Happy New Year! I am excited to have joined a project called the Bead Journal Project. It was created by bead artist Robin Atkins and involves creating one bead embroidery piece per month for the year 2010. The rules are loose and creativity encouraged - one just has to pick a consistent size for each monthly piece. Otherwise, let your inner artist emerge!
The project has several blogs - I'll be participating in the More Bead Journal Project Three.
I have just recently started dabbling in beads and am absolutely entranced by seed beads and an encrusted style of beading. So, I think I'll be working small (maybe 3 X 4 or so) and just see what mood strikes me each month as I work on each piece. It will be fun to see how it evolves.
I started a trial piece last month just to see how it might progress and I'm nearly done with it. It's a round format and only about 4 inches in diameter. I'll post another picture when it's finished. 
I hope to continue with botanical drawing and pet portraits this year as well, so stay tuned to see what I'm working on. Looking forward to a creative 2010!
Are you looking for a unique holiday card? Consider a botanical art card that can be customized to include your holiday greetings. The American Holly above is available for ordering through my Zazzle page:
http://www.zazzle.com/ccreech21*
Cards are available in the traditional greeting card size or in a smaller note card size. Bulk order discounts (in as small a quantity as 2) are available, so the more cards you order the lower the cost per card. It's a great way to obtain distinctive cards this holiday season.
UPDATE 2010: I have also created matching return address labels that can be customized with your information as well as a beautiful ceramic ornament, stickers, and stamps - all featuring my American Holly painting.
It feels like it's been forever since I have posted! It's been a busy few months as I gave birth to our second child late in August. I haven't had much time to draw, but I found this is a sketch of some curling fall leaves in an old notebook of mine. I love seeing both sides of the leaf in a sketch like this - it seems that much more 3-dimensional. Hoping to get back to some regular drawing soon!
I just love the look of poppy buds, but wasn't enjoying trying to render them on white paper because of all the little white hairs on them. So, I found a nice little piece of smooth, green matboard and went with colored pencils. This sketch is the result - I love how it turned out. 
These are some of the actual raspberries from the plant I'd been drawing lately. This was done on Strathmore drawing paper, not the hot-press watercolor I used before. This paper has a bit more tooth and so the texture if a little rougher. I used ink to do the base drawing and then colored pencil over that. It's a more of a rough drawing than the full plant, but I think it is still a fun piece showing the berries as they ripen.
I have finally finished this illustration of a raspberry sprig. This was done from a clipping taken last month, so there were just some blossoms on it, but no berries yet. I layered three different greens on the leaves and just added a bit of ivory over the pen work of the blossoms themselves since they are white/ivory in color.
Making more progress on the raspberry plant...
Continuing the colored pencil. I've done a light shading on all of the large leaves and have begun adding some layers of darker green and then light green on top of that to the leaves on the lower right. I think it's coming along nicely. I'll continue that process with the other leaves, darkening where needed and layering the lighter green on top to brighten and burnish.
So I have started adding color to this ink drawing of the raspberry sprig. I am trying to keep a light hand right now so I don't overwork it. I plan to continue adding shading and color to hopefully give the leaves some depth and form. Stay tuned for more updates!
This is the raspberry plant in pen and ink. I deliberately just did a line drawing, trying to emphasize heavier lines/lighter lines to show a bit of depth.
I will be using this as a base for my colored pencil rendering, so it will be interesting to see how this turns out!
I hope to continue with botanical drawing and pet portraits this year as well, so stay tuned to see what I'm working on. Looking forward to a creative 2010!
