A Whimsical WIP

I'm doing some late-night drawing tonight, as I'm very eager to see my current work-in-progress completed. I thought I would share a shot of this WIP in order to give you an idea of what's to come. And to build some suspense, of course. It's still in the very early -- and I mean very early -- stages, but here it is nonetheless:

"The Fauna and the Fairy Ring" WIP

This piece, which once completed will be called "The Fauna and the Fairy Ring", is a bit different from what I've been creating lately. However, I do still consider it to be part of my animal nursery art series. What's more, I plan on making other pieces in the series with this type of animal-centric yet whimsical subject matter.

For whatever reason, my approach for this particular piece has been a bit different than my norm. I typically -- as in essentially always -- do a complete pencil outline of the entire piece before even breaking out my pens. However, with this piece I felt compelled to bring out my pens earlier than usual. In this case, I've been sketching each individual component with pencil and then immediately going over it with pen before moving on to the next section of the piece. That's certainly not a life-shattering change by any means, but it is definitely a change in pace for me personally. I guess I'm just so excited to see this particular pen drawing finished.

If I don't finish this piece tonight I will likely finish it tomorrow. I will post the completed piece for you to see then, and I will upload it to my Redbubble and Society6 web stores.

Good night!

Sincerely,
MissAdventureArt

Polar Portrait

Here it is, the latest piece in my animal nursery art series:

"Percy the Polar Bear"

I'll admit that while drawing this piece I did feel at a bit of a loss, as I had far less colorful fur to fill in than usual and I therefore wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. Nevertheless, I really did enjoy creating this piece, and I personally think that the simplicity of it works well.

This piece will soon be available in my Redbubble and Society6 shops, so check it out there!

Sincerely,
MissAdventureArt

Ghoulie Gift

I wanted to take this time to show off something that my talented sister made for me. My sister is a self-taught knitter, but she also creates a multitude of other impressive crafts revolving around yarn.

So now I'll show off her skills. Knowing how much I love Halloween, my sister created this for me:

This awesome haunted house is meant to be used as a festive tissue box cover, but so far I've just been using it as my centerpiece Halloween decoration. I've grown so fond of it that I'm not sure I'll have the ability to stow it away once Halloween is over. I plan on taking more, better pictures of it soon so that I can show it off in all of its infinite glory. There are so many details my sister was able to incorporate, including ghosts, bats, spiders and webs, and even window shutters that actually open and close!

As for my own artwork, things have been especially busy these last few days. However, I plan on finishing my next animal nursery art piece tomorrow, and I'll post it as soon as I finish. After that I have a couple more pieces planned, but it's still a toss up which one I'll start next.

I hope you're having a wonderful weekend!

Sincerely,
MissAdventureArt

Web Store Wonders

As you can see by the tabs at the top of my blog, you can visit my web stores to peruse and purchase some of my works. I have shops on Etsy, Redbubble, and Society6.

Now, for a bit of information regarding my web stores:

• On my Etsy shop you can purchase art prints of my work directly from me. These will most often be smaller prints measuring 5" x 7" or 4" x 6". Since these prints come directly from me I will sign them before personally sending them off to the purchaser. I will also occasionally sell other goodies displaying my artwork on Etsy, and just as with the prints all of these will be personally packaged and shipped by me.

• On Redbubble you can purchase various medium to large prints of my work. Also on Redbubble you can purchase items such as phone cases, throw pillows, and tote bags displaying my artwork. The products on Redbubble are printed and shipped by third parties. Therefore, although I do design and approve of these prints and other products, they will not be personally handled, signed, or shipped by me.

• On Society6 you can purchase various medium to large prints displaying my artwork. As with Redbubble, the prints purchased through Society6 are printed and shipped by third parties.

• My completed artworks will take slightly longer to appear on my Etsy store than on Redbubble or Society6. This is because for the prints in my Etsy shop I send my works to a professional printer and only put them up for sale once I have finished products in hand. It pays to be patient, though, as you'll find that since I personally manage my Etsy shop it is not only a more personal experience but it is also where you'll find my occasional deals and sales! Stay tuned for announcements on such deals!

That all being said, I'll admit that currently my web stores are a bit low on items, but I am working on stocking them up. I have many projects in the works that will be up on my stores soon.

The thus far completed works in my nursery animal art series are already available on Redbubble and Society6, and they will be availabe in my Etsy shop soon. I am currently working on the next piece in this series, and I will share it with you here upon its completion. Very soon after that it will be available on Redbubble and Society6. There are a couple of other works I am also working on, and I will post them here and to Redbubble and Society6 over the next few days. They will also be available on Etsy in the near future.

Also, feel free to visit and like my MissAdventureArt Facebook page using the Facebook tab at the top of this here blog! I will occasionally post news on deals and sales both here and on Facebook, so stay tuned!

Sincerely,
MissAdventureArt

Scanner Success

In case you hadn't noticed, I had up until yesterday been posting not-so-good photos of my finished works. That was due to my lack of a scanner, as well as lack of proper skills and lighting required for the best photography. While I still need to work on my photography skills, I remedied one of the previously mentioned issues by finally acquiring a scanner!

So now I would like to upload some better images of some of my works. I will start with my animal nursery art series, as that is my primary project at this point in time. Here are the better images of my thus far completed animal nursery art (watermarks are added for online security measures):

"Pete the Panda"

"Calico Clarice"

"Ferdinand the Fox"

"Randall the Retriever"

I will soon try to post better images of my other previous drawings as well. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these!

Sincerely,
MissAdventureArt

Halloween Howls

In case you didn't get the memo from my previous post, I am a Halloween fanatic. What's more, I realized I have not yet shared on this blog one of my favorite older works of mine (older as in it was completed two years ago). This particular piece more or less falls in line with the upcoming Halloween holiday, so I figured now is a good time to share it with you here.

"Howl" (with watermark added for security measures)

 
I call this piece "Howl". I hand drew it with graphite pencils, and I had a lot of fun doing so. I haven't done a whole lot of graphite pencil drawings lately, as I've been really enjoying creating drawings and illustrations (including my ongoing animal nursery art series) with my colorful array of pens. However, every time I see this piece I remember how much I enjoyed creating it and remind myself that I need to get around to doing more pencil drawings.

If I get around to doing any more Halloween-inspired drawings this year I'll post them here. In the meantime, have fun gearing up for Halloween!

Sincerely,
MissAdventureArt

The Great Pumpkin

Halloween is one of my two most favorite holidays, and it's just around the corner! In celebration of its impending arrival, here's a Halloween drawing I very recently created:

I love cats (yes, including black cats!) and I love carving jack-o'-lanterns. Bats I don't like so much, but they fit the concept of this piece so they got to be included.

I hope to have time to create a couple more Halloween-inspired pieces before the spooky holiday arrives. While planning out these hopeful Halloween pieces I will also be planning my jack-'o-lantern design for this year as well as watching plenty of scary movies.

Sincerely,
MissAdventureArt

Puppy Dog Eyes

Another favorite animal of mine is the dog. I have one of my own, and she is a mixed breed likely containing some Labrador Retriever genes. That being said, here is my latest animal nursery art:

"Randall the Retriever"

As the caption says, that is "Randall the Retriever". My intention was for him to be a Yellow Lab, but as I created him I realized he could also pass for a Golden Retriever if so desired by the viewer. Now, I'll be honest and admit that I was not all that pleased with this piece when I first finished it. Something about it just didn't seem right to me. However, it is starting to grow on me, and I hope it can brighten some child's -- or dog-loving adult's -- day.

Now I have a couple of more or less "announcements". First, I will go back and edit the actual post on my calico cat drawing, but I'll first let you know here that I have decided to change my calico cat drawing's name. I first named her "Calico Carla" but was not sure I liked that name. It turns out I really don't like it, and I am renaming her "Calico Clarice".

As for a second announcement, in addition to my animal nursery art I will in the near future be starting another nursery art series that does not star animals. I won't give away just yet what the subjects of this new series will be, but I will show you soon enough. Why all the nursery art, you might ask? It seems a lot of people I know lately are bringing a plethora of little ones into this world. That being said, babies and children -- and of course us adults too -- need bright and happy things to look at, and I enjoy creating such things. So there you have it.

Sincerely,
MissAdventureArt

This and That

While I work on the next piece in my animal nursery art series, I figured I'd dedicate a post to a couple of somewhat older pieces I haven't shared here yet.

I'll start with this:

"Friends with the Monster"

I call the above piece "Friends with the Monster", as its subject is a little girl smiling down on the monster beneath her bed. Although I am not generally a fan of rap or pop music, this particular piece was at least in part influenced by Eminem and Rihanna's song "The Monster", especially the lyrics, "I'm friends with the monster that's under my bed". Of course, my fondness for all things spooky and eerie also heavily influenced this piece.

And here's another piece I created awhile back:

"Canary in a Coal Mine"

I have a perhaps undue fondness for idioms, one of my favorite being the one referring to a canary in a coal mine. I did take some more or less scientific liberties in illustrating this idiom, but this was the image I wanted to portray, for a variety of reasons.

Until next time!

Sincerely,
MissAdventureArt

Ferdinand

I've completed the third piece in my animal nursery art series. Meet Ferdinand:

"Ferdinand the Fox"

I believe I already said this in my previous post, but I can't help but reiterate that, having been an adorer of both animals and art as a child myself, I am immensely enjoying creating these pieces with a young audience in mind. There is not much that I enjoy more than putting pen and ink to paper. What's more, one of my favorite drawing techniques is creating the appearance of texture, and I get to do plenty of that with these animals' fur.

My next animal piece is in the planning stages and will be started soon. I will also soon be creating some pieces for the upcoming holidays. For me, one of the hardest parts of drawing is having countless images visualized in my mind but then having to wait until I have the time to create each individual piece. But I guess that just makes my drawing time and its final results all the more satisfying.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

Sincerely,
MissAdventureArt

Little Ball of Fur

I've completed the second piece in my children's nursery art series of animals. This new piece is inspired by one of my absolute favorite animals.

I am currently calling her "Calico Carla". This name may or may not stick.

As I indicated above, one of my favorite animals is the cat. I've had cats almost all my life. In fact, one of the cats I currently have has been with me since I was a child. She is 21 years old, and she is a calico. I guess that would explain "Calico Carla".

EDIT: "Calico Carla" has been renamed "Calico Clarice".

I'm really enjoying creating this animal art, especially with a young audience in mind. As an animal-adoring child I was constantly drawing animals. Now, so many years later, it's a treat to go back to this in such a fun and refreshing manner.

I've already started the next piece in this series. I won't yet come out and tell you which animal is the subject of this next piece, but to give you an indication I will inform you that, as it stands, his name is Ferdinand.

I hope you like my little animal kingdom thus far!

Sincerely,
MissAdventureArt

The Animal Kingdom

I love animals. I've loved animals ever since I was a very small child. Back in those olden days, animals were, unsurprisingly, the primary subjects of my juvenile artwork. In light of these facts, I have decided to start creating nursery art, the target audience being young children. The subjects of these pieces will be animals, of course.

I've already completed one piece in this series of nursery animal art. The subject of this first piece is one of my absolute favorite animals:

I call him "Pete the Panda".

I will be making many more pieces for this nursery art series of mine, and I already have numerous of them planned out. I'm currently working on a piece portraying another favorite animal of mine, and I'll post a picture of it as soon as it's completed.

I hope you like my nursery animal art so far!

Sincerely,
MissAdventureArt

The Fantasy Garden

I wish I had a green thumb. But, alas, I do not.

Growing up, my childhood backyard was always filled to the brim with my father's garden. I always loved knowing the names of each plant, and of course I especially enjoyed memorizing the names that were especially fun and fantastical.

I would never be foolish enough to think that I myself could succeed at maintaining a garden. However, lucky for me, my father still gardens. And I can still pick out the plants with those fun and fantastical names.

Since I and my greenless thumb will likely never grow a real garden, I decided to create my own fantasy garden with my beloved pens and pencils. The following are the specimens I have created thus far.

This one is titled "Bleeding Hearts", based on the bleeding heart plant.

This is "Snap Dragon", inspired by the snapdragon plant.

This one is "Tiger Lily", after the tiger lily plant.

This is "Queen Anne's Lace", based on the Queen Anne's Lace plant.

In the future I plan on making more pieces for this Fantasy Garden series if mine. In the meantime, though, I hope you enjoy these!

Sincerely,
MissAdventureArt

Dirty Paws

Two of my favorite things are fairy tales and music. When the two meld, I can barely contain myself.

That being said, one of my favorite bands is Of Monsters and Men, and many of their songs are so fairy tale-esque that listening to them is like story time. One of my utmost favorite songs by Of Monsters and Men is "Dirty Paws". In case you've never heard the song, the following are the lyrics:

"Jumping up and down the floor,

my head is an animal.
And once there was an animal,
it had a son that mowed the lawn.

The son was an okay guy,
They had a pet dragonfly
The dragonfly it ran away
but it came back with a story to say.

Her dirty paws and furry coat,
she ran down the forest slope.
The forest of talking trees,
they used to sing about the birds and the bees.

The bees had declared a war,
the sky wasn’t big enough for them all.
The birds, they got help from below,
from Dirty Paws and the creatures of snow.

And for a while things were cold,
they were scared down in their holes.
The forest that once was green
was colored black by those killing machines.

But she and her furry friends
took down the queen bee and her men.
And that’s how the story goes,
the story of the beast with those four dirty paws."
 

Now I recommend you actually go and listen to the song. 

The first time I heard "Dirty Paws" it came to life in my head, like a fairy tale playing out in my mind. I felt compelled to draw what I envisioned, and now I'll share that illustration with you.

Sincerely,
MissAdventureArt

Hello and welcome!

I am a lifelong fan of art, both viewing that of others and creating my own.

I've always loved drawing, but it was roughly around my freshman year of high school when I really started practicing it more seriously. Both in art classes and in my own time I started honing my skills using graphite pencils, and for quite some time that was almost exclusively all I used. More recently I discovered my fondness for drawing with pen and ink. There's just something special about bringing the images in my mind to life as colorful illustrations.

That all being said, in this first post I'll give you a snapshot of the tools in my art armory:

My art armory consists mainly of my sketchbooks, pens, graphite pencils, my trusty pencil sharpener, a ruler, stumps and tortillons for blending graphite pencil, and index cards for my random doodles and sketches. The last item you'll see in the picture, on the very bottom of the pile, is a large clipboard that also serves as a lap tray. This last item may not seem like much, but my grandmother gave it to me a couple years ago, and now I don't know how I made do without it for all those years.

I also enjoy a variety of other arts and crafts. Sometimes inspiration for experimental, hodgepodge art comes to me. I'll often see random objects and try to think of ways to upcycle them, ways to create art with and on things that might not otherwise be considered artistic media or canvas.

I'll wait until the next post to share one of my drawings. Just think of it as building suspense. Waiting with bated breath. A cliffhanger. Don't worry, though, I won't keep you waiting for long.

So, my love for drawing and illustrating and all things art is at the heart of this blog. Here I'll share my artistic endeavors. Feel free to join in on the journey.

Sincerely,
MissAdventureArt