A Mother And Her Baby

She stands quietly at the counter waiting for her drink order, arms wrapped around her plump baby boy perched on her left hip. The handles of a pink paper shopping bag from a nearby boutique hangs from her clasped hands. Her dark sandy bob is held back from her face by her rounded black sunglasses that fit snugly around the top of her head. A long nose sits between brown eyes on her oval face. Her lips sit flat like her affect and her color choices of a taupish-gray deep v-neck t-shirt and slate gray shorts. Black leather straps from her slippers cover her feet in a v-formation. Her baby looks around the coffee shop from under his white bucket hat with his arms dropped to his side. His clothes are slightly mismatched with a white polo shirt bearing one red and blue horizontal stripe with some white in between across his chest and white and light green horizontal striped cotton pants.

S2S #2: Hanging On

S2S #2: Hanging On

I decided to work this one in ink and watercolor pencils. He was pretty challenging to visualize. I love a good challenge. I hope I did him well :)

Attitudes Poster from Zazzle.com

Attitudes Poster from Zazzle.com

Funny Story

My husband and I were playing on our computers in the office. Here it is after 11pm and I had my play-list blaring. I decided to set my "Woody" (that's what our son calls my wooden artist model) to the specifications of the S2S: Holding On. Just then my husband looks up and goes, "What the heck?" all the while cracking up.

I proceeded to read the character sketch aloud to him. Explaining that this is why I had the model with arms, and legs, in the upward most position. He then let me in on the true nature of the position inquisition. Well, you see, I was positioning Woody this way, as we were listening to "Believe it or Not" by Joey Scarbury.

Yeah babe, the song inspired me to place "Woody" into take off position. Laughing my abs off! Yeah, I totally snorted :)


Listen Here:

Sketch2Sketch: Hanging On

The sandwich shop was quiet and he stepped from behind the counter to the opening that led to the kitchen. He jumped up and grabbed on to the ledge above the opening. He pulled his legs out in front of him so they were parallel to the floor. He kept his feet in his black tennis shoes flexed so the toes were pointing towards the ceiling. His baggy jeans hung low on his hips, almost sagging despite the worn brown leather belt he wore. A white work apron covered most of his black t-shirt and ended at his knees. His arm muscles revealed themselves from his effort to hold himself in this position. His short scraggly beard didn't quite fill the lower half of his face, either telling of his youth or that he would not be able to grow a full beard. He formed his pinkish lips into an O shape as he started to whistle. His nearly beak-like nose that wasn't quite so rounded sat between his dark sapphire eyes. A black cap with red "JJ" lettering outlined in white covered his short dark chocolate hair on an oval head.

The Student in the Coffee Shop

Here he is. Yes I need a LOT of practice. I really messed up on the face. Sure I could have corrected that in Photoshop, but that would defeat the purpose of this project.

 He was a pretty quick sketch with Sharpie Ultra Fine and some Prismcolor Art-Markers (the few colors I have).

I have dedicated this little 3.5in by 5.5 inch leather bound Mead journal for this project.

*I think I should have had the backpack sticking out from the back. My new rule...(No Re-doing is allowed) Let's bite this perfectionism off, and learn in the most humbling way :)

Sketch2Sketch #1 - The Student In The Coffee Shop

We're trying something new as Laura mentioned in the last blog post. This is an exercise for both of us to hone our skills and keep in practice. I welcome constructive criticism as I learn from suggestions as how to make things more polished. Without further ado....

The Student In The Coffee Shop

He walked into the coffee shop. "Hey man." he said to the barista as he approached the low black counter and engaged in small talk. Walnut brown hair sat short and clean around the back of his rounded head while the slightly longer hair on top was styled metrosexual unkempt. Day and a half old stubble framed the bottom half of his face. Reddish brown metallic framed glasses that his brown eyes peered through, sat atop his perfectly straight and average nose. He wore a dingy white LaCoste polo shirt with a heathered gray t-shirt layered underneath despite the 102 degree weather outside. His kept his thumbs hooked under the straps of his charcoal backpack with the rest of his hand lying softly over the top of the straps. His bare toes peeked out from under the frayed hem of his dirty wash jeans that hid the slippers he wore.

sketch2sketch

My great friend Debi Smith and I were hanging out at the Productivity Pad (our little group family on skype, where we encourage each other to get to productivating.) Well, she is an author and was describing her last character sketch outing to me.

We got to thinking it would be really fun (if we lived closer) to go to the coffee shop together and I could sketch as she described. Then we realized we could do that through the distance. This brings us to our new project. sketch2sketch.

Debi will write a character sketch, and I will attempt to create an illustrative sketch of the character.

I'm not amazing with people, especially faces...so bear with me here :)