This is a video and image of a drawing of a rose. The video shows how the rose was drawn and painted with thin lines, washes of color, and expressive highlights. The drawing / painting is 12″x9″ and was created with pens, markers, paint pens, colored pencils, and watercolors. There are also segments of silver and gold paint around the flower. The rose was constructed with an initial vibrancy that represents the flower’s attribution to the emotions of love. And like love in its many undulating forms, the drawing continues to deepen and change over the course of time, sometimes darker sometimes lighter, but with a consistent undercurrent expressed with some clarity amidst the whole. (Total drawing time was about 20 minutes.)
These are more drawings of abstract faces. The first drawing is colorful and abstract, and was drawn with pens, markers, colored pencils, and paint pens, and painted with watercolors. The image was drawn spontaneously from imagination. There is also a second drawing of a colorful face, which was created in a similar style. Both drawings are 9″x12″ on card stock paper.
This is a 9″x12″ painting/drawing of a cooked turkey. The turkey was loosely sketched with ink pens and paint pens on card stock paper. Washes of watercolor were painted over the drawing to soften focus and add volume, followed by white highlights. The pervasive yellow adds a soft glow to the atmosphere, while the frantic linework and alternating shadows and highlights across the entire painting add energy to an otherwise static image.
Hope is difficult for me to draw or paint. It is even more difficult to write about.
Hope is always in me. I take it for granted, usually, unless things get bad. But things have to get really bad before all I have left is hope.
I think this is due to hope being an emotional state rather than an optimistic point of view reached by conscious logical thought. Hope happens when reason is gone. When life feels so overwhelmingly bad, all I have left is hope… for something better.
Although, I can’t deny when life feels positively good, I feel an undercurrent of hope for stability. “I hope that nothing bad happens!” Hope can work against change when things are good and comfortable. Maybe that reflects the arbitrary nature of emotion.
Each of the drawings and paintings below are reflections of hope. The artworks are approximately 9″x12″ on card stock paper, created with markers, pens, watercolors, paint pens, and acrylic paint. The first piece of art is a Face of Hope at its time of overwhelming need. The second artwork is a Ray of Hope, shining through the darkest hour; a time it’s most clearly visible. And the third drawing is a nod to the American Democratic political party which connected popular culture’s idea of hope to a campaign, in the Smiling Eyes of Hope.
Special Thanks to Martha Marshall for contributing the idea for this 4th Art Challenge! And check out Vikki North’s blog (the originator of these art challenges!) to see her interpretation of HOPE!
This is a series of expressive abstract drawings and paintings of colorful faces. The artworks are 9″x12″ and use a variety of colored mediums to achieve the desired look, including Oil Pastels, Paint Pens, Watercolors, Markers, Pens, and Acrylic Paint. They are drawn from memories and intend to convey the essence of a mood or feeling evoked from people or characters. The layers, expressive lines, and abstract compositions help communicate the complexity of imagination, and represent the emotions that arise from a perceived connection to faces.
These are drawings and paintings of abstract faces. The 9″x12″ artworks use black and white colors from a variety of mediums, including Pens, Paint Pens, Watercolors, Oil Pastels, Markers, and Acrylic Paint. Each artwork has multiple layers of medium which adds depth to the faces. Alternating patterns of light and dark values resemble highlights and shadows. I drew them based on subtleties in the emotions of anger, despondence, frustration, empathy, and a bit of hope.
These are 2 drawings of lion cubs. The first lion cub was drawn with markers, oil pastels, and paint pens. The line work in the first drawing started out fairly loose, but tightened up as I tried to correct proportion, value, and position mistakes. I left the second lion cub drawing abstract and cartoonish, and also used markers, oil pastels, and paint pens. The drawings are 9″ x 12″.
