Happy Pokemon Day

If you had asked me 25 years ago if you thought I would still like Pokemon as a 30-something adult, I surely would have laughed and said “no way”. Yet here we are, 25 years (and dozens of games, TV shows and movies, and thousands of trading cards) later and the “little franchise that could” is still a big hit with kids and adults. Including myself!

I had hoped to make a bigger better drawing for the occasion, but for now here are some adorable assorted spring bulb “Bulbasaur” pokemon sketches.

If you are unfamiliar with pokemon in general, this “Bulbasaur” is a little plant-frog who has a large bulb on his back. As he grows and “evolves”, it blooms into a large generic looking pink flower. I thought it would be adorable if there were assorted varieties that you could buy or collect that bloom/evolve with different types of plants on their backs like these spring blooms.

Happy New Year 2021

Happiest of New Years to you and yours. 2020 was a long year and a tough year for many. I hope this new year finds you well and is off to a good start. I had the day off from work and was able to spend it with family.

Part of the day I visited with my nieces and nephews and doodled. I drew this fun little lettering “doodle” with their Crayola markers and printer paper. Proof that you don’t need the finest tools to make art. ;-)

Have a happy new year and I hope you had a blessed holiday season.

Happy Halloween

Alas it comes but once a year, Happiest of Halloween’s to all you boos and ghouls! Here is a selection of small (about 1x2foot each) chalkboards featuring some of our favorite scariest treats.

These small boards generally take between 30 and 60 minutes from start to finish. They are a fun way to try new color markers and paints as well as new styles of lettering.

Inktober 2020 Part 7.5

Today I’m sharing the colored version of Inktober prompt 7. As I said before, I just loved the movie Labyrinth growing up, and even enjoy it now. I added a little embellishment to the Goblin King’s suitcoat that was inspired by the gemstones and crystals in the labyrinth. A little glitz goes a long way.

I used a broad marker brush in Procreate to get this chunky marker look. I work mostly with black and white line and real paint or marker for color, so digital coloring sometimes feels a little rigid for me. I love blending with “real” paint and pigment. That being said, I do like the broad-stroke marker rendering look. I hope you like this too!

Inktober 2020 Part 7

Today’s Inktober prompt was “fancy”

Inspired by one of my favorite films, Labyrinth, I decided to do a sketch of the dreamy Masquerade’s beautiful ballroom attire. It is one of my favorite scenes from the movie and it features a favorite David Bowie song. As a little girl I always wanted to go on an adventure like Sarah…wear the pretty costumes and maybe meet The Goblin King.

This drawing was once again done on my iPad using procreate. I’m consistently impressed by this software as a drawing and painting tool.

I found out recently that there was a “labyrinth masquerade” party in Los Angeles. Unfortunately we never did get the chance to go.

Inktober 2020- Part 5 & 6 Part 2

Today I wanted to share with you the colored version of yesterday’s post. I liked that Sailor Moon inspired drawing too much to leave it in black and white.

I thought that the kimono especially needed color to show some of the detail. You almost cannot tat

Inktober 2020- Part 5 & 6

Once again I am doing a dual-prompt post. Today’s drawing is inspired by the prompts “blade” and “rodent”.

She is also heavily inspired by my favorite television show and comic “Sailor Moon”. In the Japanese version of the story, her name is “Usagi Tsukino” which means “Rabbit of the Moon”. We have the “Man in the Moon” in the West, and in Japan it is a rabbit making mochi in a mortar and pestle. Which not only inspires her name, of course, but also the drawing/tattoo on her back.

I picked a stylized drawing of Usagi holding a katana BLADE and drew her with a number of tattoos including a rabbit. I thought rabbits were RODENTS but they are actually of the taxonomic order “lagomorph”, so this drawing for the prompt “rodent” was made under that false assumption of rabbits as rodents. You learn something new every day. ;-)

Sailor Moon Inspired Illustration

Inktober 2020- Part 3 & 4

Today’s post is another Inktober drawing. I fell a little behind, but I am not letting that deter me. Today I focused on two prompts to make up for the “delay”. The prompts of the days were “bulky” and “radio”. I chose to draw a young lady in an oversized sweater grooving to the beat from a similarly oversized retro boom box.

No newfangled AirPods for this groove

I had fun drawing this illustration. A benefit of drawing digitally is that you can work out a pose a little more easily than drawing traditionally. I also added a pop of color.

Inktober 2020- part 2

Follow up from yesterday’s post about “Inktober” with today’s drawing with the prompt “wisp”. For those of you unfamiliar with video games, “Wisp” is a ghost character in a video game called “Animal Crossing”. I love the little cute and friendly ghost, so I decided to draw him. When scared by the player, he bursts in to tiny will-o-whisps.

inktober day two: wisp

I also tried coloring this drawing digitally using bold color fills.

The same drawing in color

Inktober 2020-part 1

This year has been a challenging one for many. I’ve been so blessed to be able to work throughout the pandemic. However, I have found it challenging to be “inspired” to create new artwork in my free time. This year for inktober, I will try and keep up with the popular-on-social-media drawing prompt list. I draw traditionally all the time for work, so I will be trying to draw more digitally using my iPad.

Today’s prompt is “fish”

I will be sharing these images on my Instagram account. Inktober is popular on social media. It is really fun to see what other artists create using the same general prompts! Stay tuned for more artwork!

The list of prompts for this year :-)