Portrait of Poe from the Waist Down

Last winter break I thought, "Why don't I try to draw a portrait of someone from the waist down?" Here is the result of that idea. 

Edgar Allan Poe from the waist down. Fitting 'cause Halloween is right around the corner, and Poe has got to be America's creepiest poet, right?

National Poetry Month

To celebrate the end of National Poetry Month, here is a line drawing of one of the all-time greats: Emily Dickinson.

This piece was published in the Winter 2014 edition of the Portland Review, along with a drawing of Edgar Allan Poe (which will show up on the sketch blog in the near future).

Jay and 'Ye in SPACE!

My brother is a huge fan of Jay-Z and Kanye West, so I made him this ridiculous illustration as a Christmas gift:

Here is the line art of Jay-Z and Kanye

I decided to stick them in space (totally normal, right?) so I created this background with some watercolors and acrylic paint. I found a super easy tutorial on how to do this via YouTube:

Then I cut out the line art and Mod Podge'd it to outer space. Easy peasy!

This was a super fun project and it only took me a few nights. I need to start drawing more!

Materials used: Micron pens, other black pens, watercolor paints, white acrylic paint (for the stars)

More posts will be coming your way next week!

Robots

As I mentioned in my last post, I was (sort of) working on a little robot art piece. Since I pulled out all the stops at the last minute and manage to finish the piece, I can triumphantly post about it.

Background:
Robo Taco (a Mexican eatery in SE Portland) put out a call for robot art on Craigslist (a totally reputable site to find art jobs) and I saved the post - thinking that I might get around to creating a piece. Usually, I don't, but this time, dear reader, I did! I made a rough sketch of what I wanted my little robot to look like one evening, and the following evening I drew it out on nice paper, inked it and watercolor-d it, and Mod Podge-d it all together.

So here is the rough sketch:

And here is the finished product:

I put it in a frame I got from Goodwill for $2, and voila! A finished piece. It looks pretty classy in the frame, but I don't have a picture of that yet.

Materials used: Watercolor paper, Micron pens, watercolors, colored pencils, and patterned scrapbook paper (the background)

A Lady & Her Pup

Here's a quick post before I kick off my weekend:

We had a gift exchange in the AmeriCorps program I was in last year (we were a pretty tight-knit bunch) and I think there was a max of $5 you could spend since we were all broke and that sort of restriction leads to thoughtful, handmade gifts. (Which it totally did).

I had some small frames from IKEA that I wasn't using for anything, so I spray painted them black and made some pen drawings to go inside of them. I figured most people would dig pictures of themselves (I adore a portrait of myself that was done in Paris - even more so because I've had to draw myself a countless number of times for self-portrait projects) and pictures of their pets. This particular lady was the first AmeriCorps member I met in Oregon because she let me and my boyfriend crash at her place for a few days before I moved into my house. She has a super cute dog named Pablo, and my then-boyfriend bonded with Pablo because he loves all dogs. I realize I'm getting off track now, so here are the pictures:

I apologize to Megan for this portrait - it does look like her but I did not crop this image well. It makes her look much less cute than she is in real life because of the way I cut her chin out of the picture. I did a much better job with Pablo:

Such a cute puppy!

I think these were drawn with Micron pens, but I can't quite remember. Woo!