Nature and Sketching

October 31, 2012 by anika | 6 Comments

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the woods lately. If you follow me on instagram, you are probably aware of that fact. If you want further proof, check out my SW adventure blog, Southwest Direction.

Sometimes I don’t walk very far, even if I’m gone for a long time. The environment is so different here that almost everything I see is new and exciting and catches my attention. Then I must stop, look, maybe take a photo, and maybe collect a few rocks, flowers or leaves.

I’ve started to take photos of some of those collected treasures once I get back to the cabin.

When I collected several oak leaves, the wind was too crazy to even think about making an arrangement to photograph outside, so I drew them instead.

I take many more photos than those that I post onto instagram or my adventure blog. Sometimes the beauty I saw in person just doesn’t quite translate to pixels on a small screen. One photo that I was particularly enchanted by was a “miniature landscape” that I found along the shore of Luna Lake.

One night when I couldn’t sleep, I decided to try sketching the mini landscape to see if I could capture some of the magic that had initially captivated me.

Part way through sketching, I took a quick photo of the drawing before taking a break.

A little later I finished it.

It’s amazing to me how different the two stages of the drawing are. The final is more finished and anchored on the page, while the first stage feels looser and airier. I don’t know that I have a favorite, but I thought the change was interesting!

I think I’m also soaking up inspiration in a less direct way. I’ve been doodling a bit everyday.

I was particularly drawn to the upside-down V shapes on the left of the page, so I did a more complete pattern on another page in my sketchbook.

I wasn’t consciously aware of the inspiration source, but someone on instagram mentioned that it reminded them of tents or a forest, and I think that’s just perfect! The surrounding nature is definitely starting to knit itself into my subconscious, and I for one am glad for it! I can’t wait to see what will come through next!

Doodle a Day August

September 13, 2012 by anika | 12 Comments

On instagram I follow a bunch of cool artists, and I get to see what they are up to and what art they are making. I got to know Rhianna Wurman through the Positive Inking project I’m a part of, and when I saw that she was doing a “Doodle-a-Day” for August, I was tempted to do it too. When my friend Emily Balsley said she was going to join in, well, I knew I couldn’t resist.

So I dove right in.

For the first couple of days, I ended up doodling flowers and leaves, purely by coincidence. When on day 4 I was able to create a flower doodle for the prompt, “Somewhere You Sat” I figured it would be a fun added challenge to see if I could stick with plant life all month. Much to my surprise, I was able to do it, even on a couple of hard days with themes like “8 O’Clock” and “Arrow“. True, there were a couple of days that were more than a bit of a stretch, such as the doodles for “Card” and “Cool,” but in the end I figured it was more about the inspiration and wherever that may lead than a strict interpretation of the day’s word.

All in all it was a super fun challenge. Not only was it exciting to see what in the world I would come up with everyday, but I also looked forward to what the other artists would do with they day’s theme.

I won’t share all 31 doodles with you here, but I would like to show you a few of my favorites.

I love the idea I came up with for Day 3′s theme, “Coin”. At first I didn’t think I could do anything botanical with it, but then I thought, “Silver Dollars!” I love pealing off their rough, flat shells to reveal the shimmery, paper-thin “coin”. I found a small branch we had in the basement, leftover from last year’s “harvest” and drew it.

I think this was actually the drawing that got me thinking about doing botanicals for the month. I figured if I could make “coin” work, I could figure something out for the rest of them!

Day 9, “Messy” was also a fun one. Since I was often drawing from life for my daily doodles, in my mind I made the distinction that they were still doodles because I wasn’t really after accuracy or precision. It was about looking and drawing what I saw without over-thinking it. Having said that, my tendency is toward being precise and over-thinking it, so some of the doodles were definitely more drawing-like than I intended. Not so for “Messy”.

Yes, I drew it really fast and messy! I placed my pen where I wanted to draw a certain group of flowers/textures, and then moved my pen quickly as I captured the essence of their texture. Definitely a satisfying practice and result!

Although I drew from life or photos for many of the days, I also drew quite a few true doodles. The theme for day 19 was “Hole” and while my initial idea was to draw holes in dirt, I instead opted to draw lots of holes in flower shaped buttons.

These were all pure imagination, which, one could argue, is what doodling is all about.

Day 5′s word, “Logo,” was another great opportunity for pure doodling. I decided to draw some ideas for a logo for this month long doodle project! I first drew one logo with the words, “Always Drawing Flowers” but that logo didn’t see the light of day (until now) because I thought of another fun name: Flower Art Rebel. A college art professor of mine once told me that I could explore any subject matter I wanted–except flowers! Since then I always feel like a bit of a rebel when I draw anything botanical, and it seemed to be a fitting title for August’s doodles.

My favorite is probably the skull and “cross-flowers”.

There were some days where I definitely wasn’t done doodling after just one page.

One day I doodled a bunch of random shapes on a page, and it was kind of a jumbled mess, so I cut it up, rearranged it, and collaged it into a new composition I call Petri Dish.

I’m not sure where the inspiration came from for Petri Dish. It just evolved organically. For other drawings, I created variations of the doodles I did for the Doodle-a-Day project.

One of my favorite “extra” drawings was inspired by one of my least favorite doodle-a-day drawings: Day 15, “Ready”.

I wasn’t at all ready to doodle when I started, which was the point of the drawing and how I tied in the theme. I drew the words first, and then filled in the center part of the image with a random doodle. I don’t mind the doodle per se. I can appreciate the humor of the bug shaped blossoms, but I wish the words weren’t there. What I really liked about it were the leaves. They inspired me to create a simpler drawing.

The simpler version of just the leaves then inspired me to create a pattern.

Notice some shapes similar to those in Petri Dish?

It was a great month full of drawings, and I wanted to continue. September is a busy month for me, so I decided to simplify things a bit. Instead of following along with the Doodle-a-Day themes for September, I decided to do a themeless Pattern-a-Day.

I’m using a little sketchbook that my friend Beverly sent over to me in a recent mail art package which luckily has EXACTLY 30 pages! I also decided to only use the IKEA gel pens I recently bought.

This has worked out well for me so far. I have been able to draw a new pattern every day, and I so far haven’t had to “catch up” which I had to do several times in August.

Here’s a little sneak peek of what I’ve been working on so far in September:

Next week I’ll be at the beach, and I hope it’ll be just as easy to draw patterns there with sand underfoot and a sea breeze all around.

If you want to see more of the doodles from my August collection, you can see everything (plus all the extra drawings from the month) on flickr.

You can also check out the other patterns I’ve uploaded so far for September, also on flickr.

Also, if you are on instagram, you can follow along and see the patterns posted daily: @aisforanika #patternadaysep. Although I’m not doing Doodle-a-Day this month, you can see what all the other artists are doodling every day on instagram: #doodleadaysep.

Hidden Critters

April 7, 2012 by anika | 10 Comments

About 5 months ago, I posted about a few drawings I was planning to make for my brother, James, and his wife, Rachel. Although I pretty much figured out what I wanted to do for the drawings back in October, I didn’t have a chance to work on it. I had hoped to make it a Christmas present, but with so much going on around the holidays, I realized that wasn’t going to happen. With my brother’s birthday coming up at the end of March, I decided to finally finish them up for a nice birthday surprise.

After talking with Rachel about the previous sketches I made, we zeroed in on three that they liked best. Rachel also had a fun idea to add a little “surprise” element to each drawing, which I was happy to explore.

I did some more sketching to work out the composition of each drawing, including the new added surprise elements.

Once the planning was over, I started drawing the originals with black and gray markers.

Since I’d done so much preparation with sketches, the final drawings came together really quickly. Most of each is drawn with only black and gray marker, but each of the added surprise elements is a bright color that I added using prismacolor colored pencils.

The drawing that looks like overlapping river stones now has a little orange fish swimming in the stream above them.

A blue ant now hides between layers of sediment.

I added a branch, bird’s nest and leaves to the abstract birch forest. Initially I had planned to only color in the egg, but I couldn’t resist adding a fresh green to the leaves. Although having two colors in the drawing is a little different than the other two, I think it work for this drawing, and I also think the three drawings still work as a set.

All the drawings were done on 13″ x 13″ Canson drawing paper. I cut a few extra sheets when I was getting ready, so once the birthday drawings were done, I got to work on another large gray drawing of a pattern style I’ve been working with lately in sketchbooks and on smaller pieces of paper.

At this point it’s still not quite done. I hope it won’t take another 5 months to complete!

If you’re an artist, how do you like to work on final pieces? Do you do a lot of sketches beforehand and plan out what you are going to do, or do you start with a blank piece of paper or canvas and dive right in?

magic scanner

March 21, 2012 by anika | 6 Comments

Before the end of 2011 I bought myself a new scanner.

My old HP All-In-One scanner/printer got the job done, but scanning was always frustrating because it never quite captured all the detail or accurate color of my art. I’d do my best to edit the images, but I knew it could be better.

I did a ton of research and decided that the Epson V-750 was the scanner for me. Most of the comparisons I saw online showed scans of slides and photographs, but I was encouraged by the detail that it picks up, even in photos, so I felt confident it would do my art justice. I wasn’t disappointed!

I won’t go on and on since the images speak for themselves.

Each of the following scans are minimally edited, mostly just cropped and a little dust clean up. In the images below, the HP scan comes first, followed by the same image scanned with my new Epson.

HP Scan

Epson Scan

HP Scan

Epson Scan

Isn’t the difference amazing? For me, the Epson really shines in the lightest areas. It captures the detail of every mark I make; even light pink colored pencil, or delicate graphite. I’m sure I could bring out the color in the Epson images, but I was so impressed by the quality right out of the scanner that I wanted to share them without any editing at all.

The Epson V-750 has been a dream come true so far. It’s fast, it’s quiet, and the image quality is impressive. I actually look forward to scanning. No more frustration!

**Update**
I almost forgot! I made these two drawings for a couple mail art exchanges to Kati Driscoll and Rhya Tamasauskas. I just love the way Rhya described the mail art I sent, mentioning that “the collection of colours and textures reminds me of the beach at sunset…running in sand as the landscape changes in big sweeping gestures right before our eyes.” Isn’t that dreamy?

Black and Gray Line Drawings

October 30, 2011 by anika | 11 Comments

I decided that I couldn’t let an entire month go by without a blog post. October has absolutely zoomed by for me. I’ve carved out a little creative time here and there, but mostly I’ve been busy with design work.

My sister-in-law Rachel & my brother James are fans of my work, and every now and again they ask me very nicely if I’d be willing to make something for their home. The first time I made something for them, I drew several drawings for their daughter Mia’s room. Recently Rachel decided to revamp their living room, and she was keen on featuring 3 big drawings above the couch.

In a recent discussion about the project, I asked if she’d thought about what she might like, to give me something to work with as a starting point. She said she’d been thinking about drawings that were made of only black and gray lines. They didn’t have to match or be the same since she figured that there would be continuity in the fact that the lines would be drawn by the same hand. I was intrigued by her idea, so that very night, I sketched out a few of my ideas.

Admittedly, the first 3 drawings were re-worked from previous drawings and paintings (listed below), but I liked the idea of exploring these different motifs with the restriction of only using lines, without solid areas of color.

horizontal line drawing inspiration
pods inspiration
overlapping petals inspiration

The last drawing of the first 4 that I completed was completely spontaneous; something I did just for fun. Interestingly enough, the last one is also the one James & Rachel liked the most out of the first round of drawings.

A few days later I took some time to sketch out a couple more ideas.

Again, for the first image, I took inspiration from previous drawings–do you recognize the connection to some of the stone drawings I’ve made in the past? The second image reminds me of birch trees. I didn’t really intend to draw birch trees. I started out by drawing the lines that make the trunks, and as I was adding the small horizontal lines, I realized I was drawing birch trees, so I just went with it. I think it’s pretty cute!

We haven’t decided on the final three drawings, so I still have some sketching to do, but I’m off to a good start.

As a side note, these images were all taken with my iphone since I was having issues with my other camera, and my scanner didn’t pick up the detail of the lightest gray marker. I’m giving some serious thought to investing in an better scanner!

What do you think of these black & gray drawings? Do you miss the color of my usual work?

Collaborative Accordion Book

September 14, 2011 by anika | 10 Comments

A few weeks ago, I got a nice surprise in the mail from Jules Young; After completing her page, she sent me the collaborative accordion book that is traveling around the world for many talented artists to make their mark on. I’m the 4th artist to get the book. Valeria Poropat started this project and so far it has traveled around Europe before making its way to me. I was very excited and inspired after seeing the first three panels, and quickly started brainstorming ideas of my own.

There was no set theme, so I thought about the project itself, and the phrase, “from here to there and back again” popped into my head. As I thought about it some more, I decided it made more sense from my point of view to switch the order of “here” and “there” to read, “from there to here and back again”. I liked the sounds of it, and started sketching out my idea.

After a few rounds of sketching, I came up with a composition that would work for the narrow orientation of the pages. I made a few quick copies to try out different colors.

When I was ready to transfer my sketch to the book for the final drawing, I ended up using a window as a lightbox, just to get the basic lines and composition that I’d already worked out in place.

Once I finished tracing, I drew the rest of the smaller elements, and drew over everything with an ink pen.

I then freehanded the remaining details in pen.

The last phase was adding color, which I took my time with, making decisions along the way. At one point the ribbon was going to be blue. I also considered pink, but in the end, I zeroed in on a cream color with accents of green, and I really like the natural feeling it gives the piece.

From left to right, the artists that have so far added drawings to the book are Valeria Poropat, Tricky Tanya, Jules Young, and me!

There are quite a few pages and artists left to go, so I’m really looking forward to see what each artist adds!

Patterns & Paws: Collaboration with Jessica Gowling

September 4, 2011 by anika | 25 Comments

I have always been interested in the idea of collaborating. Not with the enemy, but with other artists. It just seemed like such a cool concept to work with another person to create something unique & unexpected, but I never really knew how to go about it since I’d never done one before.

Then along comes the ever so talented Jessica Gowling. I met Jessica on twitter months ago, and shortly thereafter we started exchanging mail art. Much to my delight, one day she invited me to work on a collaborative project with her!

Well, when I say invite, it was more like, “I’m sending you a project for the two of us to work on, and I’m not telling you what it is so it will be a surprise, and you better say yes!”.

Haha! How could I refuse?

Seriously though, I was super excited at the prospect of working on my first ever collaboration, but I was also really flattered that such a talent would single me out for something like this.

We had to wait for what seemed like eons for me to finally get the project. I didn’t even know what I was going to be getting in the mail since it was a secret. We were both worried it had gotten lost on its journey, but it turns out there was a postal snafu, and after they kept if for about a month, they sent it back to Jessica because it was missing mere pennies in postage.

Once it was sorted out, and I got it in hand, I was amazed by the drawings and the print she’d started off the project with. I was also really impressed that this was going to be an ongoing collaboration–such a great idea. I love the fact that it will continue to evolve with each exchange, and that we can both look forward to being surprised and inspired in new ways each time!

The pattern we’re following for filling in the sketchbook is as follows:

Jessica starts off the collab with paws on the first 2 spreads on the RIGHT pages only.
Anika fills in patterns on the LEFT pages of the first two spreads, taking inspiration from Jessica’s images that are on the RIGHT.
Anika fills in patterns on the LEFT pages of the next two spreads, which can be anything, leaving the RIGHT side blank. When Jessica gets the sketchbooks back, she will fill in the empty 2 RIGHT pages with images inspired by the patterns on the LEFT.
Anika fills in the following spread on both RIGHT & LEFT sides. Jessica will also add to this spread on both RIGHT & LEFT to create an intermingled collaborative spread.
Jessica will then fill in the RIGHT pages of the following 2 spreads with paws, leaving the LEFT page blank for Anika to fill in.
Jessica will then skip 2 spreads, and on the 3rd spread add paws to the RIGHT & LEFT pages for the next mixed collaborative spread, and so on.

Probably sounds complicated right? Well, it’s really not! Take a look at the images below, and maybe that will give you a better idea about how things are arranged.

First up is Volume 1 of Patterns and Paws, which I believe is the volume I’ll be keeping.

My creative process usually involves taking in inspiration and letting it simmer for a few days, but it wasn’t long before I had my first ideas, and the rest flowed easily from there.

Isn’t the chipmunk Jessica drew the cutest? When creating this pattern I thought about directional movement, gathering, piles, and nooks and crannies.

This “paw print” is one of my favorite prints of Jessica’s, and I was super excited that she included it for the second spread. I really love the shape made by the paws, and I also love the dimensional quality of the print framed on the page. I decided to work with collage using thick bristol that really pops out from the surface, and created a very abstract interpretation of the shapes of the paws. Do you see it?

This was the first spread where I could do whatever I wanted. I think initially I’d planned to paint this design with gouache, but I was so engrossed in the process that I started using colored pencils before I remembered my original intention. As it turns out, I really like the texture of the pencils, especially for the lines that are hanging down and taper slightly at the ends. This is based on a motif of swooping lines that I’ve created before, but the variety of colors, and the use of colored pencils add a new feeling to this pattern.

This is a new style of pattern that I created for the collab. Is it wrong to admit that I’m kind of in love with this idea and pattern? Because I am! After completing the previous spread of swooping organic lines, I wanted to do something a little more geometric, while maintaining a hand drawn feel. In a way it’s a simple drawing, but I find the slight variations in color and thickness of the lines work together to create a really appealing design.

I found this spread to be a challenge. I actually had the idea for this pattern and its shape in my minds eye, but had to do a bit of sketching outside this book to work out the details. Because I knew Jessica will be adding paws to this spread, I thought it was important to maintain some whitespace for her to work with. After seeing some work by Anna Jane Searle, and a comment Jessica made about it, I realized I could have filled the page with pattern, because Jessica would still have the opportunity to alter it by drawing, painting or collaging over whatever I created. Learning as I go! The concepts I had in mind when creating this pattern were mountains, caves, slow growth, endurance, cycles, formations, crystalline structures, energy and flow. I’m really interested to see what Jessica will add to this!

Next up is Volume 2, which Jessica will be keeping, if I have it right.

The first spread is similar in that Jessica created another pencil drawing, but the composition and the feeling is quite different and features a marmot instead of a chipmunk. I created a pattern that was loosely based on the composition of the drawing, while keeping in mind these concepts: connection, same and different, approach, warning, surrounded, unexpected, and continuation.

I used the same basic idea for this spread as for the one in Vol. 1. As you can see, the orientation of the paws is flipped, so I flipped my composition as well to relate to the shape of the paws.

I also used the same idea for a swooping pattern on this page, but I’ll mention that I chose colors intuitively for the individual volumes.

I approached the same idea for a pattern here as well, although the colors are different, and each of the three designs are a little more substantial than the similar spread in Vol. 1. Why? I’m not sure, it just felt like that’s how it was supposed to be!

I used the same idea for both collaborative spreads as well, but again chose colors as I was working, for a result that has quite a different feeling.

So there you have the first round of my very first collaborative project! Isn’t it exciting and awesome?!

If you have a little more time & want some more info about this collab, I highly recommend checking out the very first post about it that Jessica wrote after I’d finally received the sketchbooks in the mail. She took actual photos of the sketchbooks, and also discusses the originating idea for this collaboration intelligently, so it gives you a good idea of what the books look like and the intention of the project. Plus you can see the other goodies she sent along with the project!

Currently Jessica has the sketchbooks and is no doubt coming up with awesome art to add. I’ll be posting about this project as it progresses, and I hope you’ll follow along!

**edit** Since posting this, Jessica has also created a post for this stage of the collaboration on her blog. She again photographed the books side by side, which offers a unique view of how the books relate to each other. I also just think it’s fun to see the corresponding pages/diptychs next to each other.

From My Garden, Hops

July 9, 2011 by anika | 8 Comments

We’re growing a couple of hops plants for my brother (he likes to home brew beer), and I really love how the leaves are heart shaped with what looks like a serrated edge. My first impression was that they would be a challenge to draw, and since I’m always up for a challenge, I set up a little “outdoor studio” and got to work.

(Not pictured are a couple of cushions to sit on.)

I zeroed in on a pair of leaves to draw, did a quick sketch to figure out the composition and make sure I got the scale of the leaves right, and I then started working on the details of the shapes of the leaves. The hardest part was seeing the leaves as the light dwindled, but I finished the first phase of the drawing just in time.

Once I got the outline of the leaves worked out, I tried shading to give a sense of depth, but it just wasn’t working. Instead I decided to focus on adding detail texture, so I drew some of the main veins of the leaf. I was really interested to see how there was a clear pattern in how the veins were distributed, but it wasn’t always a perfect pattern–just my style!

I had to pack up my outdoor studio that first night, since I lost the light, but I took some time to refine the lines of the leaves and veins.

The next day I evaluated the drawing, and realized that the composition seemed to be wanting a little more. I set up my studio again and used my artistic license to add a smaller set of leaves below the first, even though in reality they were located elsewhere on the plant.

I want to do more with this drawing. I even transfered the drawing to another sheet of “good” paper to work with, but then it sat there. After mulling it over for a couple days, I’m still not sure exactly what the next step will be. I’ll set it aside for now and move onto something else. I’m sure I’ll figure out what to do eventually!

A New Kaleidoscope Drawing

May 12, 2011 by anika | 11 Comments

After hanging up all the work I framed at Metropolitan Cafe, I was 99% satisfied, except for one area where the triptych seemed too small for the prominent space above the fireplace.

I decided to make a larger drawing to hang in its place, moving the triptych on the wall that’s to the right of the space shown in the image above. I started working on the new drawing the very night I got home from hanging the show.

I started by drawing a grid on some smooth drawing paper with a pencil (and a ruler of course), and then drew the outline of the circle with the help of my trusty compass set.

After drawing the grid I actually erased most of it, leaving only a hint of the lines, just dark enough so I could make out the grid while I was adding the colors. I started with pink.

Unfortunately the pencil lead kept breaking, so before I knew it, the pink pencil was down to a little stub. Luckily the peach color in the set was very similar in tone, so I switched to peach to finish the first layer.

With the first color finished, I started the next one: chartreuse green. Adding a new color is the best part of these drawings because that’s when I get to see how the colors will interact as they are layered.

Once the chartreuse was finished, I used true green to start the next layer.

I took one more in progress photo when I finished the true green layer, but then got so wrapped up in finishing the drawing that I forgot to take any more in progress pics! Instead I took a photo of all the colored pencils I used for this drawing, which include those I’ve mentioned, plus aquamarine, carmine red, magenta, and violet.

When my mom saw the final drawing she said, “it looks like a kaleidoscope”. I think that’s a great observation, so I’ll be calling this series “kaleidoscopes” from now on.

Before I could snap a photo of the finished drawing, I framed it and whisked it away to Baltimore to add it to the show. While I was at Metropolitan, I took a photo of the framed drawing. I wish I’d taken a wide shot of the room so you could see the difference now that the triptych has been moved. I’m sure I’ll visit the cafe again soon, so I’ll update this when I get the shot.

Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils

May 2, 2011 by anika | 8 Comments

I tried out the Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils on a piece of Arches hot press paper.

I decided to use the Arches paper instead of the grid paper I’ve been using for previous drawings to see how the thicker paper would hold up, and to see how the image would look without the underlying grid. I’m still working at a small size at this point (about 5.5 inches square).

I took a few in-progress shots with my iphone while I was working so you can see how the image changes with each added color.

I started with a layer of yellow ochre, followed by pale vermillion.

The next was a layer of mulberry.

I filled in more of the circle with Process Red.

True Blue was the first cool color added, followed by a layer of ultramarine blue to finish up the drawing.

I like the final drawing, but I also like a lot of the in between stages as well. I’m thinking about making a few drawings that are more like “incomplete” circles.

The Prismacolor Premier colored pencils were very nice to work with on the thick paper. The color came off onto the paper very easily, so there was no warping of the paper at all. The biggest challenge was keeping a sharp point. I had to sharpen the Premier pencils a lot more than the Verithins, but also didn’t have to press as hard, so I guess it’s a trade off.

The lines appear a lot more wobbly without the underlying grid to anchor them, but I like the look anyway, and I’ll probably get better at drawing straight lines with a little more practice & patience.

a is for anika

making art and writing about it.

Category Archives: drawing