art journal

Made With Human Intelligence

| terriaw

There’s a protest going around on social media apps who recently announced they are going to use artists’ content to train their AI.

Beth Spencer of @bethspencerart recently initiated a cool prompt to artists to draw in our style (#dtiys) our own badge to represent what “Made with human intelligence” means to each of us.

I filled up a page of thumbnail sketches in my sketchbook; a few I love, and some I don’t love.

I tried to think of things I love to draw and things that represented humanity and artists sketching and learning and practicing.

My two favorites are the sketchbook of butterfly drawings and the mountain landscape.

If you’ve read my blog for awhile you’ll notice that I prefer to do my illustrations with traditional mediums because I sit in front of a computer screen all day for my day job, so drawing with a pencil or paintbrush on an actual piece of paper feels good for my soul!

A Day in Life

| terriaw

I strive to make more time to draw everything in my sketchbook, everything in the course of a day that brings me joy or inspires me.

I love to draw these collages of things that captured my attention, like the crow that keeps visiting our birdbath to dunk his bread, or the crab apple blossoms on the trees blooming all over town this time of year, or the lady walking her cute dog who kept looking back for the next treat, or the adorable little groundhog foraging through the meadow behind my office.

In this recent sketchbook spread, I wanted to remember the red-winged blackbirds singing in that same meadow, the goldfinches who are very busy in spring, the sandhill cranes who have returned from their migration trips, the daffodils blooming throughout my gardens, the forsythia’s mix of yellow blooms alongside early green leaf buds, and the many red admiral butterflies I see on my walks.

I’m also working on character sketches for several new stories so I cherish being able to sneak in drawings like these for the practice, the memories, and the simple chance to lose myself in a moment from the day.

Painting Textures and patterns

| terriaw

I’ve been having fun experimenting with textures, patterns and scenes in my sketchbook lately.

Some of my scraps were fun to turn into a sunrise, sunset, clouds floating through the sky or a winter scene.

Water is one of my favorite things so I loved painting water scenes like this bookmark and postcard.

Sometimes I just like to spread around lots of paint and turn the page into something cool with a few marks using white gouache.

I really enjoy this process of making art where there’s no pressure and no destination, just meditatively dipping my brush into water and then paint and swirling into onto the page. It’s also fun to have a few pieces going at the same time so I can keep going while waiting for one to dry.

Enchanting Series at the Creek

| terriaw

I had fun brainstorming and painting these sketchbook pages in February, which make great postcards, or might be cool for illustrations for a picture book or kidlit book covers.

These three paintings are sunrise, sunset and twilight at the creek.

I also painted this winter scene called Deer at the Cabin in February, inspired by the little bit of winter we had.

I painted all of them in a Hahnemuhle A5 Watercolor sketchbook with Winsor Newton watercolor set, and printed them on cardstock for to test as postcards.

I love making art in a series like this, enchanting nature scenes with a few animals, so I look forward to dreaming up more.

Characters with Pets

| terriaw

I’m having fun continuing to practice, practice, practice drawing people and illustrating characters. Lately, I’ve been adding a little buddy to each of my characters, which just adds that little extra sparkle to a character’s personality and the sketchbook page.

I am also really loving working with colored pencils these days. Most of my illustrations over the years have been graphite, ink and watercolor, so it feels like trying this medium is really expanding my illustration skills.

Animal and Nature Art Series

| terriaw

I completed a lot of drawing and illustration projects in 2016. It’s fun to see my best nine on Instagram, based on the number of likes, which includes some tiny art, animal art, watercolor experiments, and black and white drawings from my moleskin sketchbook.

best nine 2016

I completed 44 weekly animal art illustrations (not all shown here), which is wonderful to look through. I learned a lot about drawing animals and page composition, and I had fun experimenting with a variety of watercolors.

October animal art series img_6106 August animal art freshwater fish animal art sketchbook wildflowers and pollinators week 26 animal art nature June animal art series Animal Art Series May birds animal art weeks 13-16animal art weeks 9-12animal art weeks 5-8 animal art weeks 1-4

I loved working on this weekly animal art project in 2016, and my daily doodle in 2015, so I’m not sure what to do in 2017 for a daily drawing challenge. Cheers to a better year in 2017!

Terri

Black and White Sketchbook Pages

| terriaw

It’s been nice to get reacquainted lately with one of my favorite things to do, drawing black and white illustrations in my moleskin sketchbooks with my favorite mechanical pencil and a Micron pen.

I finished the last page in my recent sketchbook (above), and started a new one (below).

In looking through my last few sketchbooks, I discovered I like to go big on the first page. I used to have such a phobia for messing up that first page!

I managed to squeeze in a little coffee shop sketching around the holidays.


Happy drawing!

Terri