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!