Fuzzydragons

Starting on the wing feathers of the Rook :) As always, only added basic shading to the bird at this point so that I don't go too dark, too fast. Ordered a bunch of different papers to test out, so once they get here I can try printing some of the plates I made over the summer. No, don't have a press yet, but found a way to print a few prints by hand that might work and if not, nothing really lost but a bit of time in trying.

Only had about 20 minutes to do this, so that is why its only half of her face. Pretty good for the time taken. A leaf done with coloured conte, which took almost all morning to do lol Both are  on A2 paper, so not that small. I will probably post Uni work when I can, just to show people what the work can involve in first year. I will still post job work, just thought it might be good to show the Uni work I do as well.

Sort of :p Its a mannequin that I drew with a lopsided face and a little mannish :p But I did enjoy drawing with ink pens again, need to do that more. Not censoring this, since its a mannequin, not a real women :p

Another song that makes me feel old, was 14 when it come out :p

Michelle was close when guessing the bird. Its a Rook, one of the Corvids that is everywhere here. Love seeing them, they just amaze me at how smart they can be.

Start of another bird etching, might be easy to guess what it is by the beak shape.

oops :p Had to grab it before it ended up lost in the North Sea lol Did manage to get a lot of nice photos before they fell apart, too many to choose from actually. But onto the next project, which is more drawing based I think, so more my style. Still coughing, still don't think its asthma playing up, pretty sure its something else, but the nurse sees asthma on my chart and think it can't be anything else. Ugh, sound horrible when I cough or wheeze :p Brought up whooping cough, because even if I was vaccinated as a kid, it does wear off and can still get it as an adult. Nope couldn't be that. But then I end up talking to another nurse up at the hill with all the dogs running around, find out that it is going around....Not that anything really be done but wait for it to pass if it is whopping cough.

Another one that I have no idea when it was taken, and yes I was a cheerleader for Halloween. A few times actually :p

Trying to figure out colour combos for the scarab. Leaning more towards warm colours for this one, just maybe not the ones here :)

I used to listen to the album this song is off of a lot when it came out, still know all the lyrics :p

An Inukshuk made out of car parts :) Curious if anyone gets the link between car parts and an Inukshuk, probably far fetched and artsy fartsy, but have to go back to artsy fartsy stuff for Uni :p

When I'm bored I draw scarabs, and had a few hours to kill because I had to wait for glue to dry on a project. I'm not sure if I will just use coloured pencils on this or I will try to do a lino print with it. The lino might drive me insane, but would look great :D Using coloured pencils tho just seems like the easy way out, not challenging enough....

The back of this photo say 1981, so too young to remember anything about it really. Not many photos of my grandfather on mom's side as he passed away when I was 3? Love the shiny plastic couch, and I was a very pudgy toddler :p Oh, should probably say that the other people are mom and her dad.

Might be hard to see even when circled, but the plate cracked :/ It doesn't show up when I scan it and change settings in Photoshop, but I don't think it would stand up to the pressure of a press. I could try hand pulling some prints, (probably just one by hand, its a work out lol), or I could glue this to a piece of wood and see if that helps. See, you can't see it on the scan, so the crack isn't deep, just a crack at the moment. Really debating just starting again since this is already days of work, and I don't want to put more work  into something that I can't get even one print from :/ Will have a think for a few days and start something else in the meantime.

New Nickelback, well its new but still sounds like old stuff :p

Almost finished the basic feathers on the head and chest of the Golden Eagle and still working on the head of the mallard in coloured pencil. Uni on Monday, so have to start getting up early again *sobs* :p I feel like one of those little kids that doesn't want to go back to school after summer. 3 months of doing what I want and now I have to try to listen to the tutors again and stay awake without caffeine :p

aww little kitten named M-Head. Tabby markings with a M on his head so.... :p (we were horrible  coming up with names for pets) I didn't practice as much as I should have, but I did like playing. It was an old player piano, that did work before the motor was taken out. and we had a cabinet full of scrolls but we had to leave the piano when wed moved to Alberta, and the scrolls...well they are no longer in the family either :/ I know this was the town house we lived in in Hamilton but no idea of the year. And that couch was only comfortable if you laid down on it lol

Bit more etched on the Eagle. Once all the base feathers are in I will concentrate on shading because I find if I do both at the same time, I lose a lot of the feather detail. I wish I had some ref. photos of parrots to try and etch and add colour to the prints. A trip to Edinburgh  Zoo is called for to see if I can get some photos of the birds they have there. Actually photos of any of the animals would be good, and should go before it starts to get too cold.

This isn't just going to the head, should have most of the body as well so lots more feathers to etch. But I like etching feathers, kind of zone out doing them and time passes pretty fast.

Another Golden Eagle :) I have a lot of photos taken at various fairs of these big birds. The smaller birds seemed to move around more, hoping on and off their perches, this guy/girl just stood there, much easier to get photos of lol

Another Canadian band, but I am pretty sure they are not together any more. A lot of bands I listened to in the 90's are not together any more, some have gotten back together because they can't make money being a musician not in a band :p

I forgot to film a word for this week, so will try to film one for next Sunday. The last word was barkit , which is used when something is really dirty. This weeks word is, guddle .

Prints for Sale Finished the mallard :) I only have digital prints at the moment until I get a press, but you still see all of the line work on the computer print. I am pretty happy with this, the water turned out better than I expected. I kind of wish I had of gone bigger, A3 or bigger, but then I would have a problem trying to find a press to print the plate on. Need to make a huge press one day lol

Me, the year I was born and moms Old English Sheepdog, Panda. Always been around dogs it seems. It is illegal to crop dogs tails in Scotland, so you see Sheepdogs with really fluffy tails now :) Too furry for me, would have to keep it shaved short if I had one to try to tame all of that fur.

Just a few more ripples to go and then I can start on a raptor :) Another Golden eagle of course, but that is mostly because I have taken so many photos of them and it means I can use my own reference photos, which makes things easier with copyright.

I need a few more purples, but am going to try to mix them with the pencils I have. This is done with polychromos pencils on Fabriano Artistico paper and the 2 go very well together. I find wax based pencils tend to smudge a lot on this paper, but the oil based pencils work wonderfully and even tho coloured pencil is a slow medium, I find using the combination of the polys and the Fabranio paper speeds things up. Still coughing up a storm. The joys of developing occupational asthma. Its from being around art supplies for 30+ years; dust from supplies, and probably not being as smart as I should have been around paints/thinners etc. So wear a dust mask people! :p

The start of another mallard, this time in coloured pencil. Might be a little hard to see tho :/ Teresa recently made a blog post about transferring drawings and I said I use method #4, using a piece of tracing paper with the image drawn on it and then turned over face down on good paper. You then go over the back either with another soft pencil or you could even use the lid of of a tin of pencils :p The image will be reversed, but should transfer. I do this all the time, you just have to remember to draw the image in the opposite direction then what you want your final image to be in. I thought a lot of other artist did this, especially when working large and you might not have access to either a big enough window or a big enough light box. Guess I might be wrong. Yes, it can be a bit more work, but there would have been no way I would have gotten all of this duck drawn on good paper without transferring. Drawing directly on the paper would have left too many impressions in the...