Christmas Card Illustrations

Finally time for an update! Sorry for the lack of posts, I have been busy with several new part-time jobs this fall - Teaching Elementary school art classes, paint and sip classes, Art on Wheels, substitute teaching etc. so this fall has been really busy!

Last Christmas, I did a post on Creative Christmas Wrappings I did for my nieces and nephew. This year we did things a little differently for our family members and gave out Christmas cards with gifts inside. To make things more interesting, I decided to make little illustrations on the envelopes for everyone.

Each drawing took about 15-20 minutes. For more complicated ones, I sketched them loosely with pencil and then inked over them. Some were done with pen only. All inking was done in blue pen, I am still partial to how shading looks with pen. I love the contrast!

It was interesting to see how they evolved from envelope to envelope. My 1st few drawings were simpler and my later ones tended to be more detailed. I didn't really notice until I finished them all and looked at them all together. I did make it a point to choose a different subject for each one so they were all unique. Working the drawing around the names on the envelopes was a fun challenge, as well.

Everyone seemed to really enjoy them! I only sealed a small part of the envelope, so they were easy to open, in case they wanted to keep the drawings.

Sliding Penguins

Soaring Reindeer

Peaking Bear

LOL Santa

Snowflake Catcher

Mouse Treat

Rockin' Snowman - Ice Ice Baby

 Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to everyone!

Pen Sketches

Here are a few of the sketches I have done in my spare time while teaching. Every now and then I get a free period or I have time to kill waiting for a class to come in, so I spend the time drawing. It is very relaxing. It is also fun to share sketches with students sometimes, they are a good conversation starter! Once I was setting up and practicing with a document projector while students where working. It caught the attention of a few kids and they started asking for requests and I drew a few of their portraits. They really loved it and liked getting to see the drawing process on the screen. I wound up giving them the portrait drawings, too.

Anyway back to the sketches, using pen is challenging and fun. Working with a pen forces you to make decisions and work with unintended marks and lines, instead of erasing them. You have to commit to working through any problems or just let it go. I really enjoyed using pen for shading because of the contrast it provides.

Enjoy!

Bison

Draped Man

Puppy

Sink Knob

Ceramic Vase

Blue Bird

Yin-Yang Creature