to a small color palette with henna, peach, taupe, brown and midnight.

11/14 Fool – He dances with a head fully of silly wishes.

11/15 Tree – The enchanted forest can be a magical but ominous place.

11/16 Star – Make a wish upon a star!

11/17 Rebel – She is adventurous and fierce

11/18 Costume – Don’t let her beauty deceive you.

11/19 Potion – This apothecary has a flair for making magical potions.

11/20 Victory – Let the trumpets sound!

Art Challenge for December: #Advent_Challenge2022

Prompts are:

12/1: Christmas dinner

12/7: Surprise visit

12/13: Grandparents

12/19: Elf

12/24: Snow globe

I had a lot of fun with last year’s Advent Challenge so I’m excited to participate again this year.

Plans for December: 

I want to continue to do weekly character illustrations but I want to improve my compositions and keep putting them in scenes.

I still haven’t found time to try figure drawing so I’m keeping that on my to-do list. And I want to draw people in motion more than in static poses where they’re just standing or sitting on my pages.

And I also want to find some local sketch friends, people who like to draw who are interested in meeting every week or every other week to sketch together.

October to November

| terriaw

Recap:

In October I had fun participating in weekly character prompts, including a Rainy day walk, A girl and her rooster, Gal pals, and Halloween cat in a hat using photo prompts from @housecatillustrations

For the month of October, I challenged myself to fill a sketchbook page with scary/scared faces with just a dark wash graphite pencil, which was quite fun. I love how this turned out!

I also managed to fill a few more sketchbook pages with my constant practicing of faces and critters.

New Tips and Techniques:

I learned from Greenleaf Blueberry to mix phthalo blue with brown ochre paints to make a variety of robin’s egg-themed colors. It’s always fun to mix colors and I adore these new combinations so I need to find the right character or story to use these.

For fun:

We went on a couple local hiking adventures.

We had a autumn soiree, a backyard party with hot apple cider, stew and pie in a cup around a cozy bonfire.

Plans for November:

#Folktale2022 Week Challenge:

I didn’t read folktales or fairy tales as a kid – my mom thought they were too scary. I won’t be ready or have enough time to participate in this year’s #Folktale2022 challenge to illustrate a story with the word prompts: 11/14 Fool, 11/15 Tree, 11/16 Star, 11/17 Rebel, 11/18. Instead, I’m going to make time to learn more about folktales and figure out how to approach the challenge with a few story ideas I have brewing for my illustration style.

To Do: 

I want to continue to do the weekly character illustrations but I want to improve my compositions and start putting them in a scene.

I also want to finally try live figure drawing.

We will be hosting a small dinner party with family on Thanksgiving and we’re planning to go hiking once or twice. We will also be celebrating my birthday later this month.

Cheers to a productive and creative October and here’s to a happy and grateful November!