Curious george a whimsical Wednesday on Thursday

ahh been wanting to do a WW for a while, and today what I am working on - puppies - allowed me to join the fun :)
This little fellow is a digital, all done in photoshop. What is he doing... he snuffing a dust ball.. which alas there are too many of in my house.
Join and checkout the other artist at WW.
Cheers
p.s has blogger change back the image add tool ???

a book review? Drawing lab

A bloggie friend asked if this book was worth buying, and as I started to reply the answer got a bit too long and I thought a POST   - yeah  :).

 

Last week my long awaited  "Drawing Lab"  book arrived. Once I took it out of the mailbox and gazed at the cardboard envelop I was a little concerned as it looked a bit small for the book, which while not overly expensive it was not cheap either. Ripping open the cardboard envelope (that's the only way to do it :) ) I saw a 8.5 x8.5 square formated book, which while a bit smaller than normal was also VERY thick. It has 144 pages, semi-hard cover, beautifully put together and bound. If the binding last (I only say that because it is printed in China and I am guessing assembled there) it should be able to handle my household's little fingers pawing through the pages without to much wear and tear.

 

Now to the actual content. The cover illustration is wonder. I like the author/artist Carla Sunheim style of writing. It is like listening to a friend chat about art.  There are 52 exercise dvided into 7 overall themes. Each exercise has wonderful illustrations and clear instructions. Some of them include some educational/ historical information about the exercise, and others show how the exercise can be developed into an actual piece of art. The exercises vary in the materials they use but most will be easily on hand or could be gotten from an art and craft shop.

 

The thing I like best about the book is that while all exercise are for adults, children can easily do many of them. A kid may not get the same results as an adult, but for example in one exercise you add random watercolour  brush strokes to a piece of paper and when dried you look at it and see what you can see. Once you see it you then use a pen to draw the outline of what you see. Of course an adult can take it a step or two further but what a great exercise for a kids imagination. Also Carla's illustrations in the book are so beautiful that kids will just love to look at them and want to try draw them (as my 5 year old did).

 

Cons... honestly I have not found any yet, the only one is that is a bit pricy but if you got $22.99USD (reccommended retail) to spare and are looking for a great inspirational art book go for it.  I got my from  www.bookdepository.co.uk  for €11.74 (shipping included), its looks a bit more expensive than amazon.co.uk but the latter kills me on shipping .

Cheers

A taste of something sweet

I finally finished drawing my cupcakes :) now I need to just save them and put them up lol. However at the moment I am still garden focused and being like a jack in the box since I really wish to be outside digging in the soil and planting Dahlias and going and getting the three apple trees I saw yesterday in a nursery. ... but back to art . Since I got a baker's dozen, I will put a cupcake or two as a freebie in the very near future. The line art / digital stamp version of the set is also finished and is just waiting for me to save them too as single files and upload.
Hope you have a good day :)

Nature's Child 1

Nature's Child the first in a series of whimsical fairy creatures. To be rather honest they are rather popular with a number of artist at present and this is my version. I guess about 18months ago or more I saw something in this line and it reminded of some Danish seasonal plates an exchange student gave an aunt way back in the 1980's. When googling I was not able to find them, but if my faulty memory serves my right I think they must have been Danish Bjorn plates for the style looks similar to what I have found on the net.

The digital stamp/ line art for this first one can be found in my mygrafico shop :)

cheers

Miracles do happen... well some small ones

I was going to write today about sock monkeys and mermaids which I sketched this week, but I got an email this afternoon from my favourite internet bookshop - the Book Depository- telling me - taa-dumm- I had won in their book mark composition!!! Well I was one of the to be 10 winner which is now 20, but my little book mark illustration of with three birds will be printed in thousands, well at least hundred, and will grace the bedside tables, floors and garbage cans of thousands of folks :D
If you go here you can see not only my book mark but the other winners as well. Some of them of are really good. My favourite is the one next to mine with the girl and the tea cup and the sock puppet (?) photo - it is really weird but there is something about it that just tickles me.