Sketching Expressive Faces in Ink

Capturing the essence of a person without overloading on detail is one of the advantages of working with ink within a time limit. As Bob Ross used to say "there are no such things as mistakes, just happy accidents". That is what makes it art instead of a being a copy of a photograph.

Here are some 20-minute portrait sketches that I use to capture the mood and moment. Don't look for perfection, look for a reaction from your audience.

miserable middle aged woman sketch with watercolor splashes

Using a quick watercolor washed background this crabby old lady has a little more character than just a using a plain white background. It doesn't have to be perfect or refined to add a little zip.

This dude with a crazy-eyed expression is far from perfect and even with the corrections made along the way it is hard to tell what was an intentional mark and what was not. Don't be intimidated by ink, be confident in your strokes and embrace your mistakes.

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DIY Crayon costume for Halloween

Halloween is my favorite time of year. We spend weeks getting our yard and home decorated all for the night when the little ghosts and goblins come out to play. ;) B started school this year and within her school, they don't do a Halloween per say, they have an orange and black day. So in order to kill 2 birds with one stone, we decided that she is going to be an orange crayon. So with an old t-shirt and a little black felt fabric, this is what I came up with. I think it turned out Awesome! And the best part is that it was a no-sew project. Supplies needed: 1 t-shirt in the size required. 1 box of orange fabric dye (because they didn't' have any orange t-shirts in her size) 1 wooden spoon 1 large container for dying remnant black fabric. I used black felt because that is what I had on hand. 1 pattern for the Crayola font - I used this one Crayola pattern and made the size adjustments accordingly when I was printing it out. For the crayon label banding, I ...

Pottery Barn/ Bower Power Inspired Santa Painting

Christmas - My second favorite time of the year. Every year we try and add some homemade decorations and after perusing Pinterest I saw this awesome image of Santa and just fell in love with it. Pottery Barn did theirs in silver glitter and Bower Power did theirs in red glitter. Hmmm. 2 young children and a bowl full of glitter is just asking for problems so I did his image in the traditional red and white. I love how he turned out and a wonderful addition to our Christmas decor. He is quite large measuring 2ft * 2ft on a 2inch gallery stretched canvas. Hope you enjoy

Sailboat at sunset watercolor painting tutorial

Just a quick demo on how I painted this sailboat at sunset. Colors used: Indian Yellow, Napthol Red, Alizarin Crimson, Royal Blue, Burnt Sienna and Brillant Orange and permenant ink First draw out your image and mask off your sun spot - dry. I chose to use ink as a base to this painting applying it both directly and using it as a wash to add some shadows. Next wet the entire sky area. Working around your sun spot start by adding a graduated wash of indian yellow from the bottom to about 3/4 the way up, then add in alizarin crimson, and at the top work in a band of royal blue letting it run down a little. DRY The sky is not holding the weight I need it to so I wen over it again using the same colors and technique. This time adding a band of brilliant orange along the bottom. Looking better but still not quite there. So lets dry and move on to another area so that I can come back and judge the values. The sails were added using a mix of BS, brilliant orange and indian yellow. D...

Eclectic Studio - Tammy Morrison-Koenig

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