Urban Sketching #3 - Cafe View on Granville St, Vancouver BC

Here's a sketch done sitting at a window seat at the Bump N Grind Cafe on Granville Street. I used a mechanical pencil, micron pens sizes 01 & 005, and a light purple ZIG Art & Graphic Twin brush pen. I spent roughly an hour one the drawing.

Urban Sketching #2 - Coco et Olive, Vancouver BC

Another cafe sketch, this time at Coco et Olive on Main & East 21St, Vancouver, BC. It's a nice cafe with sandwiches, quiches, delicious baked goods, and most importantly good coffee.

I did this sketch while I was there for lunch a few days ago. The sketch took roughly a half hour. It's drawn with pencil, micron pens sized 01 & 03, and a black & light purple ZIG Art & Graphic Twin brush pen.

And in case you're curious, this is what I had for lunch:

Tomato & olive quiche with a curried lentil soup. Delicious!

Urban Sketching #1 - Pure Bread, Vancouver BC

Here's a sketch I did a little while back at Pure Bread, a great bakery in Vancouver's Gastown. Definitely worth checking out if you're in the neighbourhood. If you go there, get the lavender earl grey scone!

Everything in this places looks and is delicious...

The sketch was done with pencil, micron pen, & an old brush pen in a random sketchbook. Roughly a 30 min sketch.

Life Drawing at Dr. Sketchy Vancouver

Here's a couple sketches I did Sunday night at Dr. Sketchy Vancouver.

For anyone not familiar with Dr. Sketchy, it's life drawing mixed with burlesque dancers, acrobats, or costumed performers. It runs twice a month in Vancouver, and is definitely worth checking out. Artists and non-artists are all welcome!

Coffee Girl Sketch

Quick sketch of a girl and her coffee. :)

Goldfish Painting

Lately I've been experimenting a bit with watercolor and oil painting. I've been doing a few small quick pieces, mostly to try out different materials or techniques. Here's one of them, a watercolor painting of a goldfish.

Painting in progress, plus the art supplies I used. 

Goldfish done!

Watercolor Workshop with Lin Souliere

This past weekend I had the privilege of being able to participate in a 3 day plein air watercolor workshop with Lin Souliere. She's an amazing Canadian artist, and a member of the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour, so I knew I was in for a real treat! She also happens to be my mother-in-law, and I've been wanting to participate in one of her workshops for years! :D
 
On the first day we all went for a hike on the Bruce Trail just outside of Lion's Head to find our painting spot. This is one of my favorite trails on the Bruce Peninsula, everywhere you look is absolutely beautiful and inspiring! Having never done plein air painting before, I wasn't quite sure where to start and what to paint. Fortunately Lin did a lesson and talked us through how to approach finding an interesting subject matter without getting completely overwhelmed by our surroundings. Our main focus for the day was to get comfortable and confident while sketching in the forest, and to start introducing watercolor to our sketches.

I mostly did some very small pen/marker/pencil drawings at first, and then started to introduce a bit of watercolor. I also ended up focusing primarily on closeups of plants since I didn't think I'd have time to complete any large landscape sketches/paintings. In the end, the day was a perfect warmup for the next 2 days of the weekend.

A couple of plant sketches.

On the second day we went to Tobermory, and Lin started things off with a watercolor demo. She painted the light house just off of Big Tub Harbour, and made it look quick and effortless! After that, we all set up our equipment and spent the rest of the day painting the gorgeous landscape around us.

Lin doing a demo and making it look easy!

Here are a couple of the paintings I did while in Tobermory:

Paintings of Big Tub Harbor, Tobermory, ON.

And a picture of my painting supplies:

On the third day of the workshop, we all went to Barrow Bay and painted the old general store. I discovered that I'm pretty slow at painting with watercolors, so I didn't get a chance to finish either of the paintings that I started. I'm happy with them as works in progress though! Even though I did take reference photos, I don't think I'll go back to either painting and I'll be leaving them as-is.

The old general store in Barrow Bay, ON.

Close up painting of peeling paint on old door.

For more info on Lin Souliere, check out these links:
http://www.dragonflyridge.ca/the-art-of-lin-souliere.html
http://www.dragonflyridge.ca/workshops.html

For info on the Bruce Trail, look here:
http://brucetrail.org/

Nigiri Dynamite, the lovely Mon Calamari Scout

This is a small oil painting I just finished as a thank you gift for a friend. It is of her Star Wars tabletop RPG character, Nigiri Dynamite! During the campaign, her character went out of her way to collect luxurious silks when not blasting Imperial Stormtroopers (mostly in an attempt to gain Admiral Ackbar's attention...)

 

 

The final drawing in my sketchbook...

...and it transferred to the 6 x 8 canvas.

 

The colour comp I did in Photoshop. 

In progress...

 

 

My painting setup with my awesome new Italian easel!

 

The final painting! Not the best quality pic, was only taken on my phone... will try to get a better photograph once it's framed! :)

Octopus Sketch

TLDR: Octopus sketch done in a Moleskin sketchbook (3.5"x5.5") with 4H Staedtler pencil (that I forgot to erase once I was done) and Micron Pens sizes 01 & 03.

I have the bad habit of falling in love with a new sketchbook, buying it, drawing a couple pictures in it, and then never getting around to filling it. Many of my sketchbooks never get more than half a dozen pages sketched on. The same thing happens to me with other art materials. As a result, I've put myself on a bit of a self-imposed art supply ban until I start filling up the sketchbooks I already own and using up my current supplies.

I found this nice little old forgotten sketchbook over the holidays and decided it would be the next one I'd fill. A 3.5"x5.5" Moleskine sketchbook that I would have bought back in college, back when everything I drew was so small that I'm surprised I haven't gone blind as a result. Perfect size for my purse!

This octopus is the first new picture drawn in it so far. Knowing me it'll probably be the only somewhat finished looking drawing that ends up in the sketchbook. The rest will probably end up looking pretty loose and rough like all my other sketchbooks if I ever get around to filling it.

Girl Sketch II

Here's a couple images of a quick girl sketch I just made. The first pic is a photo of my initial sketch. The second is the same drawing, but refined a bit more. Not too much though, since I sometimes have the bad habit of overworking my drawings and accidentally destroying them. :P

Sylvari Underpainting Update

Haven't had much chance to work on this in the last little while, but the underpainting is now almost done :)

Looking forward to doing more work on this painting!

Harpies!

A couple harpy sketches, the latest installment of me drawing lovely looking creatures that would happily kill you if you met them...

Traditional Oil Painting Time!

I've decided that it's time to break out the oil paints and try to do a portrait. Since I'm on a bit of a Guild Wars 2 kick right now, I decided to paint a Sylvari. Still finishing off the underpainting, but here's my progress so far:

Sylvari Sketch

I started playing Guild Wars 2 over the weekend and particularly liked the look of the Sylvari race. I especially liked the branch hair option on the females.

Art Brownies RAINBOW 2012 Exhibit

The official site for the Art Brownie RAINBOW 2012 exhibition has just launched as well as their shop. Last I checked not all the artwork was up yet, but it should be in the next few days. Both my pieces are up and for sale :)

Official Site

http://artbrownie.com/

Art Brownie Shop

http://artbrownie.com/shop

My Art Brownies
http://artbrownie.com/shop/shop_detail.asp?item_id=5830&artist=Heather%20Souliere
http://artbrownie.com/shop/shop_detail.asp?item_id=5829&artist=Heather%20Souliere

If you're in Toronto from July 28 - Aug 31 go and check it out!

It's at INDEXG at 50 Gladstone Ave.

Barbarian Babe

Another barbarian babe sketch. They're pretty fun to draw :)

Art Brownies II

I finished the art brownies I've been working on. Now I've got to spray them and then send them off! :D

Here's some in-progress pics as well as the final image.

Art Brownies

A little while ago I signed up to participate in Art Brownie RAINBOW 2012, an exhibition at INDEXG in Toronto. All participants get 2 3"x3" wood blocks to use as a platform for their artwork, and are able to use drawing, painting, mixed-media and photo-based work. More info can be found here http://artbrownie.blogspot.com/

I picked my blocks up before Christmas with the intention of getting them done right away, but with my recent move I've had to put them on hold. Now I'm not sure I'll be able to get my paintings done in time. And if I somehow manage to finish them, I'm not sure I'll be able to get them shipped in time to meet the submissions deadline. I'm going to try anyway though. Best case scenario, I'll get them finished and submitted with time to spare. Worst case scenario, I end up with 2 little paintings to stick on my wall. Either way I'm in a good spot. :)

Here's my initial drawing on the first block

Some colour roughs

Starting to add paint to both blocks

Star Wars Aliens

I've been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic quite a bit lately so I thought I'd draw some aliens from that mythos. I started up thinking I'd draw one of my characters, but instead ended up drawing some of my other favorite races.

Girl Sketch

First sketch of the year and it isn't an elf!