Goal Accomplished!! One year of drawing everyday...

My last post for the year is an inchie overview of July. Hands down, doing the inchie drawings have been my favorite.

Here are a few thoughts on my journey for this project:

This journey started last year when I decided I wanted to improve my drawing skills. In July 2008, I took a three day workshop called “Spirit of the Sketch”. Then I read Margie Boule's column in the Oregonian about Marc Acito who was doing one new thing a day for a whole year. I thought it was a great idea and decided to that I would like to do a drawing a day for a whole year. I started at the end of July but after a couple of days, “things” started to happen. I realized that I needed to make a commitment, so to keep myself accountable I decided to start a blog. Thanks to Paula who helped me start and fine tune my blog. And a huge thanks to her for designing and making my new header!!!

I have drawn every day since last August 1st. I posted a drawing everyday to my blog except for a couple of times when I had computer issues. How this worked is that I drew everyday, even when I didn’t feel like I wanted to, sometimes for only fifteen minutes (only a few days were this short) and sometimes as much as three to four hours. I would guess the average was about an hour to an hour and a half a day. The drawing you see each day might have taken a couple of days to finish. I always drew enough to make sure I had a drawing to post.

Looking back over the past year’s drawings, I am not sure I have improved as much as I might have wanted. I feel that taking the Spirit of the Sketch workshop again has given me some new tools that I look forward to using. What my hopes would be going forward is to become better at on the spot sketching and I want to continue to improve my skills at drawing people. I plan to continue to draw on a consistant basis but haven't decided how much I will post. Hopefully I'll maybe post once a week. What I did learn was that if I make up my mind to do something and know how important keeping my word to myself is, that I can do it. My biggest surprise on this journey was giving my TV, something I never thought I would ever do.

Thanks to everyone who followed my journey and left comments. Everyone’s support was greatly appreciated along the way.

June 2009 Overview

June was another mixed bag of drawings. One of my favorites was my pill bottle from when I was sick. So I used this as my overview using the techniques from my weekend class. The overall exercise is to take one item and draw it twenty different ways and frame each drawing. Another technique not shown before is to use only three colored pencils (canary yellow, magenta and true blue) to make all your colors. I love this exercise and thought about that as a challenge for myself going forward. Another post that I liked was the baby fairy. Check out the month if you have time.

May 2009 Overview

May was another month I found difficult to decide what to do for an overview. I am enjoying the techniques I learned in my weekend workshop so I decided to redraw the J. Jill jacket in the different techniques. I drew a different fairy at the wishing well mixing colored pencil and watercolor pencil. My favorite inchie overview was this month. There were many fairies that I was pleased with also. Check out the month for varied drawings.

April 2009 Overview

Well, this is kind of messed up. Since I posted the drawings mostly the next day this overview original is in May and not April, even though it is an April drawing. The acrylic bottles were just one drawing I liked for April. I had a blast doing the mirror image exercise from the Everyday Matters Challenges. The kid dressed as a Quizno's soda cup has disappeared from Highway 99. Again, it was a big mish/mash of drawings. Another one of my favorites is the squirrel iron on patch. Check out the month if you have time.

March 2009 Overview

The little green alien came back for his ray gun. He didn't stop with the gun. With the help the partying ants, he stole all of closet beastie's toys and treasures. The only thing he left was Baby Beastie's copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. March was another mish/mash of varied drawings. In the beginning of the month are my three favorite cat drawings from photos from a cat show. Scroll down the bottom of the month to see them.

Spirit of the sketch Day 3

This was an assignment from yesterday. The assignment was to pick something up outside, one natural thing and one man made and then write something about it. Click on the picture to see the writing.

The drawings above and below are the last thing we did which was to do a quick sketch of everyone in the class.

This ends the weekend workshop. I have five more days to go until the year of drawing everyday is up. Since I am back to posting the same day, I'll be doing that all week but now later in the day, probably the evening.

For a fabulous overview of the class check out Emma Pod's blog. A great description and great art of what when on...but no pictures of Eros...maybe next time...

Spirit of the Sketch Day Two

My favorite work of the day. Different ways to approach the sketch

Good Pig!! I fell in love with this pig and the teacher gave him to me! He is so very, very cool. Lucky me!! Thanks Marilyn!!!

Spirit of the Sketch Friday, Day One

Last year I took a class at PCC called Spirit of the Sketch. This is one of the things that started me on my drawing quest. I enjoyed it so much I decided to take it again. I thought it was appropriate as I draw towards the end of my year of drawing daily.

The teacher Marilyn Reaves

A returning student... Her name is Eros

A quick sketch of a wooden bird

An exercise in contour drawing

There was much more drawing but this is all I wanted to post. Stay tuned for day two and three.

February 2009 Overview-Thursday's drawing

February was a mixed bag. My favorite drawings were done from photos that I took at a cat show. My biggest regret was doing these drawings in a moleskine sketchbook instead of on paper. By scrolling through the month you can see them. I didn't want to draw them again so my overview drawing is actually of some cats I didn't draw the first time around.

Overview for January 2009

The month of January is probably one of my favorites. I drew inchies for most of the month. My favorites were Saul Steinburg, Winnie the Pooh, Eloise and Alice in Wonderland which I have used as my overview choice for this month.

Ignoring the month of December

I don't like the month of December and I never have. The weather is always bad and the sun seems to have disappeared. I also don't like Christmas. It has always been my goal to go some place warm and where Christmas is not celebrated. I am still working on this. Reviewing my drawings for this month was disappointing. The only ones I liked were the one of my clock radio and of my pal Bentley.

November 2008 Overview

I realize that this year I have not advanced as much as I would have liked in drawing from my imagination. November was a mixed bag of drawings. I didn't try to redraw my favorite in this recap which was a drawing of a book. Don't forget to invite a fairy to tea day, they are always happy to join you.

October Update

Last October when we last saw our friends the ants, spiders and bats, they had been busy all month stealing candy and planning their big Halloween celebration. The party had a big turn out and was a roaring success. Among the guests was our friend A. Ghost, who was celebrating the recent publication of his memoir "My Haunted Life", which he had finally completed after much procrastination and frivolous activity. If you didn't make it to the party please click here to see the festivities.

If you look closely, you will see that the party was invaded by some unwanted guests, which no one noticed since they blended in with the crowd. After all , it was Halloween and everyone was in costume. Well it turns out it was an alien invasion. Instead of everyone going home, they were abducted into the far reaches of outer space. Everyone was too high on sugar to even notice.

Just recently, after much searching of the heavens, we were able to get a small glimpse of them through our telescope. There seemed to be another party in progress. Our friend A. Ghost was celebrating the publication of his new book "My Life Among the Aliens".

Since that day, everytime we have been able to spot them, they are still throwing parties. As they say, "Once a party insect, always a party insect".

Hmmm, is that Alien saying something? Click on for a better view.

September 2008 Overview

(Please click on for a better view of the ant's conversation)

In reviewing September I am still astonished that I stopped watching TV. I still watch DVDs but it is so different not to be bombarded with ads all the time. My drawing of Lola is still one of my favorites. For a complete overview of the month, click here.

Starting to wrap it up...August 2008 Overview

I have a confession to make and that is I am really glad that my year long quest is coming to an end. I will be spending most of the rest of this last month on doing a daily drawing of an overview for each month of the past year. I am surprised that I have been able to do this everyday including the posting. Of course now that I am nearing the end, I had internet problems for the past two days, thus the late posting today. So I started in July of 2008 and started to flake so as of August 1, 2008 I have kept my word and drawn and posted everyday. I just redrew some of my favorites for the month. You can see the first drawings for July here and August here.

Another Raccoon

Out and about with my new moleskine

Audience member during the pre-show lecture

Audience members waiting outside and musicians (top drawing) doing a pre-show lecture

Audience members at a concert, left waiting outside, right waiting for the concert to begin

Frog

Drawn from a photo taken by Tory.

Out and about

Started my new small moleskine

An Art Day with Tory

I went to Salem to visit Tory and took a little time to draw. I loved this chair but it was very hard to draw! Then I learned needle felting and my first attempt is below. I want to add some sequin stars and some beaded embellishments. I am thrilled to have learned this even though I don't need a new addiction. I love this process and want to use it in some ideas I have for fiber art that I want to start doing soon. Thanks Tory for teaching me!!

I was trying something new...working with some sharpies I had in my art room.
A garden container on Tory's patio.

My first attempt at needle felting. I'll be adding stars and some embellishments..

Baby fairy

My last tribute to the comics

This has been one of my favorite things to draw. This will be my last one...

Muffy's best friend Hoppy Vanderhare

Hoppy Vanderhare is Muffy's best bud. This is her rain gear. Below is an attempt at ball point pen to give you and idea of the colors.

Everyday Matters Challenge 230: Draw a Map

Please click on for a better view

During a solstice celebration a few weeks ago, I was using a rattle that had a tag that said: Made in Cameroon. I thought, how exotic! I love maps so this challenge was particularly fun for me. So I googled maps of Cameroon and found this lovely map. One of my favorite type of maps, when I was in elementary school, were product maps. I realized that when I started drawing this one it is in French and I have no idea what the symbols mean but I thought it was very cool.

Sunday Outing

So Sunday I went to Hughes Water Gardens to sketch.

An attempt to draw a big pond. Drawing water is very hard.

On my way out I saw this nest and baby birds. What a wonderful gift.

I just kept snapping pictures and caught these two.

And the big news: I finished one small moleskine sketchbook. I started on Jan. 4 and finished exactly 6 months later on July 5.

A most lovely wedding

On Friday night Shama and Gordon had their American wedding in her lovely back yard. Gordon is from England. It was a beautiful ceremony for a wonderful couple.

Wedding guests drawn from a photo I took.

It's not happening at the zoo

I tried to draw the goats while at the zoo (below) then drew the guy above from a photo when I got home. A very disappointing trip to the zoo.

Different strokes entry

My entry for different strokes. Be sure to check out other amazing entries here.

Monthly Inchie update

Eleven months down...One to go!!

Dance recital

A friend of mine tap dances and has a recital every year. I took a lot of pictures and drew this from one of my photos.