My trip to Barcelona and Copenhagen

I went on a trip with my husband to Barcelona and Copenhagen. It was such fun! The two places sound random but we were piggy backing off of his business trip. So we only had to buy flight tickets for me. It was amazing to explore the streets of Barcelona. The Museums were awesome- there was a chocolate museum! The tickets were chocolate bars! (note the gift bag in the above picture: it's full of chocolate) Both Barcelona and Copenhagen had a lot of bikes but Copenhagen had more, hands down. Copenhagen was covered in bronze statues. I particularly loved the Assistens Kirkegard in Copenhagen, it was a park and a cemetery rolled into one (I love cemeteries, more particularly old ones). Hans Christian Andersen's grave was there. By the way, I was happy in both places in spite of the fact that I am not smiling in the first picture!

I could go on, of course, but I really just want to share my sketchbook pages. 

Click on the pictures to view them larger.

Barcelona.

I like bottles…

Near the Arc de Triomphe

 View from the room we were staying in while in Barcelona.

Just a pretty street with a place to sit.

Copenhagen

Direct painting (drawing with my brush)

I love this one. The colors are nice

I flew home a week before my husband  (business trip, remember), so I had a long flight home with no one to talk to. So I drew! And they are all done with just a Bic Pen. I was pretty pleased with myself for skipping the pencil.

I was listening to a audio book so I could draw.
I really like the first dragon, he's cute. (Iron Hearted Violet is a book not his name!)

watercolor study

I'm working out some ideas for a piece I want to submit for Reality Not Included 2. I've done a study from one of the thumbnails. It has some anatomy/foreshortening problems to work out. I think I want to play with some of the others too. I should probably do more thumbnails too...

IF- haunt

I bet ghosts really like to haunt; but I don't think the ones haunted like it very much... 

This is also a self portrait (bet you didn't know I was a ghost!). Happy Halloween!

swing a giraffe

I'm sure it's been thought of, but hasn't everything? I think it would be nice to have a purple giraffe to play on. 

I drew this eye while watching a video demo and then decided to paint it. I think it turned out nicely.

I think the guy has a lot of very good and entertaining tutorials. He bases several of them on Andrew Loomis' drawing methods. Here is the video I was watching:

knight

I have been making art, I just haven't been uploading it! I had a lot of fun with this one. I have more that I'll post in a little bit...

This one is super tiny, like two inches tall. I like the original drawing better though...

map sketchbook

I made this book something like three years ago. I harvested the paper from some beautiful outdated aerial maps that were going to be tossed. I've always loved this book but never been certain what to do with it until recently. I painted these in gouache to get a nice opaque color, sometimes I used colored pencils if I want something more transparent. These are so much fun to do!  Enjoy!

drifting off

I caught myself drifting off while I was listening to the teacher, I felt bad...then I thought this sketch was good for showing that there are worse ways that one could drift off.

to the sky...

The reason I haven't posted in three weeks is that my husband went on a 5 day field trip to California, then I went for a week long field trip to New York (which was awesome!), and then I was playing catch up for my classes. For this piece, I illustrated the song "To the Sky" by Owl City for my class assignment. These fuzzy little guys just couldn't wait to take to the sky. I painted it in Photoshop. Here are some of my ideas from my sketchbook. I liked some of the vertical compositions, but alas, the assignment was to do horizontal.

sketchbook

Here are some sketchbook pages.

reflection

This is an oil painting I did over Thanksgiving holiday at my parents house. I was assigned to do a painting of someone's reflection painted in an analogous color palette. I had a few different ideas all with children that I was thinking of doing. Here is one of my sketch book pages:

I chose to do a little girl scrutinizing and admiring herself in a mirror. I painted it in a yellow analogous palette (the color is not showing up perfectly in the photo but it's close). My four-year-old sister was a very willing model. The reference photo is below. There are a couple more little things I want to do, but I think it's getting there.