I'd like people to think I just draw things off the top of my head; that I approach a blank page with confidence and set to work.  That rarely is the case.  Pinterest and Google Images are generally close by to give me some inspiration and direction, especially Pinterest.  In fact, I usually have collected a whole Pinterest board of images to look at before starting to draw.

Here's a couple of for instances.  You'll see my drawing followed by what I was looking at...

And it's often not just one image I'm drawing from, but like 3 that I use different features of.

I sometimes get so caught up in the original picture that I forget that the whole point is not to copy it exactly but rather to use my hand to create something new. 

(I just love hand-drawn designs, the imperfections are what make it charming and human.)

The only times I work completely from my own head is in something non-representational and usually geometric, like this.

Then, I'm usually just playing with lines and shapes.

So hopefully that's not too disillusioning.  Artists don't create in a vacuum.

This little dude has become a prolific artist. And he's not even two (that happens next week).

I'm really excited to be able to create more with him as he grows up.  The art teacher within me has been itching to let loose a little lately. 

If you follow me at all on social media, you will see that I've commited to drawing lotsa whales throughout the month of October.  Here's today's, a swirly orca ..

I didn't just choose whales randomly.  I thought I was following the official rules of inktober.  You see they have this list of prompts.

I thought that meant you choose one prompt for the entire month.  But after a few days I starting thinking about how there are 31 prompts ... and 31 days in the months....

So apparently it's a schedule, not a list to choose from.  Oh well, I like my whales and decided to stick with that anyway.

I think this flower-y sperm whale is my favorite so far.

I'm not being as strict with myself about it as I am when I do the 100 Day Project in the spring.  It's not a big deal to me if I skip a day (I've already skipped a couple), but it's nice to have a focus for the month.

This week has been kind of a different week. We are in the midst of a bit of remodeling and so our usual rhythms are thrown off. Ransom is currently napping in my neighbors basement, and I am in her backyard on my iPad, while our contractor is taking apart our kitchen floor.

It’s easy to complain about it, but I chose this and it's really quite a luxury to be able to update our home. And I’m thankful for lovely fall days and kind neighbors.

​(Can you sense I’m trying to give myself a pep talk? Cause I am. )

I’m also thankful for preschool! During preschool on Wednesday I got to chill at a coffee shop and work on this pattern on my iPad (you can see I was inspired by my location).

Here I was yesterday when I was homeless during naptime, finishing it up. Pardon the glare.

You can gather that I’m pretty jazzed about repeating patterns now!

Something I’ve had on my “to learn” list for awhile is how to create repeating patterns. In the past I’ve created patterns like this, where you can clearly see where the repeat happens.

A repeating pattern, on the other hand, is seamless, like in this pretty floral duvet cover by Alja Horvat.

The various pattern elements are all intertwined. How to achieve that had always been illusive to me

But not anymore! I’m taking a  Skillshare class about creating repeating patterns using my iPad Pro. Here’s my first! It’s a cozy one.

Here it is in action, on a Redbubble pillow.

I'm pumped to create more patterns!

I try to check in with my blog every Wednesday, but last week I failed in this due to a hectic Wednesday -- Ransom's first day of preschool and plumbers at the house.

There's the little dude with his concentration face, working on his sticker skills

I myself have been working on my Procreate skills.  I didn't realize until I was finished  with this Russian nesting doll that Procreate is always recording what I'm doing, so I can have a time lapse of every project.  So cool! I posted this on my Instagram stories a while back, but here it is again. 

And then you might have seen the fall wreath I drew last week.

 I'm always proud of myself when I start and finish something in one week, because my perfectionist tendencies is to drag projects out much longer.  That was also a Procreate creation, so here is the time lapse for that one. (i need to learn how to rotate videos and add music to them ... )

I'm excited to learn more and make more with this!

A bit ago I mentioned my latest sketchbook series -- birth flowers.  In case you missed any of my posts, here's a catch up slide show ...

My two favorite so far have been October's Marigold and December's Narcissus. And I'm already over halfway through!  Man, it's nice to work on a series that is only 12 drawings longer rather than 100.

I've had to brush up on some of my cursive skills for this little project;  I'm sure many of out there can relate.

There's my practice page.  Today I had to google "capital cursive V," just to be sure I got Violet correct.  And man,  February is such a clunky word.

Next year it would be fun to turn these twelve drawings into a little calendar.

I thought I'd interrupt my regular blog post flow (all about me) and share with you some artists I admire.

I found Barlena on Instagram.  She's an Austrian illustrator who uses fine lines and pastel colors, with a side of playfulness.

And then Anna Stead over at Thistle Moon also creates really lovely ink drawings, but her's are mostly black and white. These images are all from her Instagram.

So lovely!

Well, I will throw in one of my own pieces while I'm here. I just listed this llama in my Etsy shop.  It was apart of my 100 Days of Animals. 

And I will take this opportunity to inform you that you can get 10% off now through Labor Day in my shop.  So if you've been thinking of getting something, now's the time!

As I've mentioned quite a few times, my birthday was this month. One special gift from my husband was an Apple Pencil.  I've had an iPad Pro for awhile now but had never used it to draw.  Since I have a Pencil to use now, I can!

I downloaded the Procreate app, which is supposed to be the app for creating on the iPad.  With some birthday cash, I signed up for a year subscription to Skillshare so I could learn to use Procreate and other fun things, art related and not 

Now I'm in the midst of a Learn to use Procreate class. I had to draw something, so I looked around the room and was inspired by a Russian stacking doll (a.k.a. a Matryoshka) my mom brought me back from Russia many years ago. So here's a digital sketch . . .

And now I'm in the process of adding color to my shapes.  So here's a few more screenshots of that ...

I'm excited about this.  In the past I've mainly been a pen and paper gal, and would just use the computer to sometimes add color or clean up a drawing.  I'm interested to see where this new medium will take me.

Now if only there were more hours in the day.

After finishing the 100 Day Project, I was understandably happy to have a little more freedom in my daily drawing.  I didn't have to draw an animal every day anymore.  

I still had the habit of drawing daily, though.  So I was free, but also felt a bit purposeless.  I have bigger projects I am working on, like the bug coloring book and a children's book written by a friend, but I found myself wanting a smaller series to help focus my daily drawing.

So I decided to focus on flowers, birth flowers actually. Most people know about birth stones, but not everyone knows that every month also has a flower.

I figured this project was appropriate to start in my birthday month, August.  So I started with that.

Then I jumped to November, as requested by my husband who will be turning 33 on November 16th

And then today I started in on October, since my little dude will be turning 2 on October 18th.

One thing I remembered about myself as I've been drawing these flowers is that ... I don't really enjoy drawing flowers.  I get bored with all the petals and leaves and such.

Which is interesting, because I generally enjoy drawing repetitive patterns.  Such as ...

But petals are different.  They are repetitive, but also each petal is individual and it's own unique challenge.  As opposed to a flat, geometric pattern which is more predictable.

Oh well, I've already committed, I'm seeing this through.  And I think they will make lovely little prints and cards.

Which month should I do after October?

I had been neglecting my Etsy shop for a long time.  By that I mean I hadn't been adding any new listings or putting forth any time or effort to increase sales over there. Part of the reason I always put off creating new listings is that I had to have the time/energy/space/correct light to photograph my work at home. 

And even then I wasn't super excited about the results. 

I'm not a photographer, ok?  I draw.

But then I learned about the beauty of mock-ups, over on this blog post.

A mock-up is an image that gives a customer an idea of what a product will look like in the real world.   For instance, I bought this mockup from another Etsy seller.

And now I'm able to plug my own card image in and use it in my shop.

This is so much easier than photographing each individual card and print that I sell.  I feel like my world has opened up!  I'm excited to dig back into my Etsy shop and give it some more TLC.

To that end, I've actually got a sale going on right now.  In honor of my birthday being  this Saturday, you can get 15% off from now through Monday, August 13th. Happy birthday to me!