Advent Calendar Template 2012

Next Sunday will be the first Sunday of Advent, and once again, time to start my Advent Calendar drawings.  This will be Year 5.  Each year I wonder if I'll do another one.  And then I do.  So here is my 2012 template.

This year, Christmas is on a Tuesday.  Instead of a five-wide drawing space for Christmas Day, I decided to give an extra block to each of the four Sundays, for my Advent wreath and candle drawings.  The weeks progress diagonally down the page, and I deleted the day labels from the top row.

I will post my calendar here throughout Advent, at least weekly, and maybe more often. After my first year's Advent calendar, I wrote a post on what I learned from it, and it does a good job of explaining why I've continued.

For my previous Advent calendar drawings, click as follows:

• Here for 2011
• Here for 2010
• Here for 2009
• Here for 2008
• Here for all of my Advent and Christmas-related drawings and posts

My friend Sybil also has posted her Advent calendars in past years in her prayer-drawing blog, Praying in Color.   Click here for her 2011 calendar, or click here for earlier years. I'll also link to her 2012 calendar as it appears.  Edited Nov. 26, 2012 to add:  Click here for Sybil's candle and tree templates... very different from my grid format.   

If you'd like to try this activity for yourself, you're welcome to use my 2012 template.  It's sized to print on 8-1/2 x 11" paper.  Click here to download the PDF file, or click here to download the Word version.  Both are on Google Docs.

Sparse Landscape

A sparse landscape with trees.  Few leaves, muted colors, a late November feeling.   Just a little warm-up sketch, but I like how it turned out. 

• Copic marker colors used: YR24,27, Y28, YG91,95, E23,84,87.  The drawing has more variation of colors than is seen in my scan. 
• I dabbed on colorless blender solution ("0") with terry cloth to make the mottled effect.  
• Paper: Neenah, cut down to 5x7"

Berry Flourishes

Doodled lines - Flourishes with berries and leaves.  Drawn with 0.3 Copic multiliner and just three marker colors. 

• Copic marker colors used: YR14, YG95, BG57
• Paper: Neenah, cut down to 5.5 x 4.25"

Tall Heart Stems

A black-and-white doodle, drawn with Copic 0.5 multiliner.  Tall stems of hearts.

For this week's Illustration Friday word, "tall."

With color added, this drawing also makes a nice greeting card, posted here on my cards blog, Mostly Markers - Cards.

Doodle with Rickrack and Chevron Lines

I'm not feeling well today, just a minor bug I'm sure, but not much energy or concentration.   Ideal conditions for drawing some lines and coloring in between them.  I enjoyed playing with the shapes and patterns. 

The idea came from a question posted by Ashley on the Papertrey Ink forum.  Since only forum participants can see it,  I'll recap the question here:  "Anyone ever use certain dies for tracing? I just thought how tracing the shapes of certain dies would make a cool background." 

So I gave it a try with the Papertrey Ink XL rickrack and chevron stripes border dies.  Aside from user error (of which there's been rather a lot today!),  it worked very well.  Nice smooth lines to trace around.  Great shapes.  And I like tracing around things, so it will be fun to use the dies that way.  Ashley, thanks for the idea!

Note: the gray is background, not part of the drawing. 

• Copic marker colors used: BV04, BG53,57, Black 100 (dots)
• Drawn with Copic 0.3 multiliner
• Paper: Neenah, cut down to 5x7"

Landscape with Space

When I saw Illustration Friday's word for the week, "space," I thought of a landscape with white space in the middle.  I enjoyed drawing these simple leaf, tree, flower, and cloud shapes.  I like the colors and the white space to imagine more of the scene.  

• Copic marker colors used: B45, G14,46, YG03,05,61, C1,3, E33, Y38, R08 
• Drawn with Copic 0.3 multiliner
• Paper: Neenah, cut down to 4.25 x 5.5"

Lenten Prayer Calendar (2012) - Finished

Since February 22 (Ash Wednesday), I've been drawing daily in my Lenten prayer calendar.

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, and I've finished my honeycomb of drawings. Simple but satisfying to my eye and heart. Click on the drawing for a better view.

For more information and a link to the template, see my previous post (scroll down or click here.)

• Paper: Neenah

Lenten Prayer Calendar (2012)

For Lent this year, I'm drawing a honeycomb of daily prayers. Each hexagon is 1-1/4" wide, point-to-point.

• If you'd like to try something like this, please click here for my friend Sybil's template to print or download, with daily blank drawing spaces. (Thanks, Sybil, for the hexagons!)
  
• Click here for my 2011 Advent Calendar. Its drawings are more complex. I will probably keep my Lent drawings pretty simple.
  
• Click here for my 2010 Lenten Calendar.
  

Frond in Greens and Blues

Just a doodle. My hand wanted to draw these curvy lines today. It looked like a frond, or maybe a feather, so I colored it that way.

I airbrushed the background, and the splotchy effect was created by airbrushing with the brush end of the Sketch marker.

• Copic marker colors used: G17,28, YG23,95, BG49,53,75,93, E87
• Copic multiliners: Olive 0.3, black 0.1
  
• Paper: Neenah classic cream, cut down to 4.25 x 5.5"
  

2011 Highlights - New Year's Drawing

A bit of art journaling for the new year. I was inspired by Illustration Friday's word for the week, "highlight." With black Copic 0.3 multiliner, I drew some wavy lines, then wrote some words - events, moments, experiences, and choices that highlight 2011 for me as a good year.

I airbrushed with my Copic markers in rough sections between the wavy lines (not masking, not trying to be too even). Then I drew white lines, dots, and squiggles with colorless blender "0" and colored in a few small areas. It was a very good way for me to look back at 2011. Happy 2012 to all!

• Copic marker colors used: Y15, YR15, RV34, BV04, BG45, G14, C0, colorless blender "0" to make the white lines and dots on the airbrushed colors
  
• Paper: Neenah, cut down to 4-1/4 x 5-1/2"
  
• Words: 2011 Highlights - work, quiet, exercise, music, prayer, laughter, hugs, prayer, home*, pots of tea, health, the moon, veggie box, dancing, joy, love, thank yous, singing, safety, art supplies, landscape, listening, *where the heart is, friends, family, birds, ferry, good books, geraniums
  

Blog News 13 - Updated Copic color chart

Updates to Mostly Markers, other than new drawings posted, since the last Blog News:

• Updated my Copic color chart, including spaces for the new 2012 colors.
  

Reminder - my blog includes over a dozen easy-to-draw "try this" posts. Not drawing lessons, but drawing activities based on my drawings. Simple directions with lots of encouragement, because I strongly believe that Anybody Can Draw. To see what I mean, I invite you to click here, or click on "try this" in the menu bar in my blog header, or in the labels list on the right.

Advent Calendar 2011

(Final drawing) My Advent calendar drawing for 2011. Each day's space is small, 1-3/8 x 1-1/2", so you may want to click on the drawing for a clearer view.

My friend Sybil has posted her 2011 Advent calendar here on her Praying in Color blog.

• Click here for a listing of my words, sources of words, and Copic marker colors (or other materials) used.
• Click here for my 2011 template - to print or save my blank Advent calendar template for your own use (PDF or JPG format).
• Click here for my 2010 Advent calendar drawing, or here for 2009 and here for 2008.
  
• For all related posts, click on my Advent-Christmas label, below or in the label list to the right.

Musical Round

A bright musical round. Inspired by Illustration Friday's word this week, "round," which made me think of the rounds I've been singing with my church choir.

Though I'm not dyslexic, somehow the treble-clef symbol has always been difficult for me. After I carefully studied its shape in my sheet music, I drew it four times, and one of them I twisted the wrong way. Oh well. This was fun to draw.

• Copic marker colors used: Custom color R290, B41,45, BG45, YG05, YR07, V04
  
• Paper: Neenah, cut down to 5x7"
• Words: Round; Brightly
  

Advent Calendar Template 2011

Next Sunday is the beginning of Advent, so I'm planning for my 4th annual Advent calendar drawings. With Christmas falling on a Sunday, I decided to place it in the midst of the calendar, instead of a full row width on the bottom. Symbolic and practical.

I will post the calendar on my blog throughout Advent. Maybe not daily, but at least weekly. After my first year of drawing an Advent calendar like this, I wrote about what I learned from it. That post pretty well explains why I've continued with it.

For my previous Advent calendar drawings, click as follows:

• Here for 2010
• Here for 2009
• Here for 2008
• Here for all of my Advent and Christmas-related drawings and posts

My friend Sybil also has posted her Advent calendars in past years in her prayer-drawing blog, Praying in Color. Click here for the links to each year. I'll also link to her 2011 calendar as it appears.

You're warmly invited to print my 2011 template for your own use. Due to the more complicated layout, I've saved it as a JPEG file, as posted above. (Double click, then save, for better image quality.) You may need to paste it into Word or PowerPoint, then resize it. It's intended to fit on 8-1/2 x 11" paper with 1/2" left and right margins. Added November 24, 2011: Or you can click here to download the PDF file, which I've posted on Google Docs.

Flower Drawing with Color-Bleed Background

A very small drawing (2 x 3-1/4") with a bright, stained-glass background. I wanted simple, heavy lines to stand out against a busy background. So I used a Copic 1.0 multiliner, instead of my usual 0.2 or 0.3 weight.

Before I colored my drawing, I scanned it for future use on greeting cards. To see how I used it, click here for the post on my other blog, Mostly Markers- Cards. If the Copic marker color-bleed background appeals to you, you may also want to click here for a different card example that I did yesterday with the technique.

The background was very easy to make using Julia Stainton's color-bleed grid technique, posted on Ellen Hutson's educational CLASSroom blog. I separated my blue-green and red-orange sections with a stripe of yellow. My background colors are Copic Y15, YG05, YR04, R35, R24, and BG45.

After the paper was dry from my "0" colorless blender drips, I added some Copic markers on top of my background pattern. I used some strong reds on the flowers (YR09, RV29, R08, and R59), and muted greens and blue on the leaves and ground area (G24 on the leaves, BG93 on the lower ground stripe, and BG53 for the upper ground stripe). For the leaves and ground, I colored gently in long soft strokes, so as not to disturb the "drips" pattern underneath. I really like how the pattern still shows through.

Paper: Neenah solar white

Orange and Yellow Patches

I was nearly finished with my "gesture" drawing for Illustration Friday's word for the week. Then I ruined it with spilled ink. At such times I remind myself, "it's only paper." So I drew something completely different. Patches of orange and yellow marker, and a wandering line doodled with brown Micron pen.

• Copic marker colors used: Y11,15,21, E25 (dots), 95, YR00,04,15,20,21
• Paper: Neenah
  

Landscape with Scribbly Lines on Watercolor Paper

For this imaginary landscape, I scribbled lines in many colors of ink, then colored with my Copic markers. The markers look like watercolors on the soft, thick Arturo paper. Love the fuzzy torn edges.

• Copic 0.3 colored multiliners used: Sky blue, sepia, cool gray, cobalt, olive, wine, pink
• Other pens used: Micron 0.5 brown, Faber-Castell Pitt sepia F
  
• Copic marker colors used: Custom color B2000, B21,41,63, BG70,72, C0, W0, E21,41,81,87, YG61,63,91, BG93, BV20
  
• Paper: Arturo bright white watercolor card from Ellen Hutson (size 3-3/8 x 5-1/8")
  

Pattern of Vines and Flowers

An overall pattern of vines and flowers, drawn with Copic 0.3 black multiliner and colored with Copic markers. My inspiration was a very different painting, a wall border around the top of a large dining room (photo below).

Due to my underlying grid of 2" squares and 1-1/2" circles, my drawing has a formal, static appearance. Drawn for Illustration Friday's word for the week, "stay," which is a lot like "static" (remaining in place.)

• Copic marker colors used: YG21, G14, Y19, B01,24,26,41, BG49,53, R02,59, Custom colors YG6000 and R290
  
• Paper: Neenah, cut down to 11x7"
  

Blue and Brown Doodle

Just a doodle. Rounded shapes and arched lines, colored in blues and browns.

It's been a very long time since I posted a drawing. My artistic efforts have gone more into card making, as posted on my other blog, Mostly Markers - Cards.

• Copic marker colors used:B01,05, BG32,45,49,53, E21,23,25,37
  
• Copic 0.2 multiliner
  
• Paper: Neenah, cut down to 4.25 x 5.5"
  

Three Purple Flowers in Vase

Three flowers in a vase. Drawn with pencil, colored with Copic markers and a bit of colored pencil.

Added April 26, 2011: Click here to see my greeting card with another version of the flowers.

• Copic marker colors used: Y11,19, W0,1, RV000,91, V000,12,20, BG10,70,93, custom colors YYR2000, YG6000
  
• Colored pencils: Venus Spectracolor cream and lavender
• Paper: Neenah, cut down to 4.25 x 5.5"