#YayEveryDay2016 Drawing Challenge

Aug 31 - Telephone Call

 Unfortunately, I didn't hear about Toby Oliver Dean's #YayEveryDay2016 drawing challenge until Danny Brito provided the prompt list for August.  As I've mentioned on multiple occasions, I love a good daily challenge because of the community element (feedback and accountability), the structure (it's every single day), and the opportunity to push my boundaries (OPP - Other People's Prompts).

Shenandoah Valley Street Art: VA Street Art Festival 2016 in Waynesboro

E-N Computers hosted the second annual Virginia Street Arts Festival on August 27 

Cthulhu

 Cthulhu 

When I was approached to draw something Cthulhu-themed for a baby's nursery, I may have wept with joy. This guy is my favorite thing I've ever drawn.

What I've Been Up to Lately: Future Auntie Edition

In which my sister's pregnancy inspires me to make a million adorable baby things.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Sometimes people hire me to draw or make things that are outside my wheelhouse, and I'm one million percent okay with that. In fact, I prefer it to the times people ask me to "surprise them" because it challenges me and pushes my limits, which is the only way to learn and grow.

Recently, I was asked to make a hat that looked like a soccer ball, but none of the patterns I found appealed to me.  I did find the photo below, but an exhaustive reverse image search produced nothing that would help me recreate it.  Someone else had attempted to reverse engineer it, coming up with this chart, but when I followed the chart, the result was not close enough to the image for my taste.

 

The mystery hat and its almost-chart.

After a few days of experimenting, I bumped the clusters in the chart up from three stitches each to four and went with it, even though I wasn't completely happy. I also opted out of the bill, because it's not what my client wanted and added the rose to incorporate the intended recipient's team color. Following the chart with my minor alterations produced a slightly slouchy hat (unexpected bonus!) so I also extended the band a little.  

Crochet Rose pattern by Kati Crafts (using half the recommended chain. The first rose I made was massive!)

In the end, I made a cute hat and learned about hexagonal and pentagonal granny squares (granny hexagons and pentagons?). Plus, look how happy she is about it!

Saint Sebastian

The call to artists for Larkin Arts' national juried show was the perfect opportunity to pull out this painting from a couple of years ago and give it a total overhaul. 

Sea Hag Update

2013 vs. 2016 

I've been having a little bit of an existential crisis lately and even briefly considered going back to school, but was dissuaded by the idea of oppressive debt and generally complicating a life I've worked so hard to simplify.  Since we live in the future, I have access to pretty much anything I want to learn anyway. 

Armed with that can-do, autodidact attitude, I decided to give Skillshare another try and signed up for Christine Fleming's first Art School Bootcamp installment, which focused on the elements of design and composition techniques. The assignment for that class was to use the techniques she discusses* to update an old piece of our own artwork.  Sea Hag was one of the first things I did when I decided I wanted to make art again three years ago, and I feel really good about how much progress I've made since then.

*briefly - I think the whole class took less than an hour. Skillshare is excellent for people like me who are deficient in the attention department.