Day One Hundred Two

I awoke this morning with a sense of renewal; a motivation to quit wasting time and get down to work. I’m not one that subscribes to the new-age, eh...what-have-you of spiritual messages and such, but when motivation to change, to work, or to grow comes along, I try not to ignore it. Today happened to be one of those rare (almost nonexistent) Saturdays that, leaping out of bed at 8:30 (okay, shuffling out of bed at 9:30) I was ready to go! Not that the cup, or two, or three of coffee hurt my situation, but I really do believe today was a little different in terms of morale? motivation? m...mojo? Well, whichever “m” word it is, it worked.

It took most of the afternoon, but a plan to work at a coffee shop downtown finally came to fruition at a tiny table in a moderately crowded Z’s. Seems like, with the rain and a slight chill, everyone in town had the same Saturday plan. After returning home, I managed to set up (most of the way) my online portfolio. At last! A link will be posted soon; it hasn’t been “published” to the internets yet.

Partially because I was feeling motivated, and mostly because I needed a distraction from 127 hours (Could you? I could. Could I? Could you? *shudder*) I began today’s project much earlier than usual. It started, as it has literally one hundred one times before, with a word...

sky-light n. The light of the sky.

I decided to go with the other definition (well, I guess it is sort of the same definition) of skylight; you know, the one that goes in the roof of a house. I’ve always, always wanted one of those no matter how much they can supposedly leak around the edges. (That’s what buckets/jars/mugs/pans are for, right?) So, with that in mind, I decided to illustrate a small girl sitting under a skylight.

I began with a very simple pen-and-ink drawing of a girl sitting on a bed.

Then, I laid down layer upon layer of pastel. I started with shades of blue (darkness always seems to me to have a blue tinge to it) and then covered the blue with gray and black. I added a smidgen of yellow pastel to the lightest area of the illustration to add a nice soft glow. I then “framed” the illustration with a hand-cut piece of mat board to add some dimension and emphasize the off-centeredness (Woah, is that a word?) of the piece.

I really like the way the shading came out in this illustration; it was a pleasure to create. I’m not entirely sure what direction this piece shows for this blog or for my art in general (or if there is one, or if I should even care) but it’s sure nice to have even the slightest bit of change. I hope you, as a reader, enjoy this post even half as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Thanks for reading.

Xx

-r