Drawing (and painting) a person (or part of a person) almost every day in July for the Index-Card-a-Day Challenge and World Watercolor Month.
Click here to see the rest of my cards for these challenges.
Drawing (and painting) a person (or part of a person) almost every day in July for the Index-Card-a-Day Challenge and World Watercolor Month.
Click here to see the rest of my cards for these challenges.
I love challenges. They motivate me to do the things I wish I was doing all year long, such as drawing or making art if not every day, at least every other day.
This was my sixth year participating in these two challenges. As of yesterday, I’d completed 51 out of 61 cards for ICAD and 24 out of 31 little paintings for World Watercolor Month.
If I manage to do one today, I will post it later.
Instead of following the suggested prompts for each day, I chose to work through the first few chapters of The Complete Book of Drawing People by Barrington Barber. My goal for the month was to systematically get better at drawing people. I don’t know that I actually did that, but I tried. I confess there were a couple of sketches that were so unsatisfactory I threw them away without photographing them. All the rest, the good, the bad, and the ugly, I posted on ARHtistic License and on Instagram, not because I’m so delusional that I thought they were all good, but because all our efforts are significant, even when we fail miserably. I have nothing to lose by showing you my less successful endeavors, and I might even entice you to try what you’re dreaming of creating if you know that it’s okay to have a learning curve.
I’d like to share again the ones I like the best:
And this next one is my #1 favorite this year. You can see by the lines that didn’t get totally erased that this is a proportion study:
It’s funny how subjective our preferences are. On Instagram, this is my drawing that got the most likes:
I’m guessing he looks like a lot of people’s best friend.
Funny stuff. Pretty stuff. Serious stuff.
Drawing (and painting) a person (or part of a person) every day in July for the Index-Card-a-Day Challenge and World Watercolor Month.
Drawing (and painting) a person (or part of a person) every day in July for the Index-Card-a-Day Challenge and World Watercolor Month.
Of course, you knew I couldn’t do a two-month art challenge without including a unicorn:
An interesting thing happened the other morning, something I haven’t experienced in a long time.
I got woken up early, much earlier than I needed to get up. I went to the bathroom and got back into bed and cocooned myself (yes, I am one of those weirdos who must wrap up in a quilt, even in July in the Arizona desert), hoping to fall back asleep for another 45 minutes.
It didn’t happen.
Instead, I dozed, and my imagination began working on the seed of a poem.
You see, the night before I read about a wonderful contest the people at Palette Poetry are putting on. They are looking for a poem that “speaks to what poetry is and can be for our world today.”
Hmm. I don’t think I have a poem in my files that fits that bill. I wish I did, though, because the top prize is $4000. Now, that’s real money.
Believe it or not, in my half-asleep-half-awake state, my brain came up with a few stanzas that represent a good start on a great poem. When my alarm went off, I jogged straight to my laptop and typed it all down, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to remember it by my afternoon writing time.
Later, I googled “muse in the morning” to see what other people have written about this serendipitous phenomenon. I found two pieces of artwork by that name which I wish I could post here, but I couldn’t find any information on whether they are in the public domain, so, sorry. Then, while browsing writing blogs, I found this article, which describes a practice whereby you can activate your imagination by encouraging yourself into a dreamy state.
I am passing on the contest information and the dreamzoning article because we creatives are a supportive community. I know I’ve benefitted from advice from my writing friends and also from fellow writers online. Let’s continue to assist each other and cheer one another along. I wish you success.