November '14 Sketchbook

Since next week is Thanksgiving, I decided to post my sketches early and take the holiday off. This month's sketches are kind of...weird. It would have been nice to keep October's sketchbook success going, but I guess it was not meant to be. Mostly, this month was full of bizarre little doodles, some of which are pretty sloppy. I'd blame it entirely on the cold I've been fight off, but my lack of motivation is probably equally at fault. I have been getting a lot of writing done. Jon and I are writing a novel together and we've made fantastic progress over the last few weeks! Maybe that's were my motivation went...

onward and upward,

Beth

November '14 Skill Building: Lighting

Lighting is one of those things that always baffles me when it comes to art. I think it has something to do with being consistent about your light source and shadows. So, in order to debunk my light rendering fears, I did a few thumbnail studies of some photos with interesting lighting set ups. For tiny, fast paced studies, I think they turned out well and I'm already feeling less intimidated about rendering light. Goal achieved!!

onward and upward,

Beth

Simplified Portraits

Did a few simple portraits the week to try and capture a more stylized but realistic take on the human face. Honestly, I don't think these are all that great, (though part of that might be that I'm sick and nothing looks good), but it was still a useful exercise.

onward and upward (hopefully to better health),

Bethany

Inktober Creatures pt 2

October is only one day away from being over and I am only one day away from finishing my Inktober drawing challenge!! Which is good, because I used up the last page in my creature sketchbook today. (Tomorrow's drawing will have to be taped in.) Inktober has been a blast and I'll definitely participate next year! ^_^

You can see the first half of my creature drawings here.

The Hanging Garden Rabbit Sloth

The Turtle Bull

The Jellybean Bunny Frog

The Eastern Duck Deer

The Dog-eared Yeti

The Western Otterpus

The Axe-nosed Coral Turtle

The Elephant Squirrel

The Duck-billed Racoon

The Brush-tailed Uniferret

The Greater Bug Bat

The Toucan Goat

The Medusa Rat

The Beaver Parrot

onward and upward,

Beth

October '14 Sketchbook

You know how I usually say stuff like "I don't have many sketches from my sketchbook because..., blah, blah, excuses, ect" when it comes time for my monthly sketchbook post? Well, not this month, guys!!! I did so many different things in my sketchbook over the past few weeks; watercolors, pen and ink, life studies, illustrations, collage, confusing scribbles, I've got a little bit of everything!! 

Here's hoping next month is just as awesome!

onward and upward,

Beth

Inktober Creatures

For the past 16 days, I've been participating in an art challenge called Inktober. For each day of the month of October, you draw something in pencil and ink, then share it on the Internet under the hashtag #inktober. The great Jake Parker (you can check out his work at http://mrjakeparker.tumblr.com/) started this challenge back in 2009 and it's been building momentum ever since.

Since this is my first time doing Inktober, I decided to go with the manageable "theme" of creatures/monsters. Although I was slightly terrified at the beginning, I've really enjoyed this challenge so far. Some of my creatures are better than others, but it's been really fun inventing some new, weird combo each day. Since I've been posting my drawings on Twitter, I thought it would be good to gather up everything I've done so far and share it on the blog. So, there you have it; all my Inktober creatures, part 1. I'll post the other half of them in a few weeks, once October is over.

a sleep deprived ghostie (I really like this one! ^_^)

The rabbit donkey

The bristle-tailed fox ferret (which, by total accident, looks a lot like a pokémon)

The stick legged bird

The fearsome hoppasaurous (my attempt at drawing something scary)

The swan mantis (it turned out so well!! ^_^)

The Blue Finned Whisker Fish

The black banned wolf snake

The pink jellypus

The Lesser Gator Shrimp

The Big Horned Blip

The Angler Frog Fish (love this one, too.)

The Stripped Bugbear (which is an actual term that I reinterpreted.)

The White Faced Rat Monkey (which totally sounds like an insult.)

The Cheshire Bat

The Sunfire Chicken

onward and upward,

Bethany