Just do it

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"The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work." -- Chuck Close

It's time to sit down and get to work. Every day, even if it's just a doodle. Which is basically what this is. Also an experiment to see how Bristol paper takes watercolor, because I want to do pen and ink and watercolor, and watercolor paper will eat my markers. 

The answer is, not terrible, but I'm not thrilled with it.  But I painted, and that's what matters. Go me!

TtThis is my friend Chuck's cat The Cheat, whom I am pet sitting. 

Art Art every day for the rest of 2016!

Watercoloring Birds

My artist friend Joe is staying with us, and artist energy around you is always a good thing. So when he sat down at the kitchen table to draw last night, I got my pencils and paints and the excellent John Muir Laws Drawing Birds book I got for Christmas and painted in my watercolor sketchbook from a photo I took a couple of years ago. 

And just like that, Art is calling me again. Yay!

Playing With Photos

I thought I'd play with one of my photos for today's Wacom/Photoshop/Digital painting experiment.  Here is the result.

This is my horse Abbey and her pasture mate, Jewel.  Every so often I get a chance to take a picture of them running (NOT Abbey's favorite activity!).  I played with the background a bit to make it abstract..  nothing terribly fancy, but I learned a bit in the process.

Going Digital

I have kicked around the idea of doing 30 paintings in 30 days again.  I think I'm in.  I got a Wacom tablet for Christmas and I bought access to Photoshop for my photography, so I thought this month I'd try some digital painting (although I may do other things too).  I'm still learning to use the Wacom, and also learning to use Photoshop for anything other than adjusting things in photos.  It's a steep learning curve but I think this is a good first attempt after not much other than some doodles to get used to the disconnect between looking at the result of your painting on a screen while your hand is elsewhere.

 

 I'm not entirely happy with it... but I did it pretty much without reference, so that's bonus (I don't generally work well without references).  And the wonderful thing about daily painting is, you can chalk any individual piece to practice, because you'll be back tomorrow.

And so I will.

New stuff

#7, still on a Lammas theme. 

#8 Triforce type design. 

#9, 1up mushroom

#10, Mandalorian mythosaur

#11, Starfleet logo

#13, someone pointed out to me that I have no mermaid designs!

And I'm caught up!

Happy Lammas

It's a pagan festival called Lammas today; the festival of the wheat harvest and high summer. In its honor I did a goddess henna design today. 

I forgot to post here yesterday so here's yesterday's design. 

These are #5 and #6. 

I hope midsummer finds you amid plenty. As for me, rather than drawing this in the morning I am doing it at night, with my window open, listening to the eerie calls of some kind of owl that I'm going to need to identify now. 

And maybe do an owl design tomorrow. 

Cecil - 4/100

I thought I needed to do a lion today in honor of Cecil, the lion who was killed by a trophy hunter this week. 

Rest in peace gallant boy.