Flashback - Lines

These three pieces are all assignments about doing lines. The first one was done in High School. I think. I remember doing it, but can't even place when or where I did it.  It is just a random assortment of objects and I was supposed to do everything with lines - no shading, no sketching. Then, I outlined it all in ink. (sorry about the glare - it was wrapped in a plastic cover of sorts).(And, as a parent of a violin player, I just cringe when I see the broken up violin!)

This next one was done in college in my dorm for a drawing assignment for my class. If I remember correctly, I had to draw it all without lifting my charcoal. It is just a sketch, obviously, nothing frameable, but I thought it was an interesting assignment.

And this last one, at first look, seems to be an awkward drawing of a person. The fun thing about this is that it is called a blind drawing. Meaning, this girl (in the picture) and I sat across from each other at a table, and we had to draw the person across from us without ever looking at our paper - completely blind. I think it turned out pretty good - especially when you can see what the other ones looked like. Try it sometime. It is pretty tricky.

Southwest Quilt

I had to wait until after Christmas to post this because it was a gift for someone. I was asked to make a quilt for someone whose house is decorated in a Southwest style.  I looked online at several quilts that had that sort of theme, but I decided in the end to design one by myself, using what I had seen. This is the design I came up with. The photograph doesn't quite get the colors right - there is black, dark brown, and regular brown, as well as the tan and orange (and it is a burnt orange - not as bright as it looks here).  I am learning that doing triangles takes some mathematical skills and that guessing won't always cut it. So, the quilt isn't perfect. If I hadn't done this in Minky, it would have really been a disaster because things didn't quite line up the way they were supposed to. Fortunately, Minky is forgiving and flexible, so it worked out okay. I am not going to win any awards for it, but it is the first design I have come up with myself, and may be the most complicated one too, besides the batik quilt I did awhile back. It has been fun getting back into quilting and sewing lately.

Fun in the snow

"Snow Fun" -pastel on paper

In His Image

This spring I heard about the LDS International Art Competition that they hold every three years. The theme is "Make known his wonderful works". I came up with an idea and during the summer I did four drawings trying to get what I wanted on paper the way I pictured it in my head. This was my final result. The main idea of the drawing is that we are God's most wonderful work. We often look in the mirror and see all of our faults, but we need to be like this little girl and see who we really are - a child of God.  I entered the contest back in October, and this week I heard that I did not make it into the exhibit. I am a little bummed, but it was a good experience and it was worth a try. I will try again in three years. In the mean time, I hope to improve my skills and technique and keep moving forward.

 (You will notice I put a watermark on the drawing. I am trying this out. I keep seeing things about photos being stolen from the web, so this is my feeble attempt to protect my drawings. We will see how it works.)

Flashback - Oh how I love cloth

One of my favorite things to draw is cloth.  I love how light and shadows work to show all the folds and creases. It is also sometimes a rather complex thing to draw, for the very same reason. Here are some of my cloth drawings. The first ones here were done in college.

This last one was done in High School. It was for an art contest, and it was the only piece I have done (so far) that has won an award. It was honorable mention - nothing major - but it was pretty cool to go up against all these high school students who were planning to be art majors (or had already had a lot of instruction through vocational schools, etc) For the contest I was supposed to give it a title. I figured "cloth" was good enough. But, my art teacher (the weird one - Mr. King) decided that it just was not a good enough title, so when he turned it in, he renamed it "Freedom".  It is hard to see at this angle, but people often say they see an eagle in the cloth. That, with the stripes like a flag, kind of do give it a "freedom" theme, but that was not my original intention. It actually was just a wad of light green and dark green striped cloth that my art teacher had in class at the time. This picture (obviously framed now - sorry about the reflection) currently hangs in my living room.