Another month of creativity, focusing on my own ideas. I ended up creating a few more illustrations I love and did a little more experimentation.

I painted these landscape postcards with a demo by Maria of Art Toolkit, which was quite fun. I don’t paint landscapes too often so now I want to do more like this.

I made a cool swatch color chart starting with six primary colors and mixing them to create 36 colors. So satisfying to do this!

I ran into Alice the bear on the trail as she was out gathering berries in her new fall coat! A new character inspired by a photo from @houscatillustration.

I was doodling one Saturday night not sure what to draw and ended up creating this girl and her new friend out in the wild. I love it when that happens and want to do more of this character creation. I don’t do that often enough, put pencil to paper and just see what happens.

Here’s to more creative flow in October, making what brings me joy!

I spent my creative time in the month of August focusing on my own ideas, and I ended up creating a few spreads I adore, which is a great reminder to create what I love.

We spent a Saturday afternoon at a beautiful garden where I dreamed up this secret garden scene with a few characters popping up.

We spent another Saturday afternoon at a park on one of the lakes, and I dreamed up a couple more fun scenes with a couple characters. It was also very relaxing to just sit and watch the water.

One of my favorite illustrations from August is this cast of woodland characters! Could be a story in the making. Wouldn’t this spread make a fun end paper?!

We had a fox and great horned owl visit our yard earlier this year (which was quite exciting!), so this spread was inspired by the critters in our neighborhood.

I started looking for local web/trail cams sponsored by local nature lover groups, such as the Audubon Society. One night I spotted a few deer – big bucks – grazing through a field, which inspired this fun spread!

I also enjoy continuing to practice drawing faces and portraits!

And more fun floral frames!

Here’s to more creative flow in September, making what brings me joy!

I spent most of my creative time in the month of July focusing on my own ideas, rather than following challenges or Patreon zoom drawing sessions. And I ended up creating a few spreads I adore, which is a great reminder to create what I love rather than following others or trends.

I’ve been seeing sandhill cranes around here more lately, so these spreads were fun to do, since I adore shorebirds and marshes.

I don’t often do landscapes but after attending the recent annual Art Fair on the Square, I was inspired to try something similar to the awe-inspring photography on display by many vendors which was great fun to do.

I’ve been contemplating some short story ideas so I met this sweet fawn-deer character in my sketchbook.

I doodled this little character / self portrait but I didn’t know what else to draw on the page so I filled the corner with a floral swag, which led to a full spread floral frame – so fun!

To finish off the month, I was inspired by all the wonderful flowers blooming in our gardens – black-eyed susans, coneflowers, lilies, canas, calendulas and all the wonderful roadside wildflowers in bloom – so I created another wonderful floral frame. Definitely must do more like this!

It felt great to find my own flow making the types of illustrations I love to make. Here’s to more creative flow in August, making what brings me joy!

In June I participated in a just a couple of the weekly character prompts, including a quick illustration of Judith Kerr, author of The Tiger Who Came to Tea, and an old guy showing off his neon accessories, using photo prompts provided by @housecatillustrations. I’ve been participating in these challenges for over a year which has been wonderful practice so I plan to keep going with it.

I went to the zoo a drew a few animals which I finished back at home. These were really fun so I would love to do more on location drawing like this.

After that day at the zoo, I kinda lost my creative mojo for the rest of the month. I tried making art but I just didn’t like any of it, so I took time to rest, read a couple good books, watch a couple movies and just be.

Here’s to a more creative, productive July!

In May I continued participating in weekly character prompts, including a girl reading her book on a secret rooftop, chefs posing for their employee photo, a girl admiring her library and a kitty cat posing for the rooftop camera, using photo prompts provided by @housecatillustrations. I’ve been participating in these challenges for over a year which has been wonderful practice so I plan to keep going with it.

I like to go for a walk in a park near my office for lunch breaks, where I found some fun trees to draw and ended up dreaming up these fun scenes.

I also went to my first Urban Sketchers club meet-up, and illustrated this gnarly tree. It was great fun to hang out with a group of local artists and draw together. They meet every two weeks so I’m excited for our next meet-up this weekend.

I also practicing drawing a character based on a stuffed animal I found in my old toy box. Turns out this mouse has a little teddy bear friend. I really loved doing these character sketches so I’m hoping to do this more with the childhood toys I still have.

So many ideas to illustrate, never enough time!

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!

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!