I was a pretty steady sketcher this summer. It was a good one — lots of camping and beach and swimming and other good summer stuff. Love having this record of some of our days.
Summer in sketches
Hello!
Where the heck does the time go? Not to blog posting, clearly. Well, there’s no point in trying to catch up on over 6 months’ developments and happenings, so I’ll just start where I am right now: hanging out in my newly cleaned up studio (OMG why didn’t I do this months ago?)
Most recently, I’ve been spending way too much time obsessing over the news, painting protesters, and fiddling with my newly posted online stores (prints on ETSY, https://www.etsy.com/shop/abigailmarble?ref=hdr_shop_menu ; and mugs, t-shirts, totes etc. on Red Bubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/abigailmarble?asc=u ). This online selling thing is new to me — check out my stores and let me know if you find any glitches!
I was finally motivated to make a shop because I have recently made a bunch of paintings inspired by the Women’s March and other current events. Friends asked for prints and T-shirts, so I decided to look into making some, and voila, my shops were born. I am trying to focus on the hopeful and positive moments in this time of turmoil, and people coming together to fight authoritarianism is the main silver lining I can see at the moment. Thus, paintings of protesters and Elizabeth Warren, and more to come — stay tuned.
In other news, I saw Erin and Philip Stead read their recent books at my favorite local bookstore ( http://www.greenbeanbookspdx.com/ ). Fun and inspirational, and I got my books signed, too.
Gotta get to work. I wish I could claim with certainty that I’ll be here posting more often, but I’ve made that type of promise before…so I’ll just say I HOPE to post a bit more often and leave it at that.
Back to the daily
#unexpectedvalentines
weekend news
I was honored to be asked to create event artwork for the Oregon SCBWI Spring conference — registration is now open at https://oregon.scbwi.org/events/between-the-pages-2016-annual-spring-conference/
I did work on my daily sketches over the weekend, but I have decided that from here on out I will accumulate a week of daily drawings and then choose a few to post every Monday. I am finding that while daily posting is good for motivation, it is also a short hop from “a quick post on my blog” over into the crazy time-sucking vortex of social media. Hopefully I can strike a better balance by posting only once a week.
Daily sketch No. 3
I was working at a coffee shop this morning, so I didn’t have ink and brushes with me, but I made my drawing anyway.
Daily sketch No. 2
Daily sketch challenge
I’ve decided to give myself a daily sketch challenge. I’d like to create a morning routine that kicks me right into creative work mode (instead of loafing around in social media land), so the plan is to make a sketch first thing when I enter my studio, before I even turn on my computer or check my phone. I’m tempted to post on instagram, but I think I’ll limit myself on that too. I might choose my favorites from the previous week on Mondays and post a couple as part of my new and improved ‘internet presence’ routine. But I will post them here, at least a few times a week — fair enough since more frequent blog posting is one of my goals this year.
The challenge paramaters (for now):
• materials: dip pen and ink, plus one additional color if I want it
• theme: kids and pets
• bonus: a hand lettered word or phrase relating to the image
Here is day 1:
Note: noodlers ink BLEEDS on watercolor paper.
Sneak peek
Here’s a glimpse of a project I’ve been working on for the past few weeks. These are a bunch of drafts of the color wash layer. Once I was happy with the color layer, I laid a sheet of translucent paper over the top and quickly made a graphite line drawing that roughly correlated to the wash below. After about a million drafts of both layers, I scanned and combined the color wash with the line art in Photoshop.
Done now — I’ll post final art when I get the go-ahead!
Derby Dynasty
A gift I made for a friend who is expecting a baby…it’ll be a few years before they can skate together, though.
