September '13 sketchbook sketches

Pretty much all of these sketches are from a beach trip Jon and I took at the beginning of the month. I did the pencil gestures on site, then added the other elements later. 

It's been an interesting challenge to figure out what sort of things improve a drawing and what things ruin it. I've definitely made a few mistakes, but over all, I think this style of sketchbook rendering is slowly becoming more natural for me. 

sincerely,

Beth

Walking the cloud pt 1

Not gonna lie, this piece gave me some trouble. The mood is a bit difficult to pin down, so figuring out the right colors was harder than I anticipated. To me, this image is whimsical and odd, but there could also be a touch of foreboding in it too. How do you capture both those things with color?

In the end, I decided to just sketch it out digitally and figure out colors later. In fact, I would love to hear your thoughts; what mood does this image convey and what sort of colors would you pick? Feel free to leave me a comment about it, if you'd like. 

Here's the original doodle........

......and here's the (for now) final product! The bag of groceries and the arm with the string turned out to be a pain to get right. Also, what do you think of my watermark/signature in the corner? I really like it! I think I'll stick with this one. 

sincerely,

Beth

September skill building: plants, vehicles, and dinos

Right, so here are some of my skill building drawings for this month. I focused on plants, vehicles, and dinosaurs. Out of curiosity, does anyone like this blog post feature; or would you rather see things that are more interesting and polished? I'm in the process of evaluating this blog to see what's working and what isn't, so a bit of feedback would be appreciated.  

Also, thank you to everyone who commented and shared last week's "Hipster Lightbulb" post! ^_^ I'm glad so many people enjoyed it and I hope to keep producing more work like it in weeks to come. 

sincerely,

Beth

Digital art: Hipster Lightbulb

Ok, so awhile back, I did this doodle and feel in love with it. (There's something about the hipster culture I find amusing and a bit endearing.) I've been working on putting together a legit portfolio to give my work a bit more direction and this piece seemed like a good candidate for that project. It also gave me a chance to try my hand at producing a digital piece with a bit more polish. So, here is the original doodle...

...and here is the final product! 

I am super, duper, uber happy with it! ^_^  I still haven't figured out what I want to do about my signature, but that's something I'll probably keep playing around with. Anyway, here is Hipster Lightbulb, ready to take on the world. Or at least, the parts that aren't mainstream. 

sincerely,

Beth