do you pinterest?

have you heard about pinterest?  it is, far and away, one of the most inspiring websites i've been on.  from food to fashion to crafts and kid stuff, everywhere you look you find ideas for things you can do.  i don't think i've drawn or crafted or cooked this much ever before, and most of it is directly attributed to the awesomeness of pinterest.  word of warning though: it is a complete time suck.  you start off just taking a look at a new pin, and suddenly your children are in college... or something like that.


one of my first pinterest inspirations to materialize was a gift for our wonderful friend's son.  he was having his third birthday, and being the boy that he is, is very into all things cars.  he had a car themed party, is obsessed with the cars movies, the whole nine yards.  when i stumbled upon a very neat picture idea on pinterest, that incorporated cars, i was hooked!


unfortunately it took me two attempts to make, and i'm not 100% sold on the version that i presented to "N" for his birthday.  there is a third-time's-the-charm in the future for me for this project.  basically, i used "N", for that is what the dear birthday boy's name started with, painted it to look like a road, then hot glued some matchbox cars onto the road.  throw in having a friend who works at michael's and got me an awesome frame, and we had a lovely piece of wall art.  yay!

my husband, being the awesome creative person that he is, decided he wanted to make the cupcakes for "N" too.  he found some very neat lightning mcqueen cupcakes to make and did a fantastic job.

so today wasn't about sketching, but it sure was about creativity... and pinterest... and cupcakes...  and that makes me happy.

i'm baaaack!

we got a kitten!


my daughter turned five and we decided the best thing for her (and our older cat) was a new little kitten.  his name is t. rex, or rex for short (or sexy rexy if you prefer).  my daughter named him after the dinosaur, as she is going through that phase where dinosaurs are AWESOME.


rex is a teeny tiny little nugget.  when we took him to the vet for his first check up he weighed in at a whopping one pound, thirteen ounces.  i attribute most of that weight to the pink eye, fleas, and kitty chest phlegm that all had to be treated by the vet.


it is so fun to have a kitten in the house.  you forget how tiny they are!  it also kicks your maternal instincts back into high gear, especially when said tiny kitten decides to barf in your bed and you automatically go to catch it in your hands.  ahh, parenthood.


in case you hadn't guessed, rex was the subject for this sketch.  his little kitten head is just ridiculously cute.  i want to eat it.  but not in a gross sort of way.


but, i digress...

sexy rexy, pencil, october 28th 2011

caw!

the other night i had every intention of sketching, yet had no idea what to draw.


i decided to enjoy some mindless entertainment until some idea popped into my head.  luckily i had dvr-ed "raising hope" which is an excellent, hysterical show.  i was always a huge fan of "my name is earl" and when i heard that there was another show from greg garcia, i was in.  


during this particular episode, amongst other things, two of the main characters attempt to catch a crow that is flying around their house.


INSPIRATION!


but i thought i'd rather to a raven.  they seem like the smaller, cuter cousin of a big ol' crow.  


side note: i REALLY need to take actual, nice photographs of the sketches instead of using my crappy camera on my phone.  but i really sucked in school when it was time to take slides of all my paintings, and i am also lazy.  hopefully i'll update all the crappy photos with nice ones... just don't hold your breath.

caw!, ink, september 27th 2011

random & inconsistent...

you might have noticed that i do not update this blog everyday...  it's not that i haven't drawn that day.  far from it.  it's usually because i have drawn too much that day.


you see, i have two small children.  they love to color.  they love to color things that i draw for them.  sometimes they make me draw things for them, then require me to color them.  


most of the time my daughter is the one requesting that i draw something for her.  today she asked me to draw a bunny.  then she decided she didn't want to color it, but that i needed to color it while she dictated the colors.  

she also likes me to draw dragons or things "that are sleeping".  i've drawn sleeping mermaids, sleeping princesses, sleeping ducks, sleeping bats...  today she asked for a sleeping tyrannosaurus rex.  then she suggested that the blanket be covered with other dinosaurs, because that's what t-rex-es like.   hehehe...

so while these aren't what i necessarily wanted to draw, and are not blog worthy, i did want to share.  the reason i didn't draw today is because i drew too much this morning.

he's a great hugger

in yesterday's sketch i made a little squid-like octopus fellow.  actually, if he was an octopus he was in some sort of tragic industrial accident for he was missing a few tentacles.  in any event, i thought he was kinda cute and decided to revisit him today.  

he gives good hugs, ink, september 18th, 2011

r2d2

so friday night we had friends over.  yay!  at one point during the evening someone said something to me, but my ears heard something about c3p0 of star wars fame.  which made me think about r2d2.  which reminded me of the time we went to a wedding in springfield and they had those awesome r2d2 mailboxes in honor of the upcoming re-releases.  


well, saturday morning rolled around and i was on kid duty.  thankfully the kids were much more interested in playing with my husband's castle grayskull and all of the accompanying he-man and she-ra characters.  that meant i had some time to sketch.


with the previous evening's r2d2 reference on my mind, i thought about how neat it would be to make a mean, nasty mailbox.  one that would eat your hand when you put a letter in.  and that would never have bird poop on it because it would smite any bird who had the audacity to land on it.


it turns out that i do not know how to draw a mailbox.  sad day.


and it turns out that my potentially fatal mailbox looks a lot more like the view of an oncoming whale.  so i went with it.


the whale seemed happy enough, but i figured he needed a friend.  and what better friend than someone with extra arms to give good hugs?

friends, pen & pencil, september 17th, 2011


i smeared the stupid ink on the friendly whale, so i had to make them bigger to hide it, hence the deep, soulless, dead eyes he has.  sigh.

r2d2!

uncanny valley

today's sketch is dedicated to my awesome friend corey.  she is super talented in the kitchen and on the sketch pad.  she's the one who had the bright idea for these sketch blogs.  she also draws people all the time in her sketches.  i do not.  so last night i drew a lady, for corey.


but before i post my sketch, i wanted to ramble and justify  my dislike for drawing people.  mostly because i can't draw people. they just look weird.  or i obsess over a nostril and suddently it's like, whoa, that chick has a gigantic nostril.  what an odd focal point.


but it's not just me!  apparently there's this theory called "uncanny valley".  you know how you can watch a pixar movie and totally love how buzz and woody look, but when andy comes on screen you get a bit weirded out?  well this theory proposes that when human replicas (andy, or a robot, or whatever) look and act *almost* human, but they're not completely perfect, it elicits a response from people most easily described as revulsion.  


and look, there's even a graph!  and a zombie reference.  this is like a perfect day!

now, i'm not saying that i'm revulsed by my drawings because they are *almost* perfect replicas of people and therefore fall into the uncanny valley.  far from it.  i just really like random knowledge, and in this case, it relates to my dislike for drawing people.  


now i'm tired.


but, without further ado, here's my drawing, for corey.  which, incidentally, is called the uncanny valley, which, even more incidentally, is a former name of my awesome friend.  and now we're full circle.  holla!

uncanny valley, pencil, september 14th, 2011

stay on the path...

i knew i wanted to draw this sketch as soon as i had finished my tremor-wormy one.  then it was simply a matter of finding the time to do so (easier said than done!). 

i would have to say that line drawing is my all time favorite.  in college i got to do some silverpoint, which is where you gesso some paper, then using a silver tipped pen, you draw.  over time the silver tarnishes and you can see the drawing.  awesome stuff.  this is another drawing that i would love to revisit in an etching studio.  maybe someday when i’m rich and famous i’ll build my own studio.

by the by, ignore the horrible quality of this photograph.  i need to start taking the pictures of my drawings with my actual camera, and not my crappy camera phone.  but at least there is photographic evidence of this sketch!

i call this one “stay on the path”.  

stay on the path, pencil, september 9th, 2011