Day 89: Argh!

Due to a misunderstanding with our landlord... my husband and I just found out that we have to be moved out of our apartment by April 1st. How's that for an April Fools joke? I will not be able to post tomorrow, but I will leave you with some flower drawings I did not to long ago so you have something to look at until then.

I did get my new computer, and there is internet set up at the next place so I'll be able to post no problem on April 1st! See you soon!

Day 88: Easter Basket and a Bunny

I did quite a bit of spring cleaning yesterday and I didn't leave any time for artwork. I did this little drawing to make up for the for the missed day. I'm beginning to think that a weeks worth of Easter pictures wasn't a good idea because I'm running out of ideas! In a week or two I'll have tons of ideas.

It looks like I'll be getting my new computer tomorrow. It seems like I've been waiting forever for this to come in. I'm hoping that it wont take long to set up, but adding programs to a computer from scratch (and getting new programs) can take some time to do. Hopefully it will be up and running by the end of the week. I'm so excited!

The drawing I did for today is an Easter basket.  This took me way longer than it should have to finish. I had planned to do it all in watercolours, but even the best laid plans don't turn out how you want. I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. I learned a lot from doing this basket on the computer, so I'm quite pleased with what I've learned.

Now hopefully I can finish those jelly bean bunnies soon! I've got quite the busy day tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have time to finish up.

Day 86.5: A Bunny Without Jelly Beans

Instead of working on the bunnies with jelly beans today I did a bunny with his carrot. I'm not sure if it's really an Easter drawing, but it's a bunny with a carrot that means something! I'm not sure what it means, but it's cute. I didn't do a whole lot of detail because I'm tired. I'll go in later and do some details. 

I have the idea for the jelly beans and bunnies. And I have another idea involving some chicks. I'll probably do some Easter Lilies for one drawing and an Easter basket for another. That will cover four days, but there is room left if anyone has ideas for drawings.

Day 85: Almost Bunnies. Definitely Eggs.

I started today drawing some bunnies and ended with eggs. It wasn't that I didn't like the bunnies, it was more that I wanted more time to work on them. I took quite a long break today to go shopping (always good when you need some time to think). The shopping wasn't just for me. I bought a present for my cousin (in-law) Kimberley for her bridal shower. That didn't stop me for buying a couple of tops for myself.

Debbie- The jelly beans and bunnies are coming soon! I'll finish them either tomorrow or Sunday. Hopefully they'll be as great as you imagined.

Day 84: Mr. Chocolate Bunny

In Celebration of Easter I've decided I'm going to do a few Easter themed sketches over the next week. Today's sketch is of one of the best Easter treats - the chocolate bunny. The chocolate bunny comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes he has a jacket. Other times he comes with a basket filled with eggs. Recently I saw one with a cell phone...I'm not going to go into how wrong that is.

The biggest problem is where to start with a chocolate bunny. The ears? The feet? The little tail? I personally like the nose, but sometimes it's hard to start there.

What are your favourite Easter treats? Let me know and maybe I'll draw a few of them over the next week. 

Blue Bear

I had an emergency yesterday and I didn't have any time to do any artwork I decided to do a drawing of a blue bear.  He's kind of skewed and wonkey looking and missing one of his eyes. Despite his faults (or more likely because of them) he's just the kind of bear I'd like to cuddle. I drew him because I needed a bear today to cheer me up.

Day 83: The Kissing Booth

I think I'd like this painting a little better if I could add more details with lighting and shadows. I would like the frog to look a little more feminine. For now it will have to do. 

Day 81: The Old Man in a Boat

Once again I had no idea what I was going to draw today. After doodling for a while and surfing the internet I came across an old Edward Lear poem. This poem inspired my drawing.

There was an Old Man in a boat,

Who said, 'I'm afloat, I'm afloat!'
When they said, 'No! you ain't!'
He was ready to faint,
That unhappy Old Man in a boat.

-Edward Lear

If you want to find out more about Edward Lear and his work you can start here:http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/

Day 80: The Dancer Revisited

After yesterday I decided that I wanted to see what my dancer would look like in colour. This time she's more of an ice skater. After a bit of trouble I arrived at the image you see here. I'm not completely happy with the way it turned out. Photoshop was threatening to crash on me again so I decided to go with this rather than lose my chance to share the ice skater with you.

Day 79: The Dancer

The one thing I hate about being sick is it always happens at the wrong times. Let me be sick when I have to visit someone I don't like. If it's going to be a bad day if I leave the house, then I don't mind being sick. All the pain, headaches and sneezing can and should wait until a tine that's convenient to me. Not the other way around.

I wish I could not be sick when I want to get things done. Doing these sketches isn't so much fun when I'm sick. It's hard enough to think let alone draw when I'm coughing all the time. I don't even want to talk about the housekeeping. To top it all off my husband is sick with the same cold. 

On a lighter note I finished a drawing for today. I couldn't decide if it would look better coloured or in black and white. I decided on the easier of the two and left it in black and white. I guess the one good thing about being sick is the fact that you can make more believable excuses for not colouring things!

Edit: I forgot to mention my dream last night. I received my computer in the mail and it was awesome. Today I woke up and found out it had been shipped! I can't wait until it gets here!

Day 78: I Failed at Math

While lying awake in bed I realized that I mislead myself and others in my last post. Since I've started 77 days have gone by. 77 days / 7 days in a week= 11. Of course I wasn't thinking that I was doing illustrations ever other week, rather than every week, so I should have done this: 77 days  / 14 days in two weeks = 5.5. It's not bad enough that I'm sick, but I'm making myself feel worse with my horrible division skills. 


So I've been pretty sick this week, which makes it hard for me to do anything. I would just like to share with you a little visual story so you can all feel my pain: 

Day 77: Thumbnails

Here are just a few thumbnail sketches for some of the illustrations I'll be doing in the near future. They might not make a lot of sense, but they are to give me an idea how I'm going to lay things out and arrange them. These two will be from the same books. I haven't written them yet, but I know how these stories are going to go. I may not do these right away because I'll probably need some serious reference material before I start on these.

So far I've gotten 3 illustrations done, and have posted starts for the second three. With these six sketches I have 12 of 26 ideas thought out. I have a script and sketches for a school story all done, and an idea for a Little Mermaid book.  The breakdown is more or less like this:

Illustrations
1-3)     3 Bug Themed (2/3 outlined)
4-6)     3 Farm Scenes (finished)
7-9)     3 Cat Story Spreads (thumbnails)
10-12) 3 Humpty Dumpty Story (thumbnails)
13-15) 3 Little Mermaid (1 drawing done... will be re-drawn digitally)
16-18) 3 School Story (3 drawings need to be re-thought digitally)
19-21) Unknown
22-24) Unknown
25-2?) Unknown (2-3 illustrations)

Basically I have 23 illustrations left to do and 8-9 illustrations I haven't thought out quite yet. I'm behind on my plan by 8 illustrations. I plan on doing all of my artwork digitally, but I'm still waiting another month for my computer to come. I may have to bite the bullet and do some of these the old fashioned way (Once I figure out what I'm going to draw the ones I have up I want to do digitally). In any case I need to start doing more sketches that will appear in the final drawings. Also, I'd like to point out that I added the well to last weeks sketches, and forgot to include the tractor, so I added the little tractor here.

Day 76: Just for Fun!

So these drawings today are drawings I did for fun. This first one I did today. I picked up some sketchbooks yesterday so I actually have paper to work on. I was having trouble deciding which medium to work in for my sketch and my crayons called to me (no, I don't have kids... the crayons are for me!) Crayons are not the easiest medium to work in. I sketched everything lightly and then worked at putting in all the detail. Somewhere along the line I ended up skewing the perspective with my crayons. I did an outline with a coloured pencil which skewed the perspective even more.

I'm sick right now with a cold, so I'm going to blame the perspective issues on that. Before you feel sorry for me you should know it's all my fault. This is just something that happens when you don't wear your coat outside. In my defence: I'm living in Vancouver and it's supposed to be spring. Coats should not come into play.

This second drawing is a self portrait (and yes I am a girl I just like my hair short!). I worked on a little bit yesterday and a little bit today. As you can tell it's nowhere near done. I'm still working a bit on making sure everything is placed correctly (maybe I should use this time to see if I'd look better with larger eyes, or a different hairstyle, ha ha!). The lighting is really harsh too, but I'll change that with time. When will I finish it? When it's done, of course. I'd like to try a portrait in colour. That will be one of my goals when my new computer comes in April.. and yes it wont be here 'till April, but I refuse to suffer in silence!

So how am I doing so far? Do you like my drawings? Am I posting too much or too little? Are my posts too long or short? Interesting or not interesting? Is there anything you'd like to see more of on my blog? Let me know. If you don't want to comment here please feel free to email me at daniduckart[@]gmail.com. Be sure to remove the brackets which are put in place to lessen spam in my inbox. I'm not afraid of harsh judgement... I was an art student after all so I'm use to it! I only ask that it's constructive criticism. If you don't like something (or do like something) please tell me why. Hrm I think that's it for today. I'm going to go blow my nose a few hundred times before I post again. Bye now!

Day 74: The Ant and the Grasshopper

anI've worked on this over the past couple of days. I don't really have the computer power to finish this yet, but this is the basic idea for another bug-type illustration. The final will change from this, but this will give you a basic idea of what I'm working on.

Day 72: Turkey Talk

It'll be a long time before Thanksgiving rolls around again. And though they aren't thought about the other 364 days of the year, I still decided to draw a turkey. Turkeys are funny little gobblers. 

Turkeys are nice to look at, but I can't imagine living with one near my house. People that have birds as pets (even little canaries) always amaze me. You can't really pet them like a cat or dog (well maybe you can, but most are so small it's so not like petting).   And I'd hate cleaning up after them. No, I prefer to look at birds, or draw birds rather then let them in my home. There is really nothing wrong with owning a bird, but you wont see one in my house! 

Day 71: What Do a Truck and a Hummingbird Have in Common?

I drew this truck yesterday, but I couldn't think of anything to say about it, so I didn't post. Today I can say that I had nothing to say about it, so I can post. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? 

I wanted to draw a bird today. I had the basic form done and my husband suggested it looked like a humming bird. I added a few lines at his request and there you have it a little hummingbird. Maybe it doesn't fit in with the other farm animals that much, but I think he's kind of cute.

Day 69: Big Duck

An adult duck is the drawing for today.  I thought the little ducky deserved a bit guy to help him feel safe. Can't say much today 'cause I have to go eat. Enjoy!

Day 68: A Field of Corn Without the Field

I had started with a field of corn but I had to do some downsizing on my blog and only ended up with one stalk. It will be a lot easier to harvest now, and the scarecrow will be extra effective. I do wish I could have given him some brothers and sisters, but art doesn't always work the way you want it to.

I'm trying to decide on more things to add to my farm. Bales of hay would be good. Either those square boxes or maybe the big giant round ones. I've always wanted to get on one of those big round ones and see if I can get it to roll like some might with a barrel. I think that would end painfully, but I'd have fun for two seconds.

Day 67: A Scarecrow

Here is the scarecrow all finished. Not very scary, though. It's okay because it's not like I'm making a Batman movie. I think next will be a cornfield to put the scarecrow in. Cornfields are very scary places. Just visit Ohio - you can't drive for 20 10 minutes without seeing a cornfield. And yes, Ohio is a scary place. They don't have any mountains!

Day 66: A Windmill

Today's sketch is of a windmill. It's not really the type of windmill you'd see at most farms. I was going to do a scarecrow, but I'm not sure how I'm going to do him yet. Without arms or legs... hrm it might not be a scarecrow that's fit for children. I'll have to think about it and see what I come up with. 

Day 65.5: Country Comfort

I was lost at first on what to draw these past couple of days. I've pretty much exhausted on farm animals and farm equipment. At least I don't want to do a lot of mechanical farm equipment. I think I may do some hoes, a pitchfork or maybe a scythe, but big huge mechanical equipment doesn't appeal to me. Feel free to tell me how much my drawings need more mechanical equipment (I may change my mind). I think I may do a scarecrow and a field of corn. Maybe a close up on a windmill. I'm not sure what else I'm going to throw in there quite yet. 

I've got my new computer ordered. I'm not sure how long it's going to take to get to me. Friday I ordered and that evening I got an email saying that my credit card didn't go through. I'm sure it's a minor issue, but I can't do anything about it until Monday, ugh! Hopefully it will be resolved soon, and I'll have a brand new computer to terrorize..er help me with my life.

Day 63: Well, Well, Well

Wells are more and more becoming something of a bygone era. Soon there wont be many left, but when I think of a farm I think about wells. Often, there are little Jimmy's that fall in these wells, but that doesn't mean that they should fade into obscurity. For all of you who have ever made a wish in a well, or wished you had a well to wish in: this sketch is for you.











Also, here are some sketches from weeks 8&9. I'm pretty sure everything is here, but I'm probably missing something little (let me know if I missed anything). I think I may be doing more farm sketches in the near future, because I'm running out of watercolour paper. It's always something isn't it? Ah well, almost 1/5th of the way there!

Day 62.5: A Tractor

I wanted to draw up some farm equipment just in case I decided to do more farm illustrations. I couldn't do them quite like the animal drawings... because farm equipment without wheels don't really look like farm equipment. This is just a little tractor for today. I'll have to think about other farm equipment I can do.

Day 61: Underwater Creatures

Just a couple of sea creatures for you today. I've always had a fascination with water and the creatures that live within it's depths. They are just fun to draw, especially those who live in the darkest waters. They are creepy, but so neat.

I'm not a big Disney fan, quite the opposite in many cases, but I am interested in seeing their new movie: "Oceans". I wasn't so happy with "Earth". Too many scenes focused too much on the landscape and not enough on the animals. It didn't seem quite balanced. I wonder how kids could stay attentive during the whole movie. Hopefully this new movie wont disappoint.