Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Sketchbook Work

This year I've been trying to draw as much as I can; even if I can't draw every day or for as long as I'd like, I've been fitting it in whenever possible - though often that means drawing hunched over my sketchbook in the car, waiting to pick up my husband at the train station. Not that I'm complaining - any chance to draw is a good thing.

Here's an assortment of sketches from my current Pen Sketchbook Project, and a few assorted older pieces; as usual, most are done without reference, and all were done just for fun - they are not meant to be accurate by any means.

              

Wild Cats of the World Card Deck Art - Leopards

There's been so much gorgeous art for the WIld Cats of the World Card Deck posted already; still, I wanted to hold off on mine until they were available for sale (see below). So, here are my two leopards. The left is a more muscular, male tawny leopard (from Africa, with a Masai-type shield) and a sleeker female melanistic leopard (from India, with a temple-like sculpture piece). Yes, there's sort of a yin-yang thing going on. There are many wonderful stylized pieces in the deck, and many fantastic realistic ones; mine fall somewhere in between.

  


I know black-and-white / graphite pieces aren't usually as interesting to many, but since I feel my graphite pieces are better before I color them (or for those who are curious), here are the two pre-Photoshop:

  


I have some decks I may sell myself at an art show later this year; I'll post an update when I do.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Art: Pen Sketchbook, Tiger Gods, Dragon Dog, More

Short & sweet this time, a mixed bag of art. Click for full image (many are cropped, all are resized).

                  

1. A creature for the awesome and generous Mel. 2. More from my Pen Sketchbook Project, Synnabar: "Glance". 3. Desert-type creature I saw in a dream. 4. Big cat-thing I scribbled in a Licensing Meeting, and 5. the Sketchbook version (it's supposed to be huge). 6. Another "skull-demon". 7. & 8. Two more of my "wolf-cats" (see also 2006 and 1987). 9. Lastly, just for fun, a "dragon dog" from 1996 I found while going through older sketchbooks.

          
You may remember my Tiger Gods from 1995 and 2003; above, here's another, from my Pen Sketchbook. You can see I enjoy playing around with tigerlike anatomy and markings (these aren't supposed to be real): for fun, here is one from 1993 (book spine!), two from 1996, and another warped one from 1997. Except for the 1993 one, they usually do NOT have whiskers, on purpose.