This is a long one!

Ideas:

1) I was looking on the very last page of my old calendar at the part where they tell you the birthstones and flowers of each month. This inspired me a lot. I looked up each one (Example: May Emerald+Lily Of the Valley) and made folders on my desktop. I noticed a lot of ideas I could make with COLOR... I recently purchased a book called Color Harmony by Lesa Sawahata and after reading it a little and glancing through the color swatches I felt even more inspired. After thinking about the colors associated with the jewels, flowers, month, and weather I felt even more inspired. So, this is definitely an idea I would like to create. Not necessarily my own calendar, but a project with a common theme would keep me busy and happy. The only thing is I'm not sure if I'd like to do these in watercolor, acrylic, colored pencil... or maybe even try to make it on photoshop (with or without the help of a lineart)... Hmm! But I'm excited. Please feel free to share any thoughts or suggestions with me on this because I'll really need it.

2) I was looking through a book called The Encyclopedia of Cats. I love cats so much and always have my whole life. I really want to draw them and their many different facial expressions, body language, fur, animal anatomy... again, more inspiration. This is great for me as someone who has recently been very depressed and is always in a constant "artists' block".

Possibilities:

1) Bought ANOTHER book by Ernest Norling, Perspective Made Easy. I want to try to read and do a few small exercises from this book every day so I can be prepared for my Technical Drawing class this semester, and so I can get better at drawing. A lot of the comments from my final review said that I don't use my sketchbook enough and that whole thing about seeming 'lazy' in my artwork because it doesn't seem thought out enough. It hurt, but it was a kick in the ass. Also perspective has always been over my head (ha ha ) and I really want to learn it anyway.

2) Collecting figures, faces and clothing I like from magazines so I can first of all draw things I find pleasing and learn from them, secondly to understand how the body works better (in combination with figure-drawing books), and how to make fabric and a statement. I also want these in my sketch book. It's not necessarily drawing from life, another suggestion I got constantly from my final reviews, but it's... better than nothing?

3) A simple trip to my local convenience store had me noticing how truly awful some of the illustrations in childrens' books and greeting cards are nowadays. The greeting cards section also has some nice things that look like they are made in watercolor and can be very simple but very striking. I could totally do that, and make such nice things. This is something I might be able to do as a job idea when I get out of college.

Definite:

1) I am almost finished with working on coloring in linearts that I had made for a project this past semester. They are Angry Disturbed Pants, a fantasy band and and I had made up many years that consisted of us and my two friends Jess and Shauna. I had already colored in one and then inked it with a colored Micron and liked the look. Unfortunately the colored Microns excited me so much that instead of coloring THEN inking, I inked everything first. This is a problem because now they are not as visually striking as the first one and I inked over the awful anatomy (before I knew it) before I really looked at the lineart and am now picking out tons of mistakes. Blech. I have four out of the five figures done. I chose a limited palette of my 12-pack of Prismacolor Verithin pencils. So I had to make do with what I had, and it turned out okay. I will scan and post those up later.

2) I found an old sketch from high school of a grandfatherly tree reading a book to a bunch of pixies. I'd like to scan this in and color it on photoshop with my new tablet and it WILL happen!

Thanks for reading Feel free to comment...