September Update

I actually finished the above colored pencil and ink drawing last month (August) but somehow never got motivated to update the blog with the image. Perhaps it is just as well as the leaves are more like fall in colors than August. I was thinking about redoing this but this time mixing up the size of the leaves as all the leaves in this drawing are the same size. I think with different sized leaves I could reduce the amount of background blue that is showing here. Still it was kind of a fun exercise even if the results aren't wonderful.

I have been spending some time on the computer playing with Adobe Illustrator, the images above are the results. Have to decide which one I like best to have it printed up for this years Christmas gift tag. The Poinsettia is based on a photograph I downloaded off the web. Needless to say I took some liberties with the image to achieve my final results. Looking at these three images I think I need to do some more playing. While I like the third one best there are still some things that I would like to tweak.  The fun part of doing the work on the computer is that making changes is relatively easy. Which one do you prefer?

The above short pose figure drawings are from back in July. The model that evening is very thin, which actually makes her harder to draw if that makes any kind of sense. Top grouping are some of my 2 minute poses, while the bottom groups were 5 to 10 minute poses.

August wasn't a good month for me getting out to my short pose sessions, the Artist who holds the sessions was on vacation one week and I missed another week just because. Not totally a bad thing since I haven't been doing my blog updates as I should have been doing. Ah well now that the weather is cooling off hopefully I will get back on track with my figure drawings and my blog updates.

Also haven't been spending a lot of time out and about photographing nature. Still I have a couple of butterfly photographs to share this week. Above is a Summer Azure, don't know the specific species as it is just too difficult to type this without capturing the butterfly but figure that is close enough for this blog.

Above is another Tiger Swallowtail butterfly. I have seen quite a few of these guys this summer, which considering this hasn't been a good year for butterflies as a whole I am surprised by. I don't think I have seen one monarch butterfly this year, and after so many last year it is a surprise. Still Spring was very wet and cold so I don't think as many Monarchs made it up this far north this year. Also communities have been spraying for mosquitoes which isn't good for bee or butterfly populations.

That is it for today, per usual comments are welcome.