Sorry!

OMG!
It has taken me a month to update... a new record! I'm soooo sorry!

So since I did not get my job in Spain I have been a bit busy with looking for new jobs, stressing about it, taking the theory driving exam and of course our little "wolf".

But thankfully I have a colour drawing I was trying to save for a decent post but whatever!
EDM Challenge 4! Draw your mug or cup :)

I really like this sketch because I did it with feltip pens which I do not normally use. They also remind me of home, since every trip to mexico I bring a few back.

I also realized that I haven't told you guys I have a Dawanda shop! :D since I am looking for a job, I decided to open my shop and see what I could get. Also a nice way to have another project going on. I will post the link later, but if you are very curious it is called Curly Sketches :P 

Thank you for reading and I promise a decent update at the end of this week!

Autumn has begun

The perks of having a dog include the trips to the forest!
I live quite close to the city's forest, but rarely went there...

Now I have been there 2 weekends in a row! And looking for mushrooms is the best haha.

So of course my autumn drawings are mushrooms. I have been fascinated with them since I found that children's book and did THESE in mixed media. But now some drawings:

To finish this post I am adding some sketches of my dog Tjido, which I am happy about because they are the first and in the end, dogs are hard to draw... I have cheated though :P I used pictures instead of sketching him live. That will be the next challenge! The shape of his muzzle is hard...

Continuation of Mixed Media

As promised I wanted to show you other thing I'm working on with Mixed Media: collage, painting etc.
Sadly I haven't been able to do more drawings, some pre-work stuff and of course our new pooch! :D

First things first!

This is the work in progress of the first painting:

I like the cherry blossom and the same style as previous post with the background lining, ending up in thick lines around the main subject. 

For my second painting, I wanted to use a "mask" as I had seen at a recent post by Caatje's blog. But of course it didn't really go as planned...

Tape basically ripped most paper off hahaha :P

But then I continued and this was the final result. With so much going on in Spain, Greece, Syria, Mexico.. allot of violence on the streets. I thought some lyrics of Calle 13 would be appropriate. 

Finally to end this post I welcome Tjido! "ch-ee-doh" our Icelandic Sheepdog puppy!
I might start a small blog about him, his breed is not very common, and it was quite hard to find information about him apart from the breeding standards and history. I will let you know :)

Thank you for stopping by!

Mixed media painting & A'dam

Hello fellow artists and readers! :D

We are back in the Netherlands! And thankfully we had a few days of sun before it became total autumn...

I cleaned out my art supplies and got excited about drawing and painting again. Although I realized I left 90% of my brushes in Mexico... duh... so i won't see those until x-mas. Sigh.. typical.

But the reason they were left behind is the following mixed media painting :) I am enjoying using old stuff that lies around to add it to my paintings. And well this was done at my parents home, where i found a childhood book about plant that don't flower, like fungi. TOTALLY boring when you are a kid, but it was sooo fun to read now, and the pictures are incredible.

I'm working on another similar piece of mixed media right now as a gift. But I forgot to take a picture of it :P

Finally a quick sketch of my delicious dutch dinner the first week home! :D YUM!
More drawing will be coming since my job has been delayed for a few months due to paperwork- good news since we are picking up our puppy on sunday!!!!!!

Hope you are all doing fine, and enjoy!

Leaving Merida

As inspiration of many sketching blogs that I follow, I tried to make journal-style page. I don't think I can use my sketch book as a journal... maybe because I like to show my drawings, and I guess it will be uncomfortable if there are very personal things written (although drawings can be also very personal, but that depends on how people look at them).

So this is a very simple page with a good-bye to Merida. Yes, we have left. I maybe want to add some colour, but didn't want to take too long before an update :)

My second sketch is a EDM #3 : Draw a bag :) this is my fav bag when I come to Mexico. I always use it! I borrowed it from my mom but never gave it back haha, its a good size bag made of leather and, if i'm not wrong, Guatemaltecan weave as decoration with many earthy coulours.

 As a final remark, thank you again to everyone that visits :) comments are highly appreciated!
I have realized that i never use "Tags" and after visiting other people's blog I have realized how useful they are :P haha, so I will try and start adding those!

Stormy weather and squiggles

A quick post for this week!

This is our last week in Merida, we are leaving in the weekend! I do feel that it is time!
Even though I'm working on a final print here, I wanted to post two sketches. One is inspired in the latest hurricane Ernesto that passed by, thankfully it wasn't too bad. I guess she's a weather/water being, got inspired by an artist I recently follow on facebook's EDM if i'm correct. I really like her style, but her full bodies are much better than mine. I do feel I have a bit of the same crazy imagination haha. Click HERE to check out her website!

And the last one are just squiggles, doodles. But I'm happy to have done this and not only rely on making perfect pictures in my  moleskine :) slowly getting there to free-style sketching haha!

Prints, again dogs and EDM challenge!

As promised, today I want to share with you my prints.
Back in high-school, when I still had the dream to become an artist (before my mom, rest in peace, basically told me to get a "real" degree in the brutal way that mom's can be...) one of my favorite disciplines was printing. We had a huge printer-roller and not only linoleum, but wood and plastic/glass. It was great! Actually, I found a picture of my prints that I send to England at the time for the A levels. (So yeah my mom did put everything I did up on the wall :P)

I never really thought I would do prints again. I had learned of course the classic way with oil based ink and the whole printing machine.. you can't really buy those hahaha. Now in Mexico I refound my tools and found out that its actually very easy to buy linoleum haha, and you can get water based inks! Yay!
The printing machine is still missing, but a good bottle or can has worked as roller.

For those who don't know how this works: (maybe i'll make a real tutorial next time)
- You make a drawing design, preferably on paper (very hard to draw on linoleum)
- Put the drawing face down onto the linoleum and scratch the pencil drawing.
- Start carving!

Here i'm showing you 2 styles, the tricky thing about prints is not only appearing like a mirror image, but you have to think hard as what will be "black" and what will be "white". How do you want to make volume or distance? Thickens of lines and separation are key.

And finally a continuation of the dog comics! We are really excited about it, reading, researching etc about different subjects in having a dog. We have decided on the breed and already have asked for information at their offical association, and we are now on the "list" :) but well, I know we will have allot of comments of people around us thinking we are nuts.

Finally, as you know i was having a bad case of drawings-block. But I must say I found inspiration in the EDM challenges and decided to draw one that I had "added" previously in my sketchbook :) so yeah good idea!