A look back - 5 years ago today

June 30, 2007 was the best day of my life, and I'm thrilled to be celebrating five years of marriage with the most amazing husband I could ever hope for.

I love you, Baby. Here's to at least 50 more!

Sketchbook Sunday - June 24

Not a lot of work on the draft horse this week, but I got another little section done.

And here's a shot of all the shading so far:

I finished the composition assignment for Art Instruction Schools. I have a review test to do, and then I'll be sending in this drawing:

The next three assignments are figure drawing. I'm half excited and half scared. I really need help with drawing people, but I'm afraid that I won't be any good at them. Wish me luck!

And finally, I've been asked to design a sign for the churches in town. It's 4x8 feet and will list the names of all 10 churches along with a welcome message and a cross with the phrase "Together under the cross". I have about eight different designs sketched out. Will do a few more this week and then pick out two or three to develop further. I'm supposed to present a couple different options.

In other news, I spent the last couple nights at the rodeo. I took over 300 photos, so once I go through them and pick a few to show, I'll be posting them. In the meantime, here's a look at last year's rodeo. I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised in the difference in photo quality with my Canon Rebel!

Sketchbook Sunday - June 17

Didn't get a lot of work time in this week due to a couple days of subbing at another library, but I made some progress on a couple drawings - the first being my assignment for Art Instruction Schools:

 This is just about finished and will be going in the mail this week!

I also got about half an hour of work in on the draft horse:

I love the stitching on the harness. It's a pain in the butt to actually do, but I love how it looks afterwards.

Sketchbook Sunday - June 10

Since my work schedule has changed, and Tuesday is no longer the primary day I have to work on my art, I'm going to replace the "What's in My Sketchbook Wednesday" posts with "Sketchbook Sunday" to show what I've done throughout the week.

Here's the first edition:

I think I mentioned before that I had heard of someone who drew an illustration for every page of a novel. I don't intend to do finished pieces as that artist did. I'm only doing maybe 10 min. sketches, but it's a good exercise in creativity. Here's one I've done so far. The book I'm sketching is "Heartland Skies", and on this particular page a bronc fell and was injured during the rodeo.

I've finished the outline of the draft horse and am starting to put in the shading. This is a very large drawing (the paper is 18x24"), so it's going to come along at a slower pace than you're probably used to seeing me work at.

And here's a closeup of the area I've begun to shade.

And finally, a look at the current state of the assignment I'm working on for the Art Instruction Schools. This is the final piece that will be sent in for grading when it's finished.

As always, I welcome critique, and if you see something that just doesn't look quite right, you'd be doing me a huge favor if you pointed it out to me before I get farther along and it's harder to fix.