I started out with a very different image in mind, but the drawing evolved as I was working on it. I’m not sure how well it fulfills the “full bodied” theme, but it’s what I came up with when working on the theme, so I’m going to say it’s my “full bodied” drawing, even if it is a bit of a stretch.

Aside from not being a perfect fit with the theme, I really like the drawing. A lot of geometric shapes have been showing up in my work lately. I’m pretty sure it’s because my mom decided to start a new quilt this summer, so I’ve been browsing through her quilting library that’s been lying around.

The books on Amish quilting really captured my interest, and it seems some of the shapes and colors have crept into my artwork. More on that when I get the larger drawings scanned, but it would seem that this “full bodied” drawing is an offshoot of the quilting inspired drawings. It also reminds me of Native American art, specifically the geometric design motifs that are used by many Native American cultures. Plus, I can’t help but think of dream catchers every time I look at the swooping lines.

Only three more Creativity Boot Camp themes left to do! Seems like I might finish the whole thing after all.

But I digress. For the “drizzle” theme, I drew rain drops in the soothing colors of light gray, grayish green and grayish blue. So far this was the quickest drawing I’ve done for the boot camp. It’s simple but I quite like it.

Maybe it’ll help bring some real rain!

I went on vacation to the beach for one week. Of course when I had time to relax, my body decided to get sick, so it wasn’t the most enjoyable vacation ever, but it was restful at least.

I brought some art supplies with me to the beach, but never had the energy to work on anything. As I was unpacking my supplies, back at home, I decided to make a few watercolor sketches. Watercolor is a little tricky, and there are certain techniques that I still haven’t mastered. For my first attempt, I drew a few blossoms with pencil, and then added layers of watercolor.

The color is still a little muddy. I think I need to work on being more patient so that each layer thoroughly dries before I add the next layer, and I also need to make sure I keep the washes pretty light. I think on some of the flowers, I started with too much yellow pigment on the first wash, so the other colors built up too much and look caked on.

While waiting for the layers of paint to dry, I intuitively painted various small marks and dots and later added some small details with pen.

While then waiting for both of those paintings to dry (I was rather heavy handed with the yellow), I painted a simple texture with crossing lines to create a woven pattern. As I painted, parts of the lines would dry while the other end would stay damp. As a result, when painting the next lines that overlapped perpendicularly, some of the color would bleed a bit. It adds and interesting dimension to the pattern.

I next did a simple composition of some swooshing lines to play with transparency (one of the things I like the best about working with watercolor), then added in some texture with a pen when the color was dry.

I wanted to do more with transparency, so I started out by painting some blob shapes on the paper in what I thought was a gray color. As the paint dried, it had a decidedly purplish hue, and suddenly the shapes reminded me of sea urchins. Instead of adding more overlapping blob shapes, as I’d originally intended, I added a few more similar shapes in a grayish green color.

When dry, I added in the urchin details with a pen.

Later on in the evening, an idea for a shape popped into my head, and I drew it using the implements that were nearest to me: watercolor paper and pen.

I might go back later and add a wash of color to the background and might possibly paint the shapes themselves. Good thing I used waterproof ink!

It’s funny how creativity sometimes comes in bursts. Six images in one afternoon, after nothing for over a week. Hopefully my next post will be about the next theme in the Creativity Boot Camp, but who knows? Maybe another unexpected creative burst will come along instead.

When I thought about the meaning of ornament, I considered it to be decoration that is added to some surface that might otherwise be plain, purely for aesthetic purposes.

A few possibilities came to mind, but I liked the idea of ornamental tiles. Little ceramic slabs can be quite plain without some decoration. Indeed many times they are, but in some traditions they decorate the heck out of them. Talavera tiles are one style that I admire quite a lot, that I’ve taken inspiration from when creating a previous design.

Although making a tile pattern isn’t something new for me, I wanted to create a more intricate design. I chose a monochromatic blue on white color scheme, inspired by the ubiquitous blue and white porcelain designs. I’m often amazed at the level of detail artisans are able to achieve using only one color, so I took the one color approach as my jumping off point.

I did the outline first, as I often do, and scanned it so I could re-color the tile if the blue didn’t look as good as I hoped. You might notice that in the center medallion, each of the four “leaves” are a slightly different design. I penciled in each one, intending to choose a favorite to repeat, but I liked them all, so decided to leave them as they are. In a way this could serve as a “sampler” tile. With the designs worked out here, I might just have to make 4 different tiles using each of the different leaves.

Once the outlines were in place, I added a few shades of blue prismacolor marker for extra depth and interest.

Although I might have had a moment’s doubt that prompted me to scan in the outlines only, I am very happy with the all-blue tile. Now if only I had some actual tiles to ornament!

By now the Creativity Boot Camp is officially over, but I’m going to finish up on my own anyway. Only five more themes left, and the next one is “drizzle”. I have two ideas at the moment, and I’m not sure which way I’ll take it, but I’ll figure it out soon.

I finished the next theme, “fly,” after one false start. Initially I tried this really convoluted drawing of various birds in various states of flying. I drew them from photos I took last winter. It ended up as a crazy, confusing mess that I didn’t even bother finishing, let alone scanning.

Attempting to drum up new ideas, I doodled aimlessly with the theme in mind. Before I knew it, three little paper planes appeared on my paper. I liked the doodles, so I refined the lines and the perspective a bit (which is still sort of wonky, but they are paper planes, so wonky is probably ok).

As I was drawing the little planes, I expected that I’d eventually add in some texture, shading, and color. Once the outlines were in place, however, I quite liked them just as they were; somehow precious in their simplicity. So I’m going to leave them as they are: plain planes.

When I uploaded the image to flickr I saw how gray it was. I drew them on white paper, and I thought I’d balanced it correctly in photoshop, but obviously not. I fixed it to make the ground white, but I missed the way that the gray defined the space, so: gray stays.

The only other idea I had was to make the planes white on a gray background.

I like it. I like them both actually, and I’m not sure if I have a favorite.

Do you prefer one version over the other?

Whether white on gray, or just gray, I really like the drawing. It’s really simple, but it’s a fun solution for the theme, and just right for this perfect summer day.

I have an idea for the next theme, “ornament.” I just need the time to draw it!

In the end I went with water. Water is one of my favorite things, so I don’t even mind that it’s obvious. Once I’d settled on an idea, the rest went pretty quickly.

To start, I actually took inspiration from an old drawing of mine of green waves.

I liked the loops of the waves, but I changed my approach to make the drawing more fluid.

The lines were drawn with pencil instead of pen to keep the contrast low. I only darkening a few of them strategically. I also used a more fluid and elongated stroke. When I had the lines in place, I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d do for the colors, but as I was working I decided to go with a soft and subtle color palette.

This isn’t the most complicated piece of art I’ve ever created, and I really don’t have a lot to say about it. It was just an easy, relaxing drawing, and it’s pretty nice to make one of those once in a while. I think it looks quite serene. Plus, it didn’t take too long, and I only drew one drawing for this theme–all things that make me happy.

The next theme is “fly” which I hope to work on tomorrow if I can find the time.

This is the first year I’ve really paid attention to how seeds grow into plants, and I was amazed to discover that the first pair of leaves that sprout up are practically identical for all plants, and that it’s the second set of leaves that are unique to the variety. I was completely charmed by the miniature leaves, and kept exclaiming deeply insightful gems such as, “wow these little chard leaves look just like big chard leaves, only tiny!” and “look at these mini-parsley leaves! you can really tell that it’s parsley!”

Although you might not have guessed it from those excited comments, I do know a thing or two about plants and gardening. I find it completely fantastic that I can still be surprised and learn new things.

When the theme of “grow” came up, the first idea that sprang to mind was to represent my new discovery, so it was just a matter of having the time to do it.

I first drew the little plants in pencil, outlined them in black, and then filled in the leaves with various shades of green.

Shown are swiss chard, parsley, nasturtium, and basil seedlings. After scanning in the drawing, it seemed too flat, so I added some details to the leaves.

Adding detail was a good call since it makes the plants a whole lot easier to identify in the drawing, at least in my mind. I briefly thought about filling a pen with white ink to draw the lines on the nasturtium, but the desire to just get it done won out.

At some point I realized that the drawing was perfect for a repeat pattern, and it was more than halfway there already. In Photoshop the only adjustment I had to make was to the positioning of some of the individual plants in order to get the repeated pattern to look balanced.

I repeated the pattern once more to get an idea of what it would look like smaller.

I’m very happy with the result, especially since I didn’t specifically set out to make a pattern, but to simply draw my interpretation of “grow”. In the drawing itself, I’m most satisfied with the swiss chard. I think the basil and parsley could be a little better, but they are ok for now.

I’m looking forward to working on the next theme which is “fluid”. I have a couple of ideas, but I’m not totally sure about which direction I’m going to take just yet.

I decided to go with chain as the imagery for this drawing. Luckily I live in a house that literally has everything, so when I needed chain, I got chain. I found a big bucket full of various weights and styles. Some was really rusty and some was super shiny. I settled on one in the middle; a heavy weight chain that was a little weathered, but still had some shine.

As I was working I decided to flatten the drawing, and not focus on the shading. The fact that it was a bit shiny comes into play later. The first step was to get the outline of the shapes in place.

I had to really push the contrast of the image so the lines were visible, so it’s a bit grittier than it really was. The most fascinating thing I experienced when drawing the chain was how the shapes and lines intersected in unexpected ways. When it comes to certain shapes, like chain, I have an idea of how it’s put together, and if I didn’t actually look at real chain, I would draw it in an entirely different manner. Working from the real thing, I was able to take my time and examine how a bundle of chain really looks. I guess that’s the fun part of all drawing, but I found it particularly satisfying with this subject.

Originally I thought I’d use gray marker and do some shading to bring out the shapes and show the depth of the chain, but after I had the outlines set, I remembered that I had some metallic pens. Now I’m thinking gold would have been fun to use, but at the time I only considered silver.

The silver marker was very opaque, so it covered over all of my faint graphite lines. I admit I was surprised by how different the pattern looked without the defining outlines that showed the individual links. I could still tell it was chain, but it was so much less obvious. I liked the flatness, but I really wanted to see the shapes of the links in the chain, so I re-drew the outlines.

I’m amazed by how different it looks with just a few slightly darker lines. At this point all I had left was the background and I was torn between using a bright hot pink and a dark gun metal gray. I went with the pink.

The scan is definitely a lot more muted than the original. In person the silver is incredibly shiny and the pink is super bright, bordering on florescent, and the combination of the two almost makes the drawing unsettling look at. I decided to use photoshop to adjust the colors a bit to see what it might have looked like with the gray background.

Since I don’t know what the gray would have actually looked like next to the overly shiny silver, I’m not really sure which I like better. Do you have a favorite?

As I was working on the chain drawing, one of the things I started to think about was the shininess of the metal, and how in general, that’s an inherent quality of metal. I took a moment to look at the chain differently, focusing only on the highlights. That’s when I had the idea to draw a version of only the highlights.

Again, I had to boost the contrast a lot to get the outlines to show up. I decided to forgo the silver, and instead use the gun metal gray I’d thought about using for the background of the first chain drawing.

When coloring in a background of a pattern with prismacolor markers, I have to work as fast as possible to achieve a smooth finish. If the “edge” of the marker line dries, and you color over it again, that edge will show through. As long as you can keep the edge “wet,” you can blend the color and avoid variations in tone.

It’s hard enough to achieve this with larger patterns, and I found that with such small shapes scattered all over the paper, the task was almost impossible. Not to mention the fact that by working so fast, I wasn’t as careful as I should have been around the white shapes, and ended up losing some of the detail.

After trying, for a few minutes, to make the background smooth, I noticed that an uneven background would actually compliment the jagged shapes pretty nicely. I slowed down a bit, and stopped attempting to get a perfectly smooth background, which probably would have been nearly impossible anyway.

I’m very pleased with how both drawings turned out. The pink and silver chain drawing is a fun, bright pattern that was very satisfying to work on. The mottled background of the highlights drawing was the perfect solution, and I’m happy that as I was working on the theme, I did indeed come to a unique solution with unexpected results.

The next theme is “grow,” but I’m not sure I’ll have time to work on it today. Lots of other Sunday stuff to do. So much for getting caught up over the weekend. I’ll just keep working at it, slowly but surely.

I started with pink and colored in the entire paper. Then I chose another pink, and colored over the first layer of color. The second pink was a different brand of marker. Usually I stick with Prismacolor markers (though I’m thinking about making the switch to copics as my prismacolors run out), but I also have a couple Chartpak markers that I never use because they bleed pretty badly on every paper I’ve tried so far.

I decided that since it was a broad area of color, and the edges weren’t all that important, and I like the shade of pink, that I’d use my pink Chartpak marker for the second color. Ooo boy, I forgot how stinky Chartpak markers are! The fumes smell like gasoline mixed with nail polish remover. It did the job of getting color on the paper, but next time, if there is a next time, I’ll have to remember to go outside to use it. Even an hour later, the paper still stinks!

Ok, moving on. I used several shades of blue, layered over the pink. This produced various shades of purple, as one might expect. I also used a green color, but I didn’t like it so much, so I tried to cover it over as much as I could with a darker gray.

Once the colors were down, I added some additional texture with pencil, layering lines over some of the colors.

Since I can never do something just once, I did a version in blues and greens, working in the exact same manner. I started with a background of blue, and then layered various other blues and greens on top. I also added some pencil lines for texture, but they are a little more wiggly than the lines I drew in the pink drawing.

This was a pretty simple interpretation of the theme, but I’m happy with it. It was fun to play around with layering the colors, and it might be a really interesting technique to work with in the future. Layering colors definitely expands my color choices.

I’m also happy with the way the pencil and marker looks together. Pencil is something I’ve used mostly to lay out compositions before I go back and ink in the lines, so for the boot camp I wanted to push myself to use pencil as a more primary tool. So far so good. I don’t know that it’ll replace my beloved pen and ink, but it will definitely be a great tool to incorporate when suitable.

The next theme is heavy metal. I have no idea what I’m going to draw, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something!

I wanted to stick with the schedule of the boot camp, so I went ahead and created a few drawings. Since I couldn’t think of any ground breaking ideas, I decided to approach the assignment in the simplest way. To boil it down to the basic elements.

So what are the basic elements that I would need for a perfect picnic? I quickly discarded the ants because they would not make my picnic perfect. Soon I had four essential ingredients for any lovely picnic.

Bright blue sky and puffy white clouds would indicate sunny weather that wasn’t too hot.

Soft green grass to walk on barefoot, and on which to set up the picnic would provide a comfortable setting.

A pretty ground cloth would add a touch of color and cheerfulness to the gathering.

A basket filled with yummy food would be the most essential part–otherwise it wouldn’t be a picnic!

Not only did I simplify the theme to basic elements, I also simplified the drawings to be representations of the items in pattern form.

I was happy with the outcome, and I was glad to finish the drawings on time. The next day, however, something was tugging at the corner of my mind, and it wasn’t ideas for the next boot camp theme.

You see, I actually did have a different original idea for “picnic”. It involved lines of ants inter-weaving to create an intricate pattern that might resemble a doily or some fine china, but I discarded the idea almost immediately for 2 reasons: ants seemed obvious, and I didn’t want the final image to look too much like the drawing I’d just finished the day before for the theme of ivory.

It wasn’t until I was discussing the Creativity Boot Camp with my brother and sister-in-law that I realized I should have gone with my original idea. I mentioned the drawing with ants that I never drew, and they both thought it sounded great. The more I thought about it, I came to see that I had been hasty in moving on from the idea, and decided that it would probably look pretty neat. Far from obvious, it would have been a unique interpretation of the theme.

I spent the following 2 days drawing little ants, letting the pattern evolve as I worked.

I drew all the little “bodies” first, and then I added the legs. As I was drawing the legs, I liked how it looked like the ants were invading the pattern; maybe crawling onto a plate looking for crumbs. I decided to limit the number of complete ants (bodies + legs) to maintain the feeling of a crawling invasion of ants.

Although spending so much time on this second iteration of the picnic theme has now set me back on three new Creativity Boot Camp themes, I really like the result, and I’m so glad I saw it through.

I think both picnic solutions are a representation of my style, but I particularly like the ants drawing because I pushed myself in a different direction.

The next theme is “multilayered” and at this point I’m actually considering trying to continue the radial-pattern-style drawing throughout the boot camp. I realize that I might hit a road block if there’s a theme that I just can’t figure out how to fit into a circular format, but I’m up for the challenge, and I can remain flexible and change it up if I need to.