Sketches by the Shore

This past week I've been spending my time on a vacation of sorts in Puerto Vallarta/ Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico. Of course I had my sketchbook with me and in the afternoon I doodled on the beach.
Here are some pages:

The 'e' looks really odd but I'll just say it reflects the reclining position I was in as I drew.

For this doodle I even wrote a little poem:

"What this small kitten wanted most of all,

Was an escape to a a place where she knew no one at all.

Where she'd have luxury and simplicity at the same time,

One hand with a pina colada, and the other on a tree she could climb.

She wanted to sit still and gaze at the sky,

See stars glimmering and airplanes fly by.

She wanted to sit there all day and all night

Without receiving a single bug bite."

A super lazy attempt at drawing from life.

Inspired by storm that came in the afternoon

This is another lazy attempt at drawing something realistic, this time a photo from a magazine

I was feeling poetic again

Now I'll try to use 7-8 sentences to describe each day of my trip:

1 - Saturday - After arriving at the hotel I did, in fact, get caught in the rain and have a couple of pina coladas.

2 - Sunday - It was the first time I had ever fallen asleep on the beach.

3 - Monday - The highlight of the night was getting dressed up and going to the Italian restaurant at the resort

4 - Tuesday - It turned out that swimming in the ocean was not really an option due to murkiness and sting rays popping up, so from this day I resorted to swimming in the pool each day for as long as possible - that is until too many people got in.

5 - Wednesday - It really baffled me why in an almost empty pool, people would prefer swim into the small section of the pool I was using, only to stop and tread water in place (at the most). "Move! I'm actually getting exercise here!"

6 - Thursday - Took a bus trip to the downtown of Puerto Vallarta to get some souvenirs and later that night I saw sea turtles hatching and going into the the ocean.

7 - Friday - Got my overgrown hair braided.

8 - Saturday - I've never seen so many Duty-Free stores in an airport that REQUIRE you to go through them in order to get to your gate. Kahlua and Baileys it is!

Art-School Owls

This piece is contribution to a project happening at my university. Long story short, a few of my illustration classmates and I are illustrating different locations from our school for a book/booklet that will be printed for 1st year students this fall. Without revealing the exact location, I'll just say it's a place where certain students meet up to discuss various issues.

As usual, my process was to start with some thumbnail sketches (which I'm too lazy to scan, and they're hardly that fascinating).

Then the rough version looked like this:

Then, after refining the rough sketch, I did my line work, which I scanned in, should I screw up later when I'm painting.

And the final piece:

 And there we have it -- some artsy art-school owls chatting and what not.

Original is painted on 9x12 Bristol Smooth paper
I used a mix of micron pens, watercolours, waterproof inks, and touches of gouache.

Spring Owl (Speedpaint)

Well, this was my idea of speed painting - traditionally with watercolors.
This piece took a little over an hour, I think. I'm not quite sure because halfway through the power went out and it was completely dark for some time, and then I had to step away for a moment. But yeah, around an hour, not much more.
I found a reference image in an old calendar and just went for it, and had fun.

I painted the majority of the picture with watercolors and then added some detail with Prismacolor brown 005 point pen, and squeezed in a few touches with gouache.

Size: 6 x 8.75 inches
Paper: Canson acid free mat board, off-white
Paint: St. Petersburg watercolor box set

I think I'll do more of these type of "speed paintings". It seems like a great way to use up some scrap mat board and paper :)