Quick sketch...Kiss.

In these couple of days i have been drawing cats....surprise surprise I am much better at drawing dogs than cats... :)

This sketch however has nothing to do with cats and dogs is just about us.
Feeling so luck to be married to such a fantastic man...looking forward to go and pick him up at the airport this evening.
When I miss him there is always an easy therapy for me, browse old pictures of us or of him, find one I specially like, draw it.
Nice and sweet  :)

Love you baby! See you soon!!

My pirate.

Pirate

Digital painting.

As per my husband request I drew something that doesn't look anything like a nice girl with red cheeks :)

It took me a while...especially to figure out what to do and how to do it...  I started with a cartoonish pirate and ended up with a skull.

This is the lay out...where you can see every single brush stroke, pretty cool!!

Happy Sunday everyone!

Off to do some cooking/cleaning now :)

Flowers in you hair.

Flowers in your hair.

Digital painting, Illustrator.

I have a confession to make....I think I am falling in love with Illustrator...especially after this last drawing from yesterday.

I have been resistant to digital drawing for years, very stubborn of me! I love my good old fashioned brushes, canvas, pens and paper. 

But much to my surprise I liked it, in a strange out of comfort kind of way.

I spent the whole day yesterday working on this face, mixing all the techniques  I have learned lately, drawing, painting, combing shapes and more, using a combination of tablet and mouse. I love the final result.

The very first girl I did was all done modifying and combining shapes. No free hand drawing .

While in this last one I used a LOT of digital brushes and digital pencil.

Just check out the noses, eyelashes and lips to see the difference.

For this last work I followed a process very similar to the real painting. Drawing first, then under painting and more painting on top. A lot of layers...pretty cool stuff! Also the way I used the brushes loaded with paint reminded me a lot of the real painting process...without the need to clean brushes at the end ot the session! The only annoying difference is the creation of all the customized brushes.... is quicker to get them out of the drawer than creating them each time!

What took me the longest probably were the eyes and the lips. But I love what I got in the end. 

Here is a picture in the layout mode, every line is a stroke.

And to compare here is the lay out mode screen shot of the first girl:

Learning and enjoying the process....I think I am on the right track! :)

My husband challenged me to do draw something different from a girl with red cheeks!!  :)

Let 's what comes next!

My first digital painting : Mona Lisa.

Digital painting with Illustrator.

wooooooowoooooo!!! Here we go...my first digital painting with Illustrator...

It was not easy...I think with practice things will get easier (!) and the full process will be a little bit faster hopefully.

This is a picture of the lay out, just to give you an idea of how many strokes are in there.

At times I did miss my real brushes... choosing which brush to use and where is much easier with the real thing! But I wanted to challenge myself, and I think I did it.

And here is the original picture of Mona Lisa

It took me all afternoon  yesterday ...a struggle, especially because it was 74F and very sunny outside.

What happened to the horrible July weather we are supposed to have over here by the Ocean during this time? I was really hoping for some good fog & clouds to totally focus on Illustrator without feeling i was missing out on the nice weather.

And It looks like we are having another sunny day today too.

Going for a short run to wake up my mind now :)

Have a good day everyone!

Experimenting with Seattle skyline on Illustrator.

We had a really a lovely time in Seattle, seeing ne place is always so inspiring...looking forward already to our next trip! :)

After few days of sketching on paper I am back at my desk and at Illustrator.
As a warm up today I was playing around with a sketch with pencil I did of Seattle skyline ...

Seattle Skyline 1

 Seattle Skyline 2

And here is the original sketch and the picture:

Concert in the Vineyard, sketch.

We spent our last day in Seattle with Renato and April :)
A little bit of touristy stuff in the afternoon and concert with pic-nic in a lovely vineyard in the evening.
Nice food, nice music and a very good company. We should do this kind of stuff more often!

I also managed to do a quick sketch!

Here it is:

We got back to SF this afternoon, a nice sunny weather welcoming us.

View from 3007, sketch,

This morning I decided to quickly sketch the view from our room...is kind of busy ( a very BUSY view!) so I simplified it a little bit.

Sheraton Seattle room 3007

Going for a run outside now, the weather looks really nice! Looking forward to be outside :)

More sketches in the afternoon!

Happy Friday everyone!

A fine day in Seattle.

My very first day in Seattle...and I totally enjoyed:).

Went for breakfast down at the Pike Place Market, a beautiful market overlooking the bay, on the waterfront. It opened in 1907 and is one of the oldest in the USA.

I sit down in a nice coffe place, get my latte &a pastry and started sketching my view :)

(My favorite start of the day!!)

Here is a photo.

The morning was pretty cloudy, windy and chilly. It felt just like being at home :)

BUT...luckily around midday the sun found his way out.

Walking along the Alaskan Way I got to the Sculpture Museum, from there you have a view of the famous Space Needle, here is  quick sketch.

Last sketch is the view from the Conference Centre...went there to drop and pick hub hubby :) who is here for work!

 

Have a great evening everyone!

Ciao from SEATTLE!!! :)

Sketching with coffee...

Good morning :)
After a the beautiful sunset of yesterday evening today is gray, foggy and humid.

But ......I don't car that much !

We are off to Seattle today, for a couple of days...and over there the sun is shining :) so good for me !

Packing my bag with sketch book and pens, so get ready for some new sketches from Washington state.

Just to warm up I did a quick sketch this morning while drinking my coffe. I drank half a coffee and I used the other half to sketch.
A pretty cool medium, coffee as watercolor...and it smells so good!!

Getting my self a full espresso now, need some more caffeine to start my day!

sketch with coffee and pen.

Monalisa morning relax

I am enough. COLLAGE

18 inches x18 inches

I am enough.

Collage and mixed media on canvas.

After 3 weeks straight working with Illustrator I was in bad need of some "hand-time": grabbing tubes full of paint, creating texture, playing around with "real"stuff …getting my fingers dirty with colors!

So, yesterday I spent the whole day working on this collage, attaching stuff, painting layers and layers of color.  I love the final result.

I used pieces of papers I have been collecting and saving for few years actually…just waiting to use them on the right art work. 

I believe we all have moments when we compare ourselves with other people and we start doubting our own skills. I do…a lot! This wants to be a reminder that I AM ENOUGH, YOU are enough. WE are enough.

Some details:

Few weeks ago I prepared this special canvas. 

I love creating touchy texture and to increase the result I took an old pair of jeans, cut few parts out and attached them to my canvas with several layers of gesso. Then I put the canvas on one side of my studio, waiting for the right idea.

 

Back to my Illustrator now:) 

Have a great day everyone!

LittleSnowGirl and Cyril.

Digital Illustration.

Illustrator.

Special Best Friends.

I finished this Illustration over the weekend…it turned out to be a very intense learning experience!

Enjoy it :)

Bent by the wind.Sketch.

Sketch with black pen and ink pen.

I pass by this tree every day, several times a day.  

That what happens when yo have a dog to take out :) you get more aware of your surrounding!

This beautiful tree is at the crossing of Great Highway and Taraval St.

It gives you an idea of how strong the wind over here can get.

Just to give you a number….last winter we had a day in April when the wind was blowing at 75 mile per hour!!  In the metric system this means 120 km per hour.

Well…that' s a strong wind!

Apparently trees that grow in a windy environment are the strongest :)

This is a picture from a different side….such a beautiful, strong tree.

I draw this sketch this morning while watching at world football cup final, still on going. Extra time now: GO ARGENTINA!!!!

I really enjoyed sketching with my beloved pens! Need to do more of this stuff.

Have a great Sunday everyone!

Cyril the scarecrow - work in progress-

Cyril

-Illustrator-

I am still working on the little SnowGirl illustration and cyril is gonna be part of that.

The way I am working designing all the single characters and then adding them to create the final work.

Let me just say that is my VERY FIRST TIME doing something like this….so let 's hope is gonna work! :)

Few months ago I  also painted this same scarecrow :

http://lauradallagata.blogspot.com/2014/03/what-it-left-of-halloween-finished.html

… and it took MUCH less time than drawing it with Illustrator!! :)

Have a nice evening everyone, looking forward to crash on the sofa in few minutes.

Little SnowGirl , work in progress.

Little Snow Girl, 

Illustrator

Detail, work in progress.

Here is a detail of the last illustration I am working on right now.

I completed the face yesterday and I was feeling like posting it :) even if the full image is not yet finished!

It took quite a long time to do, especially the mouth, the eyes and the eyelashes!!!!…but I am happy with I have got at the moment.

Flower thinking.

As you guys know I have put my brushes aside for a while to focus and learn how to create digital art.
Surprise surprise…is not as bad as I initially thought!
It is actually a long-complicated-boring sometimes but also FUN process.
The amount of stuff to learn is ENORMOUS but what you can do when you master the program is beyond your imagination.
However the summer here in Ocean beach is helping me studying,  with temperatures is in the lower 60' F and mainly cloudy. Lucky me!

Going back to Illustrator, I have still so much to learn….but I am loving it, every day.
What I actually like is that you can constantly experiment new things, and new effects on the same image in a matter of seconds.
You cannot do to that with traditional painting NO NO NO! IN traditional painting you need to start a new painting every time…

Flower thinking.

Illustrator 

This is my last digital drawing and the very first one I am posting here… :)

Hiking in Sonoma Valley.Sketch

sketch with pastel on toned paper.

This weekend to celebrate Michal's birthday we went hiking and camping by Lake Sonoma.

It was EXTREMELY hot! On the first day we hiked up with 95F…way too hot!Especially with out heavy backpacks.

This is a quick sketch done with pastel, my very first time with this medium.

I bought these pastel last year and I left them lying in their nice box till now :) Don't know why I waited so long! 

I actually like the pastel effect, even though it get a bit messy, since they smudge immediately as soon as you touch them…

Need to practice this technique more!

Back to Illustrator now after a long weekend break!