Atmosphere- Illustration Friday

An Illustration Friday Drawing/painting. Made with markers, water, and ink.

Illustration Friday-Ripple

Today's Illustration Friday topic is ripple. The illustrations are for sale in order to promote the cause to help the marine life suffering from the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Through the website http://ripplesketches.blogspot.com/ small original artworks are made available for a $10 donation. These donations are made to The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies and The International Bird Rescue Research Center. If you make a donation, and send the confirmation to Kelly, the artist will mail the cards to you.

A quote from Kelly Light, the ripplesketches organizer:
"It's hard to make ripples in oil soaked water. But throw enough stones and you will!

It's not about the politics or the corporation. It's about the animals. It's about not feeling helpless in the face of an overwhelming disaster. We're illustrators. We don't lose touch with that kid inside who marvels at the creatures who swim below and fly above the sea. We draw them. We are inspired by them. We need to help them.

The Ripple blog was started on the 45th day of the Deepwater Horizon Catastrophe. The oil spill in the Gulf is now over 50 days old with no sign of stopping. We may be too small as individuals to do some grand gesture- but together our small gestures can be grand."

I just emailed my submissions right now, so it may take a day for them to be up on the ripplesketch blog.

Illustration Friday-Brave

This turned into a reflection on having children. I do feel that having a child takes some courage, particularly for the mother. I am far away from that point in my life, so perhaps the influence on this piece was a good friend of mine who recently gave birth to a lovely little girl, and stepped full-fledged into motherhood.

Christmas was Just Lovely!

Christmas was really great this year; three days of dinners and presents. My brother his wife, and my nephew came out to visit for a few days, which was very nice to be able to see them all for more than one day at a time. I have had a very satisfying holiday thus far, filled with all the things holidays should be filled with. The initial business of preparing for Christmas(6 grocery store visits within a 24 hour period...), I believe only adds to a more enjoyable holiday, because when you stop preparing and just visit and eat it just feels so much better.
I hope everyone also had a delightful holiday!

The Birdman is available in my etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=37475172

Colouring Drawings with Photoshop

I digitially added colour to a drawing yesterday, and I am quite pleased with the results! I've never altered any of my work digitally before, besides photographs, but I decided to see what I could do with photoshop. Even though I was only using photoshop at a very basic level, it served its purpose well, and will certainly go back with other drawings to alter them, as I found it very satisfying to work this way. The two pictures I have posted show the image before and after.

Please check out my new creation, I've decided to sell him as a greeting card, but certainly would also sell it as a larger print in my etsy shop if there is an interest in it.

Here is the link to the new card:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=30295866

I just finished this painting tonight, and I'm rather pleased with it. It first began as solely an ink painting during a morning Church service where there was an exploration into art as an act of worship. The image was originally based from a sketch I had done several years ago, and finally has come to life with a pink background. I think it's an expression of freedom and surrender. It makes me feel good, like there's something right about it--I'm not sure if other people will read it in the same way, so I'll be interested in any comments.
It was made with ink washes, and then acrylic paint for the pink, and small areas of white acrylic for touch ups. Dimensions are 18 by 24 inches.