ICAD: Day 16

Way back on Day 16 of the ICAD challenge I did another steampunk drawing, which I'm just now sharing here. The prompt for that day was greeting card, so here's how I went with that:

Mail call!

I'm trying to decide what names to give my steampunk animal crew, and I have yet to come up with any that I like. If you have any suggestions, feel free to shout them out!

ICAD meets Steampunk, again.

For Day #9 of the ICAD challenge, I created another steampunk, animal-lover's drawing. The prompts this week have been primarily based on color and/or food. For Day #9 the prompt was carrot and lemon. By good fortune, the cat and dog starring in my steampunk drawings are orange and yellow. Regardless, I also vaguely incorporated actual carrots and lemons into my Day #9 drawing, as you'll see here:

Can you hit the bullseye?

This piece ended up a little busier than I intended. I guess I was just having so much fun that I went a little crazy!

Happy Friday, bloggers!

ICAD: Day 6

I had some more drawing fun back on the sixth day of the ICAD challenge. The prompt was taxi, and I took a small bit of liberty with this one, as you'll see here:

All aboard!

Ever since the second day of the ICAD challenge I seem to have fallen into an animal-loving steampunk frenzy with my drawings. I created this world of steampunk animals on a whim on Day 2 of ICAD, with the prompt carnival. Remember this one?

The carnival where it all began...

Now I keep going back to that concept. In fact, I will be using today's prompt of carrot and lemon to create another drawing in this new steampunk world of mine. So, stay tuned!

ICAD Catch-up

I've been keeping up with creating my index cards for the 2015 ICAD challenge, but I've been failing to get them posted to my blogs in a timely manner. I have a couple to post now, from days 3 through 5. I completed my sixth and seventh index cards on their respective days, but I still need to photograph them so that I can post them. Just think of it as building suspense.

I'll post my index cards for days 3 and 4 both here and on my mixed media blog. These two are mostly drawings (and writing, as you'll see), their primary medium used being pen, but with some Distress Ink action involved as well. Since I consider it more of a mixed media piece, my index card from day 5 will be posted to my mixed media blog. Visit my Trash to Treasures Art blog using the tab at the top of this page!

The third day's prompt was to draw a map. The fourth day's prompt was mailbox. So, without further ado...

Being an animal lover and human counterpart to a number of four-legged furballs, I drew a map more or less representative of my home. Welcome to the Land of the Pet Lovers.

For the fourth day I decided not to draw a mailbox itself, and instead I scrawled a quick letter and spruced it up (more like roughed it up) a little. Edgar Allan Poe was more or less my muse for this one.

This ICAD deal is really quite fun!

ICAD #2

If you read my other blog, Trash to Treasures Art, you know that I am partaking in the 2015 ICAD (Index Card a Day) challenge for the first time this year. It started on Monday, June 1st, and I've so far managed to get a card done all of the first three days. The first day was more of a mixed media piece, so I posted it to my other blog (if you want to visit my mixed media art blog to see and read about my first index card, just click on that handy tab at the top of this blog). For the second day, I used the prompt given on the Daisy Yellow ICAD Challenge blog, and that was carnival.

After a relatively lengthy staring contest with a blank index card, an idea finally began to form in my mind. This was the result:

Welcome to the Critters' Carnival of Steampunk Fun!

It was nice to just sit down and draw for that one. I had a ton of fun with it.

I also used the prompt for the third day, yesterday, and that was to draw a map. This one was also more or less based on my drawing, but also a bit of other media. So, I'll post it here as well as on my other blog as soon as I get a decent picture of it.

If you aren't already, I recommend you give the ICAD challenge a try! It's fun fun fun!

Journal Catch-Up...Again

I've yet again fallen behind in sharing my sketchbook scrapbook journal pages. Here are a couple sneak peek shots of my journal pages from the last two weeks.

Happy Monday!

InspirACEOns on Etsy!

The original illustrated ACEO cards in my InspirACEOns series are now available in my Etsy shop!

"When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go." -Carol Burnett

"Courage, dear heart." -C.S. Lewis

"Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit." -Kahlil Gibran

"Love conquers all."

"Know thyself."

"Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil." -Psalm 23:4

Just click on the Etsy link at the top of my blog to visit my shop!

The above pieces are just the current six original ACEO cards available in this series of mine. I will be creating many pieces in my InspirACEOns series, so stay tuned for more!

Have a great week, bloggers!

InspirACEOnal Sneak Peek

I've been having a blast designing and creating inspirational ACEO cards for my InspirACEOns series. Here's a sneak peek of the newest additions to this series:

And here's a group shot of all the pieces in this ever-growing InspirACEOns series of mine:

I'll be making these original ACEOs available in my Etsy shop soon, and I'll let you know when that happens.

I hope everyone's had a great first half of the week! The weekend is just around the corner!

My Furry Family: The Cozy Canine

My next My Furry Family piece stars the sole canine in my family. She is a lab/shepherd/you-name-it mix, weighs 55 pounds, and is almost 2 years old. She is very active and very playful, and she is an ornery goofball. She is also very sweet and thankfully gets along with the multitude of cats in the family, usually. Also, she likes to take up as much room as she can on the couch, and she likes to sleep in some peculiar positions.

The cozy canine.

Sketchbook Scrapbook Journal

I'm waiting for a sunny day in order to get some up-to-date pictures of my sketchbook scrapbook journal in decent, natural lighting. Until I do so, though, I thought I'd give you a couple brief visuals of my journal's first two weeks of existence. As you'll see below, my journal is more like a decorated, often busy planner.

I first started my sketchbook scrapbook journal during Christmas week. This here is a picture of the completed pages of my journal for that week.

This is the main image I drew for my journal's New Year week.

I am now on the third week of my sketchbook scrapbook journal. I'm having a blast keeping this journal. Not only do I love keeping such a record of my daily life, but each day I look forward to coming up with drawings or finding clippings to incorporate into that day's journal/planner entries.

As soon as I can I'll get updated pictures, including the completed entries from New Year week and the current entries from this week.

Have a good night!

Post-it art is fun!

I made another piece of Post-it art today. I yet again had a lot of fun making this piece, and therefore I'm sure I'll be making much more Post-it art in the days and weeks to come.

Without further ado, here's my newest piece of Post-it art (again, I apologize for the less than ideal picture quality):

I'm calling this piece "The Howling".

For this piece I elevated the wolf and the moon by attaching them to pieces of cardstock that I folded in an accordion style. I wanted this to give the illusion that the wolf and moon are in the forefront while the stars are in the background.

And here are "The Way of Wizards" and "The Howling" together:

This is why it's great to try new things -- because you never know when you'll discover something that you love! I still need a lot of practice, of course, but I nevertheless see myself creating quite a collection of Post-it art.

I hope you like them!

Good night!

A sketchbook scrapbook Christmas.

I've decided to start keeping a sort of sketchbook scrapbook journal. I was inspired to do this for a number of reasons, but one especial inspiration was Jenny's Sketchbook. I just happened to stumble upon that brilliant blog of Jennifer Frith's not long ago, and I've been wholly intrigued by the concept of a sketchbook journal ever since.

I've always loved keeping journals and maintaining some semblance of records of my daily endeavors. And although I've never actually managed to keep one before, I've also always been interested in the idea of scrapbooking. And then of course there's the fact that I love to draw. All of this together led me to the conclusion that I will start keeping what I'm so far calling my sketchbook scrapbook journal.

I am not currently using an actual sketchbook for this journal of mine. I'm using an actual journal, a beautiful book that an old friend gave me some time ago. Up until now this beautiful journal had simply sat on my bookshelf, empty, with an undetermined use. But now I have found the perfect use for it, and I'm very excited about that.

That all being said, I chose this festive, fun week to begin my sketchbook scrapbook journal. So, here is a sneak peak of my first week's entries thus far:

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!

Christmas Critter Cards

My Christmas critters are now available as Christmas cards!

Christmas puppy card

Christmas kitty card

These Christmas critter cards are available in my Etsy shop! To visit my Etsy shop just click the Etsy tab at the top of this very blog.

Christmas is just around the corner, and I hope everyone is having a merry time gearing up for it!

Christmas Critters (finally!)

So, I had a couple of setbacks with my supplies. Mainly, my favorite local art store seems to have reduced its art pen stock, and my favorite set of pens has not been attainable there lately. After completely drying out a number of the colors, desperation forced me to go against my usual doctrine of only buying my art supplies in person and I ordered my pens online.

And now, I finally have my new set of pens in hand and I am thrilled! I immediately finished my animal Christmas art that had been put on hold. So, without further ado...

This is the Christmas puppy.

And this is the Christmas kitty.

At first I planned on giving the puppy spots and making the kitty a calico. I rethought those plans, though, and ultimately decided that I wanted to go for simplicity with these Christmas critters.

I love Christmas, and I love animals, and I love drawing animals. So, I really enjoyed creating these pieces, even despite the setbacks.

I hope you like them! And I hope you are having a merry time gearing up for Thanksgiving and Christmas!

This, That, and the Other

I had a great time at the crafts and art show at my local church this weekend. Nevertheless, I am excited about turning my focus back to some of the new pieces I have planned. I have so many ideas that they're all warring in my head over which will be the first ones drawn. I know for certain that I'll very soon be creating some drawings of cute animals celebrating Christmas, so stay tuned for those!

In the meantime, there is a small bit of news for my Etsy shop. And that is, there are now animal stickers available in my Etsy shop!

I plan on making all of the individual animals in my nursery art series available as stickers. As you can see, the ones available as stickers so far are "Percy the Polar Bear", "Pete the Panda", "Ferdinand the Fox", "Calico Clarice", and "Randall the Retriever".

You can buy the stickers in bundles of three or five. Check out of my Etsy shop for these and other goodies!

Furry Heroes

After a recent discussion with my sister (one of my fellow geeks), I decided to have a little extra fun and create some pen and ink drawings starring little furry animals as superheroes. These will likely be very similar to my animal nursery art pieces, except the animals will be serving as superheroes.

First up in my fun animal superhero series:

Puppy Dog America

I have not yet decided exactly how or what to title this piece, but I am tentatively calling it "Puppy Dog America". As you can see, this puppy was inspired by Marvel Comics' Captain America. And, this furry little hero is already available in my Redbubble and Society6 shops!

I'll admit that although I love reading books, I am not really a fan of reading comics. However, I am indeed quite fond of the concept of superheroes. What's more, I am a huge fan of the new The Avengers movie franchise. That being said, my first couple pieces in this animal superhero series will portray animals as members of the Avengers team.

I hope you enjoy!

Animal Nursery Art on Etsy!

My first round of animal nursery art is now available in my Etsy web store. These include "Pete the Panda", "Calico Clarice", "Ferdinand the Fox", and "Randall the Retriever". Remember them?

These are available in my MissAdventureArt Etsy web store as 5" x 7" prints. I personally sign, title, and number the back of all prints purchased from my Etsy shop. Click on the Etsy tab at the top of this very blog to visit my store!

And be sure to stay tuned, because tomorrow I'll be adding to my Etsy shop deals for making multi-piece purchases of my animal nursery art. I'll announce the deals here, so keep your eyes and ears peeled!

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

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