I Am Thankful For... (Thanksgiving 2008)

Little by little, over a long Thanksgiving weekend, I made this prayer drawing. Very satisfying to do, and a great way to pay attention to what I'm thankful for.

I especially like the slice of pie (drawn, then eaten), the family quilt, and the dog. I used Copic Spica glitter pens in a few places, like the top surface of the pie and the book's edges.

Flowing Blue and Purple

This drawing started as a doodle, just flowing lines. It made me think of flowers - maybe morning glories. So I added leaves. This is one of my favorite drawings.

Copic colors used: B41,45, YG63, G21,V15, Cobalt multiliner
Paper: white Crane's card approx. 4x6"

Grape Ivy 2008

My grape ivy plant #3, a cutting of a cutting of my plant #1 from 1970. I love its leaves and its knobby stems and its survival skills. I drew plant #2 in 1983.

I drew this in pencil, then scanned and printed it before coloring. (In other words, I didn't color my original pencil drawing.) On the copy that I was coloring, I also added some lines in cool gray Copic multiliner. The pot is a very dark brown in real life, but for this drawing, I made it blue and gray.

My original background (YR21 and BG000) looked too intense to me, so I faded it out by coloring over & over with colorless blender, pushing the excess color out the back. And the paper didn't even pill. About this drawing I wrote, "It's such a pleasure to have markers that make nice colors, don't blob all over the paper, and what's more, can do interesting effects that I never knew could be done with markers."

Copic colors used: The clay pot is base color R02 with E09 rim & E09 applied on the R02 marker to give it the streaks & splotches. The leaves are base colors of G12, G21, YG03, YG23 with various layers of darker greens applied on the lighter markers. When it was all done, I added some white colored pencil on the potting soil to make it less of a solid dark color.

Flowers in Shallow Bowl

It was a lot of fun to layer the colors in this drawing. The flowers started with very light base colors. Then I added many different bits of darker with the blender brush tip. The table and bowl were also done that way. See below for details on the technique.

To try this, perhaps with simpler coloring, click here.

Copic colors used: Bowl C5 base, C9, Black 100 on 0 brush tip; Leaves YG03 base, YG63, G9; Wall G40, between flowers G21; Flower base colors W1, R0, BG000, then for the petals, added many colors on 0 brush tip (B06,29,39,45, E04, BG05,45, R24,29,32,59, BV08, RV14,29) and for the flower centers, added Y26,38, YR09; Table base color E33, streaks of E29,44 on 0 brush tip.
Technique: I used the palette technique: picking up the color from a clear plastic CD case cover, as follows: Color with a dark marker onto the plastic, then pick up the color with the blender & gently dab onto the paper. The color dries on the plastic, but you can still easily pick it up with the blender. When done, clean up the plastic with alcohol (hand sanitizer works great) and kleenex. (See Marianne Walker's palette blending explanation on her blog I Like Markers for more info.)
Paper: white Crane's card approx. 4x6"

Basket Weave

After struggling with drawing some basket weave, I decided to teach myself how to draw it. I found an example to study on the internet. Then I drew a test card (below) until I had the idea.

It is rather hypnotic to draw, but you can't think about it, you just have to do it. The finished drawing (above) is what I learned.

Copic colors used: B06, BG45, R24, RV29, E33,37,41,44, Plus E21,25,29,49, B39 for splotches and shading
Paper: white Crane's card approx. 4x6"

Cat on a Sofa; Flower Basket; Abstract

One night I colored some bright, abstract shapes. (Below at right.) Then I was stumped for how to finish it. So I made three color copies (they look faded, next to the original, but that's probably a good thing.) I finished them in different ways.

The flower basket (below at left) made me realize that I didn't know how to make it look basketlike, so I did another basket weave project after this. The abstract (below in center) is kind of map-like.

My favorite is the cat on the sofa (above). I thought my color blob looked kind of sofa-like, and that was easy to draw. Then I struggled with the cat shape, but I still like how it turned out.