Animal sketches from Disney pt 2!

Second half of the sketches from my Disney trip. I feel like these ones show some improvement from the first batch, especially toward the end. I also love how the ink solidifies and polishes the forms. When I sketch, I try to capture the shapes and forms as best as I can without worrying about how messy the pencil work ends up. But since I add the inks later, when I'm no longer looking the reference, I get to decide which pencil marks to emphasize with the pen strokes. It's kind of a neat process. 

onward and upward,

Bethany

Animal Sketches from Disney pt 1

Hey everyone! I'm back from my crazy intense adventures at Disney! There were plenty of ups and downs, as with any vacation, but it was definitely a good trip. My favorite parts were all the animals we saw, all the yummy food we ate, Epcot, and seeing the attention to detail put into each of the parks.

Speaking of animals, I did a ton of sketching on this trip, which is impressive because usually I utterly neglect my sketchbook while on vacation. But not this this time! Jon and I made an intentional effort to take the parks at a slower pace and as a result, I filled up an entire sketchbook, plus a few tiny note pad pages!

All my sketches are loose, gesture drawings (which I inked after getting back), but it was really neat to draw so many unique creature from life (even if they wouldn't stay still!) Since I ended up with so many drawings, I've decided share some today and some next Tuesday. Here's the first batch!

onward and upward,

Bethany

Anxiety cat and a long expected adventure

Hello everyone! First off, an announcement; I will not be posting next Tuesday because...dun dun daaa...Jon and I will be at Walt Disney World!! We've been saving and planning for like, a year and a half, and now the fateful day is nearly here. 

If asked to describe my feelings about this vacation, I'd say I'm excited, terrified, and kind of overwhelmed. (Actually, at this very moment, I'm in denial about the whole thing, which I've found is a good way to keep from freaking out for as long as possible.) I really want to go to Disney World. In fact, I've never been to Disney World at all, so this is kind of like fulfilling a childhood dream. But, as someone who struggles with anxiety, planning and going on a vacation to Disney is not a walk in the park. (Actually, sometimes walking in the park is anxious, so maybe what I should say is that it's not like sitting on the couch watching Jon play video games!)

Last week, when the pre-trip anxiety first started flaring up, I made this doodle late one night.

It's sort of a scrawny, wall eyed, neurotic cat thing and did a pretty good job of personifying how I was feeling. 

Later on, I decided to explore the character further. 

I'm still in the "trying to get the character consistent" stage, so all the doodles are a bit off from each other, but I really like where it's going. It's decidedly awkward and not obviously cute, but still has some charm. And it has helped me do something constructive with my anxious feelings. Even if this character never gets used again, it's already done something good for me.

So again, no blog post next Tuesday. I am planning on posting some of our Disney adventures on my Instagram account, if anyone wants to follow along. I know that, for all the stress and planning and fears, it will be a really fun trip. And then I get to come home and relish the glories of my familiar routine, which is practically a vacation in itself. ;-)

onward and upward,

Bethany

12 Creative Days Challenge

First blog post of the year! I've decided to post on Tuesdays instead of Thursdays, in the hopes of getting a better weekly work flow. 

Back in December, my friend Nicole started the 12 Creative Days Challenge. The goal was to create something each day for the 12 days leading up to Christmas, with a new prompt each day. I joined in and drew something for each of the days (except for on Christmas, which just didn't end up happening), and it was a lot of fun! Since the challenge happened during Christmas break, I decided to focus draw things I wanted to draw, which turned out to be mostly sprite girls, foxes, and cats (big shocker there...) But drawing fun stuff was so refreshing! I think I spend so much time drawing things outside my comfort zone that I don't make time to draw stuff that's cute or fun. Definitely need to do that more this year!

Anyway, even though all my drawings on on my Instagram account, I decided it would be neat to post them all here! ^_^

Beside a new update schedule, I'm hoping to make a few other positive art/blog changes this year. Definitely looking forward to what 2017 has in store!

onward and upward,

Bethany

December '16 Christmas illustration!! (and process work)

Guess what?!?! My Christmas illustration for 2016 is done!! :-D It actually turned out to be quite the challenge, but I'll explain that below. First, the finished work.

I have to say, I'm quite pleased with it! ^_^ Which is good because this is the second version. Here's the story. I wanted to do a Christmas illustration with Yeti, like last year, and after considering a few, rather complicated ideas, I opted for a simple image of him reading by a snowy window. I brainstormed a few ideas, (the final version was actually the first idea I had), and decided to try drawing him sitting on a window seat with a blanket, books, ect.

After several attempts, I came up with a thumbnail I liked.

It took 3-4 sketches (plus practice drawing Yeti) to get a drawing I liked. I inked it successfully and moved on to the watercolor stage. Unfortunately, the watercolor stage didn't go well. Here's were I ended up.

It's not the worst thing ever, but I wasn't happy with it. It didn't draw me in like last year's illustration had; the colors lacked warmth and richness. I knew I would have to start over, which is always discouraging. :-(

After some color analysis and water color thumbnails, I found a direction that would lend to more vibrant colors. It also meant changing the composition back to my original idea.

I did a new sketch, which actually only took one attempt (yay!!) and managed not to ruin it in the inking stage. I did several pallet tests and watercolor practice thumbnails, just to make sure I had really thought out my color choices this time.

And then, with much prayer and trepidation, I started the watercolor stage again. And this time, it turned out much better. ^_^

There are still a few things about this version I might do differently if I could. Also, I think I'll use a different paper next time because this stuff wrinkled up something terrible! But all in all, I'm very happy I took the plunge and restarted. The illustration feels warm and inviting, plus Yeti ended up looking cuter and more naturally posed!

If you've made it this, thanks for sticking around! And thank you to everyone for your support this year! I feel like I wasn't as art focused as I would like to have been (I'm blaming the new house...), but I really appreciated everyone's encouragement, even when all I had to show for myself were scrappy sketchbook drawings! :-/ 

This will be my last post till January! I hope you all have a lovely Holiday season and I'll be back in 2017! ^_^

onward and upward,

Bethany

More December '16 sketches

More sketchbook stuff. (Ignore the date on the first one, it's supposed to be for December.) Kind of a random selection this time. I started with fairies, because I felt really uninspired, then moved to volleyball players, because they have great dynamic poses, and finally finished with sketches of Lope (our first temporary cat) and Leelu (the temporary cat we are currently cat sitting) because it was good life drawing practice. (Plus cats are awesome!)

onward and upward,

Bethany

December '16 sketchbook

A few sketches from my sketchbook. I guess they aren't technically December sketches because I did them before today, but whatever. I especially liked how the genii and the fern hair girl turned out. ^_^

onward and upward,

Bethany