Summer Break Is Here!

Happy Monday, and yay for my second on-time post! (I almost forgot, it's the first real day of summer vacation here for the kids, and my brain is all off schedule!)

I did a few more digital drawings, and I have decided the dragon and the bumblebee are permanent fixtures:

But then I got a request for a rabbit and a duckling. I started working, and got all messed up with a physical watercolor and had to walk away from it.

And then did this quickly:

I really, REALLY did NOT like how this bunny came out at all. So the next day I made it a mission to make a cuter bunny. I'm happy with the results:

I LOVE this one... I'll be making prints of this one

Isn't that SOOOOO much better? Also, I really love the moon and stars. I find daytime paintings tougher.

Then I took a couple days because I burned out. I also couldn't figure out what my bunny would fly off in, and that held things up too. I had originally envisioned a soup can, but then realized that would be far too small. Then I thought it would have to be a coffee can, but that would look stupid. And then I thought... popcorn!

Popcorn just works, doesn't it? So I plan on doing more with the popcorn balloon adventure, but it was Father's Day the next day, so I did this:

Which I also ended up loving. I didn't know how it would turn out, but it came out nicely. I am doing all of these large enough and in high enough resolutions that I can actually have prints made, and so I'm picking the best of the bunch and getting some made of those in a week or two. So far, I like this one, the bunny on the moon and two others I think. The rest? Eh, not so much.

Anyway, while I had fun doing these and I plan on doing more, I realize I have completely lost sight of my original intention to make these fast sketches so I can jump into the studio on my other work. Part of that is a natural obsessiveness that comes with learning something new - and learning how to work digitally is definitely new! Another part comes from just spending far too much time on what were supposed to have been fast sketches. These digital pieces took a whole working day in some cases, just like a traditional painting. When that happens, I don't have much time or energy left for the stuff I was actually supposed to have been getting to.

So, if I can't lighten it up? I don't know how I'll do a daily sketch or illustration. My thinking is that if I force it onto paper, I'll have to lighten it up. Paper that I can't paint on or use pastels or something effectively. Just pencil. Quick, cute, and to the point is what I need to do! I also think I need to get a sketch-day ahead of myself so I can post on time.

Anyway... I've been in digital land all week! This week, I have to go back to the basics because I have deadlines.

In other news, my children are home and already concerned about being bored. It's been... two hours since they would have been in school. This could be a long summer!