April recap

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

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

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

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!

December Art

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.

Characters with Pets

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.

Character Development

I came up with a new illustration project that it would be fun to draw ancestors on my family tree so I’ve been practicing drawing people using the weekly photo prompt provided by @housecatillustration.

I’ve also been practicing using colored pencils which has been a nice break from my usual watercolor illustrations.

When I first noticed the character drawing prompt photos on Instagram, I was intimidated and apprehensive to try. Now I have become obsessed with drawing people and characters!

Hello December

Hello December! Lots of nature experiences and inspirations this month for my sketchbook art and storytelling.

A few years ago, I created a daily doodle project where I set up a monthly grid, illustrated a seasonal border, hand-lettered the month and days, and filled in the squares with nature doodles and tiny illustrations.

It’s one of my all-time favorite personal illustration projects I’ve ever done. The best part is I frequently refer to these pages for inspiration. I’m planning to use these little spot illustrations to create larger illustrations and prompts for my character design development, vignettes and storytelling.

There are so many wonderful stories to tell from this month of doodles!

Earth Day Art

I recently painted these thumbnail illustrations with Earth Day in mind. This is the 51st anniversary!

The themes for my inspiration were protect (forests and oceans), energy (water and solar), biodiversity (butterflies), reduce and reuse (green), voice (water, which is one of my favorite things in life) and the Planet Earth. I think these designs would make fun stickers!

Last year I illustrated this page in my sketchbook, which could be a fun t-shirt design.

A few years ago I designed an infographic poster to show the migration of monarch butterflies in an effort to educate and create awareness about the fragility of butterflies.

I would love to create more Earth Day-themed art for my portfolio. And I’m always looking for more ways to be sustainable and environmentally friendly. How do you recognize and celebrate Earth Day?