My latest art project

A lady at work commissioned me to draw her grandson for Christmas. I was really happy with the way it turned out, and, more importantly, she was too. This was just a regular snapshot they had taken of him in his highchair, but the expression and lighting were perfect for a picture. This is one of my favorite portraits I have done so far!

Art Show

The art show was last Saturday. It's a long day -- registration ends at ten, judging is from 11-1, and the award ceremony is at 4. After I had registered all my pieces and given left them with the organizers to be hung, they came back and told me I had to change the tags on all my pieces because the person at the registry had given me photography tags. I guess it was a compliment that she thought my drawings were photographs, but it was a big aggravation to deal with at the last minute. We went out to eat while the judging took place and came back to find that my tree and soldiers had won second place ribbons in their categories and my hands won a honorable mention. The show was larger than last year, so I was glad to get even those three ribbons.

I came down with bad head cold yesterday, so I couldn't enjoy myself and look around at all the pieces like I usually do. My head was throbbing and I just felt -- sick. I still feel like that today. Anyway, I'm always inspired by going and seeing everyone else's work. It makes me want to learn to paint so bad. I even want to start taking lessons again. I started researching local art teachers and found one I would love to take from. Maybe soon. There is so much going on right now that I don't think I can add another thing, but this made me remember how much I love art and want to learn more and to keep it a part of my life.

Latest drawings....

When I scanned these, there was still a little touching up work to do on them, but these are the almost -final products. I've posted some of these before, I think, but the scanner shows the drawings better.


Marat Safin. I decided to try a sports drawing and used one that we took at the tennis tournament.

This is one of my favorites. I took this picture of Kati a couple of years ago. I was putting up Aunt Sherry's Christmas tree for her and Kati was "helping" me decorate. I always laugh at how sweet she looks in the picture. You would never know she had been jumping up and down screaming for an ornament two seconds before it was snapped.

Aunt Sherry's wedding portrait

My hands holding a flower. I've added more details to the flower since then, because I realized the flower is the focal point of the piece. It needs lots of little details to make it interesting.

This is definitely my favorite. The trail is one I took when I was climbing natural bridge and the lighting was incredible. It was really hard to try to recreate all the lights and darks in pencil.

Civil War soldiers. My friend took this photo at a reenactment and was kind enough to let me use her picture as a reference photo. Because the people are at a distance, I couldn't get a lot of detail in it, but it still looks interesting. and the smoke/dust looks more like smoke/dust than it did before.

My uncle's barn.

I'm trying to get frames together for all these drawings now, as well as come up with names for all of them. I hate that part. I really hate that part. But, the drawings are finished at least. And, even though I accidentally requested the wrong day off for the art show, my supervisor was nice enough to work around my schedule and let me have Saturday off. So, every thing's almost finished. Maybe I'll take my camera Saturday and take some pictures.

New drawings.....

This is from a picture that my friend loaned me just so I could draw it. She took it at a Civil War reenactment. The glare on the picture makes some of the details fuzzy, but it's an interesting picture in person. I'm experimenting with the bottom edge. It's supposed to be dust/smoke from the battle, but it looks like it needs some more blending.
My latest had drawing. I'm still working on smoothing out the background. I thought about tinting the flower pink, but I can't make up my mind. It's still a work-in-progress.
I tinted this drawing with my colored pencils. The before is in the picture below. I like the way it turned out. I may even darken the colors a little more, though the soft colors are nice, too. Decisions........

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!

I finally finished my artwork website!! For so long, I have worked on this a little bit at a time, but I have finally got all the pages in place, all the pictures sized, and everything in order. The worst thing was the "About Me." I always hated those "tell about yourself" papers in grade school, and this was even worse! But, anyway, my artwork is finally all in one place on the Internet, sized, priced, and sorted. Here is the link:

www.amandas-art.bravehost.com

My Latest Drawings

I haven't posted any of my drawings lately because I hadn't finished any. :( I took a break from artwork during Christmas (much needed after the art show) and didn't take it up again until January. I had started this picture of the path to Natural Bridge just before the art show, but I had only got the basic lights and darks in place. Now it is completed:

I love the contrasts in the picture. They are softer in a pencil drawing than they are in a B&W photo, but I think the shades and sunlight make it interesting. This is a drawing of a barn at my uncle's farm: The tree didn't look as crooked when I drew it as it did when I framed it. I'm trying to decide if I want to add some extra branches to the left so it doesn't look so much like it is falling over. The barn was neat to draw -- lots of chipped paint and tiny details that took forever to work out.

I also started a drawing of geese on a pond, but I've let it rest for a few weeks now. I'm thinking about printing another reference photo and moving on for the time being. It makes a nice composition, but there are so many twigs and branches on the bank of the pond that I'm feel somewhat depressed just looking at it. I think I'm going to draw something else and then come back to it. :)

ART SHOW!!!

The art show was yesterday! I was so nervous and indecisive until the very day before, but I finally made up my mind and took all ten of my drawings. We had an hour-long drive to get the show, so we got up early yesterday to be there in time to register. Signing in is one of the worst parts of the day. I had to fill out little information cards about each of my drawings (title, category, etc), then we had to pay and find someone to hang them in all the correct sections.
We had finished all this by ten o'clock. Judging didn't even take place until one. We decided to leave the show and go Christmas shopping at a mall in another town. It is really tedious (and stressful) for me to just sit waiting. When we came back, it was after one, so I went to my drawings to see if I had won anything. I had entered in four categories: Landscape, with the bridge, the ship, and the house; Portraits, with the two babies and Gabrielle; Animals, with Princess and the horses; and Miscellaneous, which is the category I had to enter the drawings of my hands under.
The ribbons given were first, second, third, and a couple of honorable mentions per category. In Miscellaneous, my hands at the piano won second place. In Portraits, my drawing of the baby won second place and my other drawing won an honorable mention.
In Landscape, my bridge won second place and my ship won an honorable mention. In Animals my horses won second place and Princess won an honorable mention.
Out of my ten entries, seven won ribbons! I was so excited about that. I didn't win a first place or a best in show this year, but my work was recognized in every category. To me, that was just as great! My little 8x10 pencil drawings were competing with oil paintings as large as 18x24 -- and I actually won ribbons! I was surprised by the way the judge ranked my portraits (comparing my portraits to each other). I thought my drawing of Princess was way better than the drawing of the horses. And as for my bridge drawing, my art teacher actually told me not bother entering it, because the composition wasn't any good. It was definitely interesting to get such an entirely different perspective.

The art show was inspiring for me. As anyone reading this could probably tell, I was suffering from a bad case of burn-out. I wanted to lock my pencils and paper in the closet and not look at them for... like... six months. Now I'm making all kinds of plans for my next projects and I feel excited about drawing again.

All of my artwork is...finished!!!

I have finally finished all of my artwork. They are all framed with coordinating mat-boards. I am breathing a sigh of relief now that they are all finished and I can simply draw when I want to now, instead of rushing to get everything done. The art show is next Saturday (eight days from now). I might take all of these drawings or leave a few behind. I haven't decided yet. Whatever I decide, I have to think of titles for each piece I enter and decide if I want to put the piece up for sale. That's hard for me on both counts. I am really not creative when it comes to names -- so far all I have come up with is "Ship", "Bridge", "Horses"...:) I don't like putting pieces up for sale, either. It is different when I draw something for someone and give it to them. When that happens, I know the person really wants it and will take care of it. It just makes me sad to think of putting so much work into a drawing and then selling it to someone and never seeing it again. I know that's slightly ridiculous. When I've drawn a lot more, I probably won't mind as much, but for now, I have a hard time letting go of my drawings. :)

Anyway, here they are. I've thought of a few titles, but if anyone has any suggestions, by all means suggest. I do have to say that these pictures are a little blurry. It is very difficult to photograph graphite drawings, for some reason.

My hands playing the piano.
My dog Princess. I'll probably just use her name. The pirate ship. I thought about "Sailing", but that doesn't quite seem right.


My sister. I drew this last year, but didn't enter it in the show, so I think I will this year.
My dad's hand strumming his guitar.
Horses in a pasture near our house. I thought of "Winter Grazing" or "Grazing in Winter" because, as you can see, all the trees are dead. :)
For portraits, I could just use her name.


The city skyline. I thought of "Bridge to the City". I told you I was really bad at this.
Again, I could just use his name.

I am so glad all these projects are finally completed. Hopefully, next year I will be able to take lots of great landscape photos for references and complete a lot of portraits. Of all subjects, portraits are my favorite to draw.

A Little More Busy A Little Less Busy

I haven't posted here the way I've wanted to in the last week. I keep coming up with ideas for things I'd like to post about and then I run out of time. The reason is that I'm trying to put together a small website with all my artwork on it. I finally found a place that hosts websites for free, so I immediately signed up and have been uploading pictures and reworking page templates ever since. It's very time consuming!! I'm almost finished now, so I hope I'll be able to go back to more regular posting soon.

On the other hand, the amount of artwork I have to do has tapered off a lot now. I finished three drawings and decided not to bother with the other two. One picture wasn't as clear as I was hoping and I would have had to get my cousin to take the other picture and email it to me, so I just decided I had done enough. I'm only working on one landscape now, a little at a time. If I get it done before the art show, that's fine, but if I don't, that's fine, too. I already have about ten drawings that I could enter, but I may only enter four. I haven't decided yet. I'm trying to decide what direction I want to take with my art after the show. I really want to learn to paint, so I'm thinking about taking a break from drawing lessons and finding either an oil or watercolor teacher. It's something to consider anyway.

More Drawing

Here's a picture of my finished pirate ship. I've been wanting to draw a picture of a ship for a long time (years) but I haven't been able to find any reference photos that weren't copyrighted. One of my friends at church got married this summer and went to Aruba on her honeymoon. While they were there, she saw this ship sailing on the ocean and took pictures of it! Isn't that neat? I was so glad she let me copy the picture to draw. The rocky background is something I put in myself. I wanted to add something in the distance to break up the monotony of the water, so I looked up pictures of cliffs online to get a general idea for these. I still need to work on them a little more, put in more shadows, etc.

I have so much drawing to do. I'm working on three pictures now and I work on them every spare minute - even while I watch television - so I can finish them and have plenty of time to work on all the smaller details before the art show. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with all that I have left to do, so I'm really pushing myself hard to keep working at a steady pace. I hope that by my next art lesson ( two weeks from now) I will have made a lot of progress on those pieces.

Artwork

I managed to get a lot of artwork done while we were away. This was the first time I'd actually taken the trouble to pack up all my art supplies and bring them. I'm so glad I did because I managed to finish TWO 8x10 drawings last week. My art show is coming up at the beginning of November and I still have a lot of work to do. To be exact, I have at least five projects that I'd like to finish before then. So, finishing those two pictures was a big relief. One project that I want to do is a series of musical drawings. I've already photographed my dad's guitar, now I need to take some shots of the piano keys, and I'm hoping that my cousin Kristen will be able to photograph her flute for me and email the picture. If she can't, I can work with the guitar/piano theme. I also want to draw the picture of the bridge that I took when we went to the aquarium. I can't decide if I should make it large or small, though. The main problem now is that my camera charger is not working, so I can't take any pictures until I get a new one. The drawing of Princess above is one I finished this summer. I'll post pictures of my new drawings as soon as I can get my camera charged.

Artwork

I just finished my drawing of the house yesterday! I haven't framed it yet, so I added a border to the picture so I could get an idea of what it would look like with a black frame. I did have to crop off some of the drawing to make the border work. It was such a relief to get it finished. A lot of hard work went into the details on the porch and columns, but you can't really see them in the picture.

This is a painting I just finished. It's okay, but I've got a lot to learn about painting. No matter what I did, I couldn't make the grass look right, and the trees are pretty bland. You can click on both of these pictures to make them a little larger. Now I've got to pick out my next projects and get started on them.