Fantasy Creature Design Saturday Workshop on April 11

There are still some spots open in the Saturday workshop for April 11 at the Cary Arts Center. We will focus on sketching and illustrating some fantasy creatures from Japan and branch out from there.


Made these samples on watercolor paper with watersoluble graphite and a waterbrush. I choose to use my Caran D'AChe Museum leadholder loaded with a Technalo 3.8 mm B lead, but you could also use the wooden pencil version.

The Holbein waterbrush can also be handy for applying watercolors and blending watercolor pencils.

If time allows we might even color some of the illustrations like this Chinese Zodiac family portrait.

New Crayola Ultra-clean ColorMax Washable Markers and Impromptu Drawing session

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Found these markers on clearance at Target, and they are pretty bold and bright as their label claims. You can never have too many fresh markers when you got lil' artists around eager to explore their creativity.

Just before dinner, this group decided to sketch and paint. Having the art supplies always ready in the playroom and introducing a couple of waterbrushes for painting made set up quick and easy. While we got a glass of water for cleaning the waterbrushes, they can be cleaned by simply wiping them on a paper towel.

Some of them even tried my new Winsor & Newton Watercolor markers.

Private Art Session for Kids

4 kids (Ages 3 to 8 years old) + 4 waterbrushes + Pan watercolor kit = Fun time exploring water media during the weekend.

Drawing and coloring of Minecraft character.

Coloring a carton portrait with a waterbrush.

The deck bench proved to be a suitable drying rack in the nice weather.

Switching to some marker coloring.

Never too young to enjoy a fine Fixpencil leadholder.

Attention parents: some quick links to sources for some sketching kit upgrades

Thanks to the teens and parents that came to the manga cartoon sketching class on Saturday at the Cary Arts Center.  I know we discussed and introduced quite a few sketching tools that are not so readily available locally, so for your convenience here are some links for the main ones that your kids may wish to add to their current sketching kits.

Japanese mechanical pencils for those that prefer not to have to sharpen regular wooden pencils:

1. Pentel Graph 1000 a personal favorite.
2. Uni Shift Pipe Lock Drafting Pencils feature a design that protects the drafting tip during transport.
3. Pilot S3 drafting pencils value priced plastic model with sleek look and good performance. I recall seeing it for the first time in photos in the How to Draw Manga: Sketching Manga-Style book 1 by Hikaru Hayashi.

2 mm Leadholders for a reliable drawing too with constant length and width with a comfortable grip:

1. Ohto Comfort Sharp Leadholders are a nice value priced introductory choice with built-in lead pointer in the push button.
2. Uni leadholders and leads are another personal favorite choice that have been a staple of my own sketching kit for years. You might want to pick up a leadpointer to round up your kit and sharpen your lead as needed.

Waterbrushes and Brush pens to expand the versatility of your sketching kit with the ability to apply watercolors with a minimal set up and draw with brush and ink anywhere:

1. Pentel Aquash waterbrush nice convenient tool for working with watercolor pans and water soluble pencils anywhere. Also available from Holbein, Sakura Koi, and Kuretake.
2. Brush pens wide selection of drawing pens for when you need some line width variation in your strokes. Some feature flexible nylon marker tips, and others are actually made of synthetic filaments and even sable hairs. Popular choices include: Zebra disposable brush pen, Pentel Pocket brush pen, Kuretake No. 13 Fountain brush pen, and Pilot Futayaku double-sided brush pens.

Erasers:

1. Uni Boxy Eraser Black another personal favorite since it does not show smudges given its dark base color.
2. Pilot Foam eraser love its performance with dark softer leads.
3. Iwako erasers for a bit of fun or inspiration, but probably won't be used much for actual erasing.

Creative Workshop with the Kids: Sharing art supplies with the nieces

It had been a while since we had a chance to visit with my star art students, so I brought a fairly large selection of art supplies to share with them this past Sunday.
Camila coloring with Sakura Koi watercolors and a waterbrush.
Drawing with a full set Prismacolor Art Stix woodless colored pencils.
The ever popular fairy motifs.
Camila loading a Sofft knife with Burnt Sienna. Their similarity to make-up tools made PanPastel jars and their applicator tools quite appealing to the girls.
Added some extra colors with Crayola watercolor pencils.
Nicole using an Art sponge for broad color application.Using a mini applicator for more delicate coloring.
The PanPastel and Sofft tools were a big hit with the girls that used them to color small trading card-size pieces and 8.5" X 11" sheets of card stock. The erasability of PanPastel layers was a great feature that allowed the kids to make quick corrections with regular erasers when the coloring got outside the lines by accident. The low dusting properties of these soft pastels made them fairly easy to clean afterward with a wet rag and a vacuum cleaner. Always keep a close eye on your budding artists when allowing them to explore the creative potential of artist grade art supplies.

Gallery of Manga Cartoon Portraits of the Day

Thank you very much to everybody that stopped by and patiently waited to get their cartoon portraits drawn at the live caricature booth at the Art Festival in Downtown Naples earlier today.
Next time, I will try flipping this arrangement 180 degrees, so that visitors passing by can more easily observe the cartoon drawing process.
The first Dragon Ninja of the day knows how to ride in style.
Cartoon portrait before and after the coloring step.
Our second Dragon Ninja of the day happily casting some blue flame Avatar-style.
Just realized that this was the only mermaid portrait today. Often this particular request is quite popular among the girls. Guess the girl that wanted to be a fairy mermaid (a novel request that has been increasing in popularity in its own right) changed her mind, or did not return to the booth after all.
Surfer Girl cartoon portrait. It had been a while since I got this particular request.

Dragon Ninja #3: our single Kunoichi of the day sporting dual swords, shuriken in hand, and a naginata on her back.
A nice change of pace, a straight cartoon portrait drawn with watersoluble graphite (Caran D'Ache Technalo 3B lead) and a waterbrush.
Crimson Dragon Ninja ready for anything with his 4 swords and handful shuriken ready for a quick-strike.
Straight colored cartoon portrait.
Drawing the hair on this princess portrait was a lot of fun.
And we finished the day with yet another Dragon Ninja. Remember our two Japanese words for the day are kunoichi= "female ninja" and shuriken=""sword hidden in the hand" or "Throwing star". Enjoy your drawings and continue practicing your sketching skills as often as you can. Take your sketchbook and some drawing tools along everywhere you go.

300 post wo-hoo! Free Coloring Sheets of Manga Trading Cards Activity

To celebrate reaching this blogging milestone, I am sharing a couple colored samples (using two of the the coloring-sketch templates posted yesterday) and a 3 coloring sheets of manga-style fantasy Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) that you could use the next time a rainy day keeps the kids indoors.
Forest Guardian colored with Faber Castell Big Brush Artist pens.
Sample cartoon portrait colored with a waterbrush and Faber Castell Albrecht Durer aquarelle sticks.
Instructions: Print any of this fantasy trading card sheets on card stock and color with colored pencils or fine-tip markers. Then cut along the straight lines. Repeat and try different color combinations after reviewing your color theory.
The theme here was elemental or Magical ladies.
Bit of Egyptian inspiration in this set.

Spending quality "Art" time with Mateo

Have been spending some quality time and sharing a few art materials with my nephew Mateo.
Following tradition, I lent my nephew one of my watercolor kits: the Sakura Koi Pocket Field Sketch Box.
With a bit of guidance hand over hand and a trusty waterbrush we managed to sketch a simple landscape on his first visual journal.
While I had originally planned on giving him a larger first sketchbook, this compact journal proved quite practical and portable.Thus using waterproof pens, I drew a few coloring outlines and partial doodles to create a custom coloring and doodling book for Mateo.Dry watercolor pencil stage. Actually colored a few samples on the initial pages at his request. After blending the dry pencil marks with a waterbrush. Actually it was quite simple to create a sturdy custom activity book for a toddler out of the 3.5" X 5" Strathmore Visual Journal loaded with 140 lb (300 gsm) watercolor sheets. Just take a look at this video to browse through the pages of the journal shown above.
Quite happy with his first set of Faber Castell watercolor crayons.
Coloring on his new Kumon Let's Color! activity book.
Dexterity test: doodling with both hands at the same time.
Trying out his new set of Crayola brush pens.
Grandma helping restore the ink flow on a Crayola triangular brush pen.
Already sharing his over-size Taro Gomi doodling book with the little girl next door.
Baby brother might still be too little to join in on the coloring fun, but give him time and I'm pretty sure he'll soon join the rank of budding artists featured in this blog.