A Face In The Crowd- Sketchbook progress

Here are a few of my latest drawings for the Sketchbook Project. I have about 20 pages left to fill before I mail it off to the Brooklyn Art Library. It is due in early January so I know I can get it finished. I am working on the 3/4 profile. The hardest part is getting the eyes right because it is not as symmetrical as a front view. Sometimes my eyes come out a little cross-eyes looking! I've enjoyed

this project and I do feel like I've gotten better. I like coloring with colored pencils and I know I need to learn to blend my colors more.

New Journal Pages and more portrait practice!

I have been so busy at work I haven't made time to update my blog. I have been working away on my journals and round robin altered book groups. I thought I'd share a new little journal I made after watching Teesha Moore's online tutorial. These are all paper journals made from Fabriano artistico 140 lb. hot press paper. It is a dream to work on and I painted the backgrounds on these pages.


These are some practice portraits from my journal. I used pencil to sketch all the faces and different mediums to color them. The first one I colored with Portfolio Oil pastels that have been rubbed into the paper with paper towels.

This face was colored with prismacolor pencils, the background is Portfolio oil pastels.
This face was my first attempt at pan pastels. The colors blend nicely and I LOVE them. This face came out too yellow and looks too dark. But it made me run out and by a set of 10 colors and I know what my new collection will be!
This is a pencil sketch from a magazine photo. Can you guess who it is?

Journal Experiments

Happy Friday everyone! Here are the latest experiments in my art journaling adventure!I sketched this 3/4 profile face from a magazine photo during my son's piano lesson this week.

You'll need to click on it to see it properly. My scanner doesn't pick up pencil very well so I darkened it.
I colored this face with colored pencil and I can see I need to blend the neck more !
I drew this from my youngest son's baby picture and I know his head LOOKS big, I actually

drew in his features bigger than they were because he did have the biggest head ever! He is 15 and 6 feet tall so he did grow into that noggin. I colored this one with chalk.
Here is the second self-portrait stencil I made. It has more cuts so it made a more detailed

print. I'd love to hear any comments and I hope you all have a beautiful Easter weekend.

Catching up on my Art Journal pages

Here are some of my art journal pages from the journal I started in January. I have been working on drawing faces after taking several classes from Suzi Blu. I have taken some of the faces from my sketchbook and incorporated them into my journal pages. I am trying to add more writing to my pages, so I may add words to some of them later. I really like the idea of painting many pages ahead of time and adding a few collage elements. This gives me a choice of backgrounds when I want to start journaling on a page.

The word that got cut off by my scanner is GRATITUDE!

Goddess and Poet Class begins...

I started my first on-line class this week. It's with Suzi Blu and it's called The Goddess and Poets. We are learning to draw stylistic faces and write poetry to do journal pages and pieces on wood.

I will post some of my first attempts here so you can see how it progresses. I hope I can get better with technique tips and lots of practice. On a purely fun note, I went out with 11 of my girlfriends to see the American Idol Tour concert last night. OMG- what a surprisingly great concert. No lip synching- everyone sang really good songs and they were all better than they were on the show. It was such a strong group to begin with and I think they have great coaching for the tour. Of course, I was most excited about Adam- my guyliner hero! He rocked the house!

Kris was adorable- Matt ( with the hat) was wonderful singing and playing the piano!

Lil Rounds gave a solid performance and sounded awesome. Danny has been working out and LOOKS great- he was singing more country. If you have a chance to see this concert- you should!