Please don't take my Pencil away!

My Illustration class at Maine College of Art is almost over -- just 1 week left -- which makes me sad BTW - but looking forward to taking more classes. It's been a good rut-buster and I've learned lots of interesting ways to try new things, bust out and go in a new direction. While a lot of these aren't that great, I wanted to share and encourage you to take classes. If you are an artist, writer -- or whatever it is that you do -- taking classes to promote learning is great for growth as well as knowledge. Plus, it's plain old fun.

Last week the classroom assignment was to paint bones -- but we couldn't use a pencil or makes lines of any kind. I chose watercolor crayons and this was my scribble pallet. I scribbled the color on paper and added water -- then I had nice little spots of  color. At the end of class I closed up my drawing pad "palette" and left for the day.

Yesterday I decided to use my pen and a paintbrush to make something of the color blobs. It was fun. I see 2 dogs, a horse, a snail, lots of flowers, a face, an upside down heart, turtle, a mitton, oyster and snake head. Do you see anything?

My on-going struggle in this class is saying good-bye to my pencil. Using a pencil is not allowed and I rely heavily on it. I'm getting there, this one and the other flowers following was pencil-free. Are they great?? No, but a gal has got to start somewhere!

 

 

 

 

In this assignment we had to draw a mish-mash of items and create a little scene. It was fun, but again, not using a pencil kills me. Below is a homework -- draw 50 things around your house. It was fun, look Ma -- no pencil.

Another free drawing image from class, I find I'm always adding text to my drawings -- or in this case pen and ink sketch. Yup, no pencil.

 Above and below are the bone drawings. The one above is a goat skull but it started looking like a dog taking a nap so I went with it. Below is a vertebrae, not sure what animal -- but it looks like a cow head the way I'm holding it in my hand. I like the thought of holding a mini-cow in my hands so added them as well. This is one of my favorite painting from the class -- and YES YES YES I know you are wondering -- NO PENCIL.

This next assignment was fun. We had weird comic sketches that we needed to use as inspiration pieces and come up with something using a limited palette. My sketch was of two weird animals walking on the earth with three trees, three clouds, and bubbles for their conversation. This is what I came up with, my second favorite from the class.

Yesterday we had more fun inspiration pieces and this time we had to design a product advertisement or packaging for a fun product. My phone kind of makes fun of how we are so addicted to our phones, going to a therapist or counselor and also coffee. You can replace that with an app for your phone that will give you a 220 jolt of energy. That was a LOT of fun -- and yup -- I giggled a lot as I came up with the text.

So, that's it for my illustration class for today. THANKS for stopping by and have a WONDERFUL day!