Late Valentine Greeting

A belated Happy Valentines day to all. I fear I don't have any hearts for you, though I could dig out an image of one of my ATC cards from last year when I was into hearts. Actually if you are interested you can just click on the ATC page on the blog and view all of the cards I have finished.

Above is my Valentine's Day drawing. We didn't have a lot of artists at the session, I am guessing that it was because of the holiday and folks spending time with their significant others instead of painting. For a little bit last night it looked like it was going to be only Scott and I and the model. Then a couple of others arrived so while we didn't have a crowd we did have a fairly good group. We had a new model last night, which is always fun. Apparently she is related to a family who as a group has done a lot of modeling for Scott over the years. Scott's quip was that they are a modeling family but not a model family.

Anyway I am continuing with my efforts to simplify the drawing while still conveying the feeling of the pose. Overall I think I am pleased with last nights efforts, but I may have made her foot too large. It is such a lovely foot that drawing it was fun, easy to get carried away when drawing is fun. Not sure that I got the head size quite right either, though I think in the end it works. I hope someday to be able to get past making those kinds of mistakes but depending on the pose it isn't always as easy as one would think.  She at least looks like she is lying on a sofa, with her hips sinking into the cushions. 

The next two images are of my latest ATC's. I joined a swap on the Milliande Art Community for Women. The theme for the swap is home/houses and we are swapping 4 cards. So far I have 2 done, a third inked but not finalized and a 4th is just an idea.

The above card is of a street with a row of houses. I find this design rolling around in my head whenever I think about doing houses. I have done something similar with a small challenge quilt, and now with this ATC. Neither is quite what I am looking for, so I know this design will come back again some day. This card I did with my Technical pens and Inktense pencils from Christmas. Some of the colors bled a bit when I applied the water, I should have let the adjoining area dry first but was impatient. In many areas I used more then one color of pencil, and for the green plants I added more pencil while the paper was wet. 

The above image is more conventional, my take on a log cabin in a woods clearing. This one I did with my Technical pens and colored pencil. I have more colors with the colored pencils so was able to do more color work. I think I should have used a ruler for some of my lines as some of them are a bit warped and out of correct alignment. Oh well it is done, and it will have to do.

Hope everyone has been enjoying slightly better weather. We haven't had a major storm for over a week and even had temps in the 50's yesterday. Yeah, maybe Spring is really on the way, though I know it will really be 2 more months before it arrives here in the Northeast. That is it for today, comments are welcome.