Sketches of the Day- Art Play!

Dream Pieces- Mixed Media-9x12"

Emu Balloons-Watercolor & Pen- 5x7"

The results of the illustrator group "play date" today, thanks to Kim (http://www.kimdwinell.com/) whom hosted a lovely day of art play and friends. It is such a great feeling to just do art and not worry about the results and just have fun! And be surrounded by amazingly talented artists as well! As you can see, these are stylistically both very different pieces. The first one is a Barron Storey (http://barronstorey.blogspot.com/) inspired sketchbook cover for my sketchbook. He was my illustration teacher at California College of Art Summer program in Oakland the summer before my senior year in high school-and man- I remember sitting there in awe when he brought in piles and piles of sketchbooks and how each one had a magnificent cover, it was so inspiring! I have been wanting to create a cover for my sketchbook for awhile now and had not had to opportunity until today. I wanted to create a dream-like feeling in this one since I have been reading a lot of Neil Gaiman and how also the illustrations inside the sketchbook are from the imagination and left over stuffs from dreams- daytime and night-time ones. 

The next piece is Julia and Erin's fun idea- A hot air balloon full of emus. They look kinda like emu ducks, but anyway, I was playing trying out this watercolor board that I got from the art store and have not had a chance to try yet. It is like a clay-board but is for watercolors- very interesting.... I'm not sure what I think about it yet, but I will keep experimenting. I like the idea of keeping the color scheme simple sometimes, and that is what I did here. Hope you like it. What fun!