Gesture drawings

Remy, my sweet Golden retriever will be celebrating his 6th birthday next month.  I can hardly believe it.  Being a typical Golden, he still behaves like a young goofy dog.  My spirit Golden, Romy, was a "kid" until he was at least eight years old, as odd as that may sound :-)

So I couldn't help but make some gesture drawings of dogs in motion:

Zig-zagging around the yard...

Leaping for joy :-)

"Tangled" Magic Horse

Over the past few weeks I have used different techniques for few versions of the Magic Horse:
 

Quick sketch

Last December I took Beckha Krahula's online class, "One Zentangle® A Day".  I found it relaxing and also an easy commitment; one tile is very small, 3.5-inches (89mm) square,

 so I could make one or several depending upon time and inclination :-)

However, I thought it would be fun to use the Zentangle® method  for this final horse:

Larger than a tile, this horse is 8-in (203mm) by 6.25-in (159mm)

 In addition to Beckha's class, I found more information here at the Zentangle website and also here at the tanglepatterns website.

Magic horses that are basically the same... but different :-)

My sketch:

The use-the-paint-tube as a tool technique (Carla's 2014: Year of the Fairy Tale) yielded this horse:

Bold.

Using the same sketch for inspiration, here's the next drawing:

I immediately thought, "Inktense colored pencils".

And here he is:

Mixed media - wax pastel washes

Another color version of the sculpted magic horse, this time with wax pastel wash.

Sketch, sketch...

Pen and ink and graphite.

Used a nice, wet brush to take color from the wax pastels; applied it using lots of water:

Layering and blending colors.

I enjoyed using water soluble wax pastels in this manner... and it's very easy and quick, too :-)

Gosh, another mixed media magic horse... in w/s Neocolor II

Some photos showing another magic horse, this time playing around with Caran d'Ache  water soluble Neocolor II wax pastels.

Graphite drawing of an imaginary horse; I drew this with the horse sculpture (see this blog post) in mind:

7B pencil on 140# hot press water color paper

Choose some colors and lay them down in a sketchy manner:

Define some features, too.

Blend the wax pastels with water and add more depth with graphite and charcoal:

I like the intensity of the colors.

Neocolor II wax pastels are lovely to work with; they "melt" onto the paper.  With water, a little bit goes a long way.

A magic horse and washable markers... a test

As in my previous post, the creative impetus for this comes from Carla Sonheim's 2014: Year of the Fairy Tale.

Never having worked in washable markers where I add water to them, I thought I'd do some testing.

First, sketch an imaginary magic horse in graphite and then color with markers.  Use a brush to add water:

Get the colors down.

Next, more layering and blending:

Add the eyes :-)

Then details with graphite and charcoal:

Finis

These washable markers are a bit difficult to blend using water but they are easy to clean up and very inexpensive.  This was a fun experiment.

From sketch to sculpture

The creative impetus for this post is from an assignment for Carla Sonheim's 2014: Year of the Fairy Tale online class.

This is the sketch:

Hm-m-m, I wondered how I could fashion those legs... ones that would allow this horse to stand on its own.  I used a spool of wire.  I didn't know how to create proper "joints", therefore, conceptually I would be creating a three-dimensional "one-liner".

With my wire as my "ink" and needle-nose pliers as my nib, this is the result:

Begin at one point and keep going.

3-D one liner :-)

For bulk, I cover the wire form with aluminum foil and then applied the modeling "clay":

Yay, still standing.

Big head and big tail.

I really enjoyed making this little guy.  I still have a lot of wire left on the spool...

More Mixed Media Horses

Horses for 2014: Year of the Fairy Tale.

I had never used washi tape before except in creating a few greeting cards to send to friends.  However, I had seen several instances of its use in collage and I liked them a lot.  So-o-o, combine washi with paper collage... et voici, more horses :-)

 

And then just washi tapes:

If you'd like to see more from before, click here for yesterday's post :-)

Mixed Media Horses

In  Carla's  2014: Year of the Fairy Tale class, we are on our seventh fairy tale - and our prep work involves horses literally drawn from one's own imagination  :-)

After finishing the suggested 60 line drawings of horses, I was looking for another way to create twenty more.  I used a simple technique from another of Carla's online classes, Blobimal Artists Books, random collage pieces adhered to the paper and from there "finding" and defining the horse with line work.

These are some of my favorite horses created this way:

 

The random collage elements get my creative juices flowing :-)