IF - Faded

 

When she saw the cupcake tray, her resolve to forgo desert faded into nothing.

Only time for a quick sketch this week, drawn ironically while I waited for my husband to come out of oral surgery.

Illustration Friday - Heights

There is nothing like free-falling to experience the true majesty and exhilaration of heights.

I love that I got to relieve a great moment in my life while working on this week's Illustration Friday topic - heights. Unfortunately this was not my most successful effort. I couldn't quite get the feel of height here. In retrospect, maybe I should have made the ground look like a patchwork of squares (thanks to one of my facebook fans for the suggestion!), or place the line of the horizon lower on the page. I also think that I lost something in the final version compared to the original sketch:

The bunny especially has a more carefree, open expression here. I lost it when I tried making the snout (Do bunnies even have snouts? What do they have?) more defined. Oh well. That's how we learn.

Illustration Friday - Vocal

This hippo is very vocal about enjoying his bath.

I usually try to come up with a piece specifically for the IF topic but this week is proving to be too hectic. This is a quick sketch I just did inspired by a children's poem (in Russian) http://elenat.livejournal.com/153955.html. It wasn't intended for IF per se, but seems to fit, I think.

Ballet Partners

My sketches tend to turn out a lot better than my finished pieces. Somehow I always manage to lose the movement and the depth somewhere between the sketch and the final color version regardless of the color medium I choose to work with. I am particularly happy with both the idea for this piece and the way the sketch turned out so I wanted to post it here before I went ahead and ruined it. Practice makes perfect and I will post the final version when I am done even if doesn't live up to the sketch's potential.

A blast from the past

I found a stack of my high school notebooks. I went to an Orthodox Jewish high school and so in one of the notebooks I found this portrait of one of our Rabbis during prayer. I think it's pretty good considering I was about 14 when I sketched it.

Illustration Friday - Intention

This is a sketch I actually did yesterday for a little story my daughter came up with. When I saw the Illustration Friday topic this morning, I was struck with how well the sketch fit and so decided to enter it.

This puppy has full intention of taking flight.

movement and perspective

I feel like most of my sketches use the same static poses and views so I've been trying to practice more movement and perspective variations. I have to admit that I am struggling especially with the fully forward facing and fully backside views. I'd love some tips on how to tackle those.