I’m Still Alive

I see it’s been almost three weeks since my last post. Sorry to have been away for so long but I’m still battling through some health issues, particularly digestive issues, that has garnered more of my attention and energy over the last couple of weeks. So I took some time off from drawing, again. Unfortunately this is appears to be an ongoing battle that’s not going away anytime soon so I’m learning how to manage. I gotten back to inking my egret and cattails ACEO which you can see above. This is a fairly straight forward drawing  with most of all the inking going into the background. The egret itself is white, so there won’t be much detail to add there. My main concern will be how to define the bits of grass around its feet in a way that it doesn’t get lost in the background. I’ll just have to take a wait and approach as I go along. But for now I’ll just focus on getting the background done. 🙂

Consistency Or Variety?

So I asked all you lovely people which would you prefer to see drawn, a cheetah or an elephant? You said elephant and I’ve heeded your response. So this is where I’m at on the fourth and finally drawing to my “Share The Earth” series. Elephants are actually a joy for me to draw so I’m a little surprised this is only my fourth time doing so. I like to challenge myself and plus I don’t want to bore people with drawing the same thing over and over again. Yet I’ve always kind of wondered about artists who do draw or paint the same subject matter consistently. Do people stay interested in their work? Do they stay interested in their work? I would like to pose the question to you, do you like it when an artist generally draws the same subject matter or do you like it when an artist works on a variety of subjects? Feel free to share your thoughts below. ☺

Lost In Peonies

Spring is just around the corner, so in celebration of the colorful bloom of the upcoming season, I added a splash of color to this piece. It just didn’t seem right to have a ladybug without its signature red hue. (Are male ladybugs still called ladybugs? 💁)

Anyhoo, thanks to you all who chimed in on helping me decide on the title for this. As you can see “Lost In Peonies” was the favorite, although “Death By Peonies” gave me a little chuckle everytime I thought about it.

Next up on my drawing board is a four piece series on animals effected by climate change. For now the snow leopard and green sea turtle are for sure on my list but I’m still debating on the other two. Maybe I’ll do the African elephant and cheetah or maybe the polar bear and panda. I’m also planning on offering a new product: printable art prints. These would be digital versions of my original works that you can purchase, download and print off yourself at home or take the file to a local printer and have them do it for you. I’m still working out the logistics but I’m really hoping this is something I can make happen without too much fuss. 😌

Climate Change: A Suggestion For My Next Series

At the moment I’m currently working on an art card which I’ve affectionately titled “Death By Peonies”. This isn’t to say that will be the final title, it’s just what I’m calling it for right now. So while working on “Death By Peonies” I just got an itch to ink up this little drawing of polar bears. Nothing fancy or too involved, just a little something I was able to do in one day. I posted it on my social media accounts and got a suggestion back from one of my followers. It was suggested that since polar bears are one of the animals effected by climate change it would be a great start to a series on such animals. As someone mostly focused on nature and animal art, I can’t deny that I do have my concerns about our environment. So personally I try to do my part and be helpful by recycling, cutting back on my meat consumption, buying local produce and products, etc. I’m not a fanatic about it nor do I try to push my concerns on to others. But this suggestion is pulling a bit on my heart strings. I haven’t worked out the details but I’m now thinking about making the focus of my next series on the beautiful creatures who are being effected by climate change. So once I finish “Death By Peonies” this may be my next series. I say “may” because I try to stay away from using my art to touch upon hot button political issues and I don’t want to run the risk of being pigeonholed as a political artist but like I said, this is something that is pulling on my heart. So I have to work through that minor inner conflict before I can make a definite decision. Right now I’m at a 60% chance of doing it but I’m gonna sit with the idea for a day or two first. Feel free to share your thoughts on this suggestion for my next series or your thoughts on climate change in the comments. 😌

New Art Card

It’s been a minute since I’ve done an art card. I’ve been in the mood to do something floral and this is what I conjured up. The more I work on it the more it starts to look like a scene from some botanical horror flick…”Death By Peonies”. That ladybug looks like it’s about to fall off into an abyss of carnivorous anthers. 😲