Rhino

Quick ink pen sketch of a rhino whom I named Johnny Ho. Just like my digital one, but I wanted to get it on paper

Bear Study

Contour and skeletal study of a brown bear. Seen from The Weatherly Guide to Drawing Animals.

Mini Alligator

Alligator with pen and acrylic on a mini canvas. I'm in love with those tiny things, especially when I get the tiny easels to go with them. This mini canvas is for sale at my etsy shop, http://www.etsy.com/shop/designbylj

Mini Iguana

Iguana with pen and acrylic on mini canvas. This mini canvas is for sale at my etsy shop, http://www.etsy.com/shop/designbylj

Robot in Space!

I had bought a folder from Target with robots all over it. It was pretty cool because they all looked like a three year old drew them. I had thought I should try one myself... because I am a 3 year old.

Sitting Lady

Charcoal drawing from my figure drawing class at Crealde School of Art. My process was to rub charcoal powder all over the paper, and then add vine charcoal for the shadows, and take out the lights with a shammy cloth. It was pretty interesting, and I've decided that this is my new favorite technique to use charcoal now.

Jellyfish

I got a pad for Christmas that teaches children how to draw cartoon animals using numbers. However I just went ahead and painted my own version. I think you're supposed to rip these out every night and use them as placemats for children, so they can color while they eat. Clearly I have the mind of a child, because I got this in my 20's. -Hence why I love Macaroni Grille so much!

Mushroom Girl

I saw something like this in graffiti on the side of an old barn. It reminds me of Banksy my favorite graffiti artist who lives in England. His identity is unknown because he always wears a monkey mask and only goes out at night so as to avoid the police.

Monkey Study

Quick sketches of monkeys using my new favorite ink pen.

Hot Air Balloon Vehicle

I had a dream the other night that I was in the arctic, and I was inside this hot air balloon with a wheel on the bottom, and it would wheel across the ice flows, hopping from ice to ice. The entire front was a giant window and I was on the other side of it, steering the balloon throughthe arctic. I had no idea where I was going, but I knew I was on a mission to get somewhere.

Sitting Woman

Another charcoal piece completed in my figure drawing class at Crealde School of Art. There was no way I was going to wipe this one for the next pose.

Lounging Man

Nude drawing of man in my figure drawing class at Crealde. I started to rub out the paper using vine charcoal with a brown tint and then switched to black. It came out all pretty much the same color on the paper, but when I took a picture of it, all the brown came back.

Boxing Man

Mixture of brown and black charcoal, figure drawing from my Crealde class. I love the style of this piece, he came out kind of as a futuristic style, with the sharp angles in his legs and high contrast of the lights.

Nude Girl

Quick powdered charcoal figure drawing from my Crealde class. I only had five mins to draw before the model changed poses, and then we wiped the entire paper back to the basic charcoal background, and started over with a new pose. It was kind of depressing spending time on these drawings only to never see them again. You can still see the remnants of an old image in the background that was erased and long forgotten, replaced by this one....so I started taking pictures of the finished product, before I had to wipe it clean!

Charcoal Portrait

A charcoal profile view portrait of a model form my class at Crealde. I used the same technique for this one, where we covered the entire paper in charcoal powder.

Woman's Back

Just started my new charcoal figure drawing class at Crealde! It's a new style that I'm in love with and the charcoal powdered background makes everything pop so much more! The technique, is to cover your entire board with charcoal powder, which makes the base color, you can see this in the background. Then you draw in the dark areas with a charcoal pencil, and color them all in more. Next, you pull out the light areas with a shammy, which is basically a felt cloth that wipes away the powder. And for the tiny highlight spots, you can use a kneaded eraser, or really anything small enough that pulls the charcoal off of the paper. It's extremely messy, so I definitely had to take a shower every night after class. I also got my car a lot dirtier than I had planned too.

Bear the Dog

Another quick sketch of a dog made from my Wacom tablet. I'm trying out different software for it still, to see which one I like the best.

Johnny Ho the Rhino

Just bought myself a new Wacom tablet! Its a drawing pad that you can hook up to your computer. Hopefully it will help me out a lot in school and I'll actually use it a lot. This is a bit of me messing around on it, trying to figure out the pressure and sensitivity.

Elephant

Done with my 30 day challenge, it's been a while since I've posted something, but here is an elephant I drew the other day form my "Learning How to Draw Animals" book. I never truly looked at an elephant until now, and I never realized all the organic shapes that made up an elephant.

FINAL Day!!! Snail

My 30 days is finished! I did them all!!! I completed a project! Didn't get all of them posted on the exact days, but it was still fun. Time to extend it to 60 days? We will see! But here is a snail in my numbers to animals book for children. I went a little off from their direction.

Day 29: Sunset

Day 29! I had to create an assignment for class, so I made a sunset where I used the monochromatic scale. All colors are from one side of the color scale. I could only use red, yellow, and orange. In order to get the colors brighter or darker, I had to add white and black, but kept them all in the same zone of the original colors. Nothing was pure white, and nothing was pure black.

Day 28: Contour of Rooftops

Day 28, almost there! An outlined contour of the neighbors rooftops I drew with ink on my patio. Gotta keep it simple and sweet right?

Day 27: Neighbors Dog

Day 27, the neighbors doberman was sitting outside, so I drew a quick sketch of him before he was called in to eat. He almost has the contours of a cat. This was created with marker.

Day 26: Key Contour

Day 26 finished and only 4 left! An outlined contour of my keys I did without looking at my paper. My professor taught me to do this, to train your eyes to feel all the edges and angles of the lines. They usually come out pretty crazy, but it's interesting to see how all the lines work together.

Day 25: Mini Sleeping Twitter Bird

Day  25 is acrylic on mini canvas. Another twitter bird apart of my series. This one is sleeping on a branch in the night sky. This mini canvas is for sale at my etsy shop as well at 

http://www.etsy.com/shop/designbylj

Day 24: Jaguar Study - Muscles

Day 24! Part two to my jaguar study. This is a pencil drawing of his muscular structure. The Weatherly Guide to Drawing Animals explains how, in order to draw the subject better, you have to have an understanding of its structure, and what's inside of it. To see how it moves properly, you have to know all of the components. For example, when the left foot is forward, which muscles are working, and which are relaxed will create the different angles in the body. This applies to any subject really. Especially in animation.

Day 23: Jaguar Study - Skeletal

Day 23, almost there! A pencil drawing showing the skeletal structure of the inside of a jaguar. As seen from my Weatherly guide to drawing animals book. For anyone that's interested in animals, I definitely recommend this book. It teaches you the drawing of different species from the inside out,and focusing on their movement.

Day 22: Bike at HPA

Day 22! A bicycle parked at the Health and Public Affairs Building at UCF.

Day 21: HPA Building

Day 21 is a charcoal drawing of the Health and public Affairs Building at UCF. This was a great day, our professor made the entire class go and sit outside to draw what we saw. It was nice to get out of the classroom for once!

Day 20: Loaf of Bread

Day 20 is more bread! A contour of a broken loaf of bread with pen.

Day 19: Giraffe Study

Day 19! Quick sketches in pen of giraffes and their different views and stances.

Day 18: Tree Stipple

Day 18 is some trees by the UCF fountain. A quick stippled sketch.

Day 17: Bagel Contour

Day 17 is a semi blind outline contour of a bagel I made....before I stuffed my face with it.

Day 16: Zombie Self Portrait II

Day 16 is yet another blind self portrait that once again came out like a zombie haha. But this time with marker...but still creepy.

Day 15: Fireplace

Day 15 finished and I'm half way there! I made an ink drawing of a fireplace. The photo got cropped out, that's why it's crooked. I promise my house isn't sideways like Willy Wonka's factory! Although that would be pretty awesome.

Day 14: Oahu

Day 14 is a drawing from one of my photos of Hawaii. I had gone to Oahu with my best friend and her parents, and we saw this gorgeous lagoon. The sun had just set, and the sky was covered in a mist with a light gray color. The water was purple because of this. It was one of the prettier pictures I took there. Because the sun was gone, the shore was all in silhouette. I really must go back there. It was so amazing being constantly engulfed in beauty.

Day 13: Rose

Day 13 is a rose with colored pen. Cross hatch to show depth of the petals.

Day 12: Dinky Dock

Day 12 is the dock at Lake Virginia in Winter Park. I used to love coming here and just sit around on the dock, looking at the lake, doing nothing. It was one of my favorite spots. They also have a beach where you can park your boat, and people can just come out to hang around and swim. 

Day 10: My Yard

Day 10 is a sketch of random elements in my backyard. There is a birdbath, where my sister decided to make a mosaic out of it. It was never finished...now there's a bunch of random broken ceramic pieces glued to the inside. I can't imagine any birds ever wanting to sit in that guy, it seems too painful. There's also tons of palm trees growing up around it. We have a giant tree in the yard, and it's just dropping seeds everywhere like nobody's business. Basically, it's a tropical hot mess back there. For fathers day, we bought my dad those wooden chairs, and we built them and have them in the yard. No one ever sits in them because of all the bugs out there. So now they're just old, peeling, and falling apart. I guess that adds to the character. 

Day 11: Lilly Pads

Day 01 done! Lilly pads as seen from above water. I went out on my fathers boat with my family, and in between wake board runs and tube crashes, I drew a quick sketch with pen of the lilly pads we were floating over.

Day 9: Line Contour of my Medicine Cabinet

Day 9 quickie! A semi blind contour of the inside of my medicine cabinet. There was so much stuff in there, I skipped over to an outline for most of them.

Day 8: Painting Paper clips

Day 8 of 30 completed! I drew a paintbrush, where the brush stroke is morphing into paperclips. Part of an assignment in my 2d design class, where we had to create an abstract of two different objects evolving into one. I was originally going for more of a Dali-esque feel to it. 

Day 7: Rachel's Tree

It's day 7 of 30! My sister drew this super cool tree one day, and I loved it so much, I tried to imitate it. It was so cool looking, and I was stuck inside all day, so I had to draw it. This way I can have one of my own! Otherwise I would have had to steal hers =]

Day 6: Zombie Portrait

It's day 6 of my 30 day challenge! So I decided to do a Charcoal self portrait. A blind contour - not looking at the paper -  and needless to say, it came out pretty freaky. I'm pretty sure this is what I would look like if I were to be a zombie haha. I probably won't be doing this exercise very much.

Day 5: My Pet Fish

Day 05 of 30. My silver fish in his tank. This is drawn with pen. He died a few days after I drew him...but at least I have one picture of him! It was probably for the best, I was over having fish anyways. It was too much work to constantly be cleaning a fish tank. Plus it made my room smell. =/

Day 4: Chalk Hawk

Day 04 of 30. I made a hawk with white charcoal on black painted paper. I was in the mood for chalk and had none, let alone a board, so I had to resort to this. I had to get innovative in my supplies. It's fun because no one would ever think to use chalk, on acrylic, on notebook paper. I think that this desperation is the one that really sparked me to not be traditional. To really show that you can combine anything to make it look cool!

Day 3: Purple Flower

Day 03 of my drawing challenge! There was this purple flower I found in a book that inspires you to just draw, to jump in the water head first, and just go at it. It inspires you to not even worrying about what the end product will look like, or whether your lines are correct at all. But really just getting into the grind and experimenting with different styles, and media. I copied this guy from the book with pen. Probably should have found my own flower, but this one just had so much appeal to me.

Day 2: Desk Items

It's day 2 of my 30 day challenge, and I made a post it note, paint brush, thumbtack, paperclip, and some crumbled pieces of paper shaded in with pencil. I discovered a neat trick on how to shade paper. You color with pencil on one piece, take another piece of paper, and rub that in it to get all the graphite smeared onto it, then fold another piece exactly how you want it drawn. Next you take the paper covered in the graphite powder, and rub it along the edges of the folded piece. And voila! A shaded piece of paper! I learned this method in high school, and I am still finding many ways to apply it.

Day 1: Mini Twitter Birds on a tree

This is day one of my 30 day challenge. A drawing a day for 30 days to give my hand a workout! I wanted to start a blog, and I figured this would be the best way to force myself to keep up with it everyday. Mostly to show everyone what I am doing everyday. We shall see if I can actually finish this project! Bare with me if I don't get to the computer to upload photos of my drawings everyday. This one is called Twitter birds on a tree. I used acrylic on a mini canvas. This is just one piece of a series of twitter birds. I wanted to make something quick and easy, and I got inspired by a charcoal drawing I did of a little bird. I also wanted to make it more cartoony, kind of like the baby birds from the Pixar short. The one with the little birds on the telephone wire, and the big stork looking guy comes and sits in the middle of all of them, weighing the line down. It's a brilliant short. Plus twitter kind of influenced the color to be blue. This mini canvas is for sale at my etsy shop!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/designbylj