Illustration Friday - Cultivate

2 point perspective drawing sample

I am teaching perspective drawing at school to my Art 1 students this week, and it just occurred to me today that my sample drawing could work for this weeks Illustration Friday word.  The drawing is not finished, but it is far enough along that it is a good example for my students on drawing a cityscape with details in two point perspective.

In addition to cultivating young minds, I have been doing a lot of literal cultivating this week.  I have built three raised vegetable and flower garden beds using the a square foot gardening plan.  I also purchased root stock of male and female hardy kiwi berry plants at Sam's club. I have been researching online to determine the best way to plant them.  It turns out that the vines get really large, (think Kudzu) so I am going to have to find some spare fence line to plant them on, or consider building an arbor.

You might remember a couple of posts back that I commented on my notoriously black thumb.   I figure I have about a 25% chance that any of these current gardening efforts will turn out to be successful.  I am ever optimistic that I will find the magic spell that will turn my black thumb green.  The above drawing is pure fantasy. :)

Illustration Friday - Stir

 

Stir the stars with a silver spoon,

and say "goodnight" to the waning moon.

The Sandman sings in the willow tree,

Ta Loo Ra La, Ta Loo Ra Lee.

I almost gave up on developing an idea for this week's word.  It just wasn't inspiring me and everything I could come up with seemed cliche or trite.  I'm not sure if this is any different/better, but this little quatrain kept swimming around in my head, so I finally decided it was worth pursuing.  Who knows maybe it will develop into a full fledged poem some day.

I am including the initial rough sketch.  There are a few things about it that I actually prefer.  Also the scanner fails to pick up some of the pale color shifts and value changes that are in the actual color version. :(

Foreshortening can be an interesting challenge!

Illustration Friday - Pioneer

The Railway Man

This is a little ATC I made today for a lady in Finland who collects cards related to steam trains and the men who work the railroads.  It got me to thinking about how the world was changed by these pioneers of travel and commerce.  Certainly here in the US we attribute the true opening of the West to the railroads.  It is a part of our elementary education.  I have been fascinated by trains, like most people, since childhood.   Cabooses were still in use when I was young, and we would always try to get the "caboose man" to blow his whistle for us as the train passed by.   I miss cabooses.  As a young adult I actually bought myself a miniature passenger train set that I still have some 20 years later.  Did I ever mention that I was something of a tomboy? :)