IF -- Water

This weeks topic on Illustration Friday is Water.

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Pumpkin patch

You know it's that time of year when all those pumpkin patches appear out of no where.  When I lived up in the San Francisco Bay area it was a yearly tradition to drive over the hill to Half-Moon Bay for the yearly Pumpkin Festival.  

Cranky Birds my way...

I've been enjoying reading and working through Carla's new book "Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals".  Over on her blog http://carlasonheim.wordpress.com/  she's been having contributing artist show their take on the book.   The one artist I really enjoyed her tutorial was Dor Hosta on Cranky Birds. http://darhosta.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/monday-6-a-bird-a-book/

Needless-to-say, I've been drawing cranky birds all weekend.  Even taking it a step further and using the technique on other animals.  Here's my own cranky bird.

Bunny with floppy ears

Saw a cute bunny today that had these long floppy ears.  To irresistible to not sketch.    I've been painting all weekend.  Just dropping paint blobs and looking for a animal to paint.

Autumn in the air

It feels like autumn is in the air.  Saw these two birds fluttering in the trees in my back yard.

Ipad sketch warthog

Over the weekend my husband and I took a trip up north to Lee Vining and  ghost town Bodie so he could take more pictures in Bodie of Coco and Jolie.  It was definitely an adventure, one I could of stayed home for.  It was about a 5 hour drive to the hotel in Lee Vining.  We explored Lee Vining and drove up to Bridgeport another town that if you drive through main street, you've seen the whole town.

On this trip we only took Coco my border terrier and Jolie, my Chinese Crested Powder Puff.  Sophie and Maddie got to stay home, those lucky dogs.

Lately when I travel I've been carrying my art supplies.  I think I've finally got it down to the right art supplies that I need and will use.  After taking over the the round table in the motel room, I got down to work.  I had bought a small set of cheap oil pastels in Bishop, a town we drove through.  For some reason I thought they were water soluble, but they weren't.  After applying the oil pastels to my journal, I was not happy with my drawing.  So while the drawing was drying, I created this Warthog on my Ipad.  It was a quick sketch and was rather pleased with the result. 

One thing I did learn is to take two journals, so while one is drying, I can work on the other journal.  Also, take a small jar of gesso and neo crayons.