Author Archives: Cindy D

More imaginary creatures in pencil!

Dash and Philipa

The latest 9″ x 12″ pencil drawing, Dash and Philipa. Perhaps you are of the opinion that Philipa should have more of the letter L or more of the letter P. Look, she spelled it for me and she should know!

I haven’t posted in a while. So here’s lots more pencil critters, new since the last post.

Fiona and Ming, Jules and Willow

Hat with Birds, Dingo

Fifi and Juniper, Irina in her party dress

You should be able to click on these images and enlarge them. But WordPress has been tinkering, or something, and things are not working like they once did. Arrgh! However, I have added these to my pencil portfolio, and you can see em a bit bigger there!

Thanks for dropping in!

Daisy and Others, in Pencil

Daisy, 9″ x 12″ pencils

Daisy in Progress

Daisy started as a sketch I considered using for a (requested) coloring page. I’ve been trying to practice/add more botanical elements as a way of making these recent portrait type pencil works more interesting.

You may remember these guys before the flowers:

Two in Flowers, 9″ x 12″ pencils

And more from the past couple weeks:

Ernestine in Cloche, Niles
Each 9″ x 12″ pencils

I have started a gallery of recent pencil art and here is a link. You can also get there via the menu at the top of the page, on the far right. The gallery is a work in progress and not working perfectly quite yet. (I may try to find another portfolio-making widget.)

Some excitement at the blog this weekend! Apparently some Indian hackers were using my bandwidth for Indian porn. (Nothing any of my visitors would ever see. No, they prefer to be sneaky and use some behind-the-scenes BS! But my hosting peeps Dreamhost run a thing called Stop the Hacker! so they let me know there was a problem.) And I am SO lucky to live with an excellent computer programmer who can fix such things. And he did. The end. :D

Welcome visitors! Hello to Paint Party Friday!

Enid, Hamish, Peko, Bordeaux, Lindy. Pencils!

Enid, 9″ x 12″ Pencils

So, instead of one or two nights like most of these 9×12 pencils I’ve been doing, I put in an extra couple days on this one for added depth and detail. Frequent visitors to this blog may recall my love of snoods!

And here is some of the rest of the gallery from the past couple weeks (with bird friends!):

Hamish with New Friend, Peko & Midori (click to enlarge)

Midge & Bordeaux, Lindy and Margaret (click to enlarge)

A few notes. So much smudging! In some cases, I have tried to remove the smudging (in Adobe Elements where I do most of my brightness corrections and resizing), but some still show more smudging that others. Also, I have included my blog address because while lots of people re-post images, many of them do not mean to “steal” but to share. Those sorts of folks will leave an identifier so I have included the link.

Friends, I must confess – I have THREE ink projects I have put off. The bad excuse is that I am in pencil mode! But the truth is that procrastination and fear of bad outcomes continue to bedevil me. That much said, I may have some inky things (and procrastination recovery to report) next time!

Thanks so much for dropping in! Hello to Paint Party Friday!

Hattie, Jim, Miranda, Giles – More Friends in Pencil

Hattie
9″ x 12″ pencil

Hattie in progress, 9″ x 12″ pencil (click to enlarge)

Jim & Miranda
9″ x 12″ pencil

Giles with Bowtie
9″ x 12″ pencil

Still at it! 005 mechanical pencil with HB lead, and some 4B and new 8B Staedtler pencils.

Thanks to all for stopping by and leaving nice comments! Hello to Paint Party Friday!

Mechanical Pencil Works in Progress

Gump and Rosie, 9″ x 12″ pencil in progress

More pencils I have been working on. Now using the 005 HB mechanical pencil with a Staedtler 6B for extra dark bits (pupils, nostrils and a few other spots). They needed names, so they are Gump & Rosie.

9″ x 12″ pencil in progress (click to enlarge)

9″ x 12″ pencil in progress

Sometimes I get to a certain point and set it aside. This last one has been at this stage for a couple weeks and it’s not done but I haven’t decided what else to do with it. I think a background but I fear all the inevitable smudging.

Another good pencil video: How to Shade with a Pencil by LethalChris Drawing.

Hello to Paint Party Friday and thank you to all the recent visitors! It’s nice to be back in action. :D

And Now with Mechanical Pencil

Preston with Bowtie, 9″ x 12″ pencil

I’ll be honest, I don’t know why I keep drawing flowers on their noses and hair. I kind of dig it. This one I think is not quite as nice as my first very serious fur attempt, but he has some excellent qualities.

I picked up an 005 mechanical pencil with HB lead and I love it! I don’t have to sharpen it! But, sometimes you have to let more lead out instead of scratching stuff up and not realizing you have to let more lead out. Haha. I also got some of these tortillions but didn’t have them handy and the q-tip continued to be a fine alternative. (Don’t you love supplies with fancy names that don’t cost an arm and a leg!)

As a side note, it has sadly come to my attention that all of my old gallery slideshows of work in progress no longer work. When I first started in 2011 the whole process was SO TEDIOUS with the scanning and re-sizing and cleaning up and re-naming and posting holy cow. But I learned things and some people liked the things, and that’s great! And now, to new things! With mechanical pencils sometimes!

Thanks for dropping in! Hello to Paint Party Friday!

Fur & Hair, Adventures in Pencil

This was supposed to be the year of acrylic painting (and may yet be), but January has mostly been the month of the pencil! Most recently, in a break from watching Poirot reruns, I have been watching hair and fur tutorial and speed-drawing videos. Here is my first serious attempt! Took about four hours of layering, and is missing a bit of brightness.

Grady’s Coiffure, 9″ x 12″ pencil

I think Grady’s got a bit of a Seussian aspect, but with fancier hair!

Pencils: 2H, F, B, 2B (because that’s what I had handy) I did not get a blending stump (tortillon) but one of the videos suggested a q-tip and it worked pretty well. I also found a kneaded eraser but need more practice with it. I am going to pick up a couple mechanical pencils and try those, and I also need some darker pencils, maybe a 4B or 6B. Darker is better but I fear the smudging! I really need to be more conscious of the smudge guard I try to use.

Some related videos I found very helpful:

LethalChris Drawing:
How to Draw a Bear, How to Draw a Panda Bear, How to Draw Realistic Hair

Proko, How to Draw Hair (I’ve mentioned Proko before. He is charming and a great teacher.)

Daisy van den Berg, Drawing Fur (dog)

Mark Crilley, How to Draw a Kitten

Fine Art Tips, How to Draw a Mouse with a Mechanical Pencil

Do you have any favorite youtube art channels? Please share! Thanks for stopping by!

Fanciful Pencil Beasts!

Horace and Friends, 9″ x 12″ pencil

Lots of drawing in pencil continues! All 9″ x 12″ as I work through some Bristol board drawing pads. These are I think the better ones, each done in an evening or sometimes two. (I post more frequently on my Facebook page .)

: Hound with Tiny Hat

: Dulcibelle

: Percival in Bloom

: Wulfrid in Camouflage

I do have a new painting started though I have yet to work out a consistent painting schedule. Do I need a schedule? It seems like maybe I do. Thanks so much for dropping by!

Horace and Friends
9″ x 12″ pencil and 12″ x 12″ early painting stage

Continued Acrylics – with progress shots

Acrylic painting and pencil sketching continue.

11″ x 14″ Acrylics, in progress

This one is feeling much more forced than the last one! Probably overthinking things. The black outline was not the best move, but it will probably see a lot of changes yet.

And these are two favorite recent sketches. I am finally using a piece of paper as a smudge guard. Hooray!

Horned Oracle, 9″ x 12″ pencil

Pavel’s Pet Portrait Palace, 9″ x 12″ pencil

I haven’t decided what to do with these, Copics won’t work with this much pencil and the Bristol is no good for acrylics. I could trace the outline on a new sheet, maybe. More likely I will just start the next one.

Thanks so much for dropping by! (All acrylic tips appreciated!)

Could it be an Acrylic Painting post? IT IS.

two painted beasts, omg.
11″ x 14″ Acrylics

Wooo, I’ve been painting! And pretty big too, if you keep in mind I’ve been mostly drawing 2.5″ x 3.5″ art card size the last couple years.

Since my last progress shots post, some WordPress update business or another has removed my slideshow function. I may search out another for future posts, but here is a little gallery of shots. You can click on each to enlarge, but tragically you cannot page through them.

: 11″ x 14″ sketch

: Step one, outline

: Step two, filling in

: Step three, new color

: Step four, new color

: Step five, background color

: Step six, refining shapes

: Step 7, adding detail

: Step 8, shading and detail

So, I was pretty happy at step seven. The next day, after a couple hours working at it (with some frustrations!), what a big difference! I still have to fix up the background. Might just cover the splatters, or might add something new. Or might start the next painting! Here’s a sneak preview:

11″ x 14″ sketch on canvas board

Thanks so much for dropping in! Please, please feel free and encouraged to drop any and all acrylic painting tips in the comments. I’m a bit of a hack at it still, and probably will be for another few years. (But that’ s ok!) :-)

The Slumbering Herd Art Blog

Artist: Cindy Dauer