a new journal page....

another page using a photo i took in one of the NOLA cemeteries.....I LOVE how this one turned out! I don't know about mixing the Derwent watersoluble pencils with the watercolors....it may be making the drawings look too dirty, which is totally weird for me to say, since i love grungy looking pages...this combo may just be grungy in a not so good way. but good at least for this page! i love the colors...... this is sure to become a bigger painting......

Angel journal page

So I have been working on some larger pieces, and also doing a little more photography lately, and my posts have fallen by the wayside. I did this spread just to start messing with my watercolors..... the colors didn't scan very well. But i like the grunginess of how it turned out....i just like grungy things...and i keep doodling this angel(it's one of my photographs, but i keep grabbing this particular photo out of the pile every time...i must reallllllly like it! LOL) This is in my square hand*book journal....

Product of Lebanon

I found a wine shop that sells this Lebanese wine, so I bought a few bottles, because my Grandmother's dad is Lebanese, so I'm always interested in family heritage, culture, etc. I was hoping the label would come off easily(and, yay, it did!) so i could use it in this spread.

I have all these fabulous photos of my grandma and her friends cheesing for the camera, just being girls. This is one of my favorites, so I painted it here. She loves to tell me that her bikini was red, so I knew it would be perfect with the colors of the label...

Pin Up Study No.2

ok, so i could list a million things wrong with this one, however, the face is better than the last one, and even though some of the shading didn't go on as smoothly as i like, i like the coloring of her. i guess that's the point of doing studies, though, isn't it? to mess up, and to learn? it's funny, i started college in fashion design, and abandoned it years and years ago, but doing these studies makes me remember how much i loved it. as a kid, and all the way through high school, i could sit for hours and draw clothes. it was all i did. so it's actually quite nice to sit and draw and paint some fashionable little pin-ups.

pin up study numero uno

One of my (many!) resolutions is to focus on drawing the human figure, both naturally, and in my favo style...the pin-up. I bought several books last year including Taschen's 1000 Pin-Up Girls, and this is a study from that book, For a 1st attempt, I am more than pleasantly surprised at how it turned out, and at how quickly I did this. I love her, bad feet, skinny thigh, and all! ; ) WHY DIDN"T I TRY THIS SOONER?! LOL

p.s. ...i've mentioned them in a couple of the last posts, but let me mention them here again- I totally heart Derwents watersoluble graphitone pencils. Do a little shading, wash over them with some H2O, and you get the best sparkly gray wash, and awesomely enough, the sparkle will show through your gouache! How can you not love something that leaves a little glitz?