Gina Lento: Fine Art and Illustration

Morning routine that creates inspiration

Working WITHOUT AI

I hope you all are doing well. We are saddened by the fact that the US Soccer Team is out of the tournament. However, we love the visitors that are still here enjoying our country. They have been a delight to host. So many charming moments. We especially love Norway in my house, LOL. Now that the USA is out, I’ll be cheering for Norway. (And Argentina since Messi plays for Miami.)

So what do I have to show you today? I just saw a story on the news about an AI actress that is starring in a new movie. Really? An AI actress? So many human women that can act in a role and they pick a fake generated image. The anchors went on to discuss how much of what you see on Social Media is AI generated. Do you know the percentage because I didn’t? It’s 70%. Eeuuu. Another reason to offload Social Media.

BTW….my art is human hands and human ingenuity.

Morning routine

Before that story on the news, I was already working on this post. Actually, the images for this post.

Every morning, I have a routine which is simply known as my morning routine. I have a morning pages routine and a daily “comic” routine, plus I set up my calendar/Bujo for the day. I have tried several formats over the years but I just surrounded to my three book practice. And after many types of books I have tried, I am picky about each one I use. For my morning pages book, I normally use an Archer & Olive B5 dot grid. I am currently using a backup since my B5 Archer & Olive book hadn’t arrived yet. I don’t like the backup because it is a softcover and the pages are terrible for Tombow play.

(I have to add this before moving on. Archer & Olive has wonderful paper. It does not bleed through with the Tombow markers. They are hardcovers. They are by far my preferred book for my B5 morning pages and my A5 Bujo. I have tried SOOOOO many books and I keep going back to Archer & Olive. They are worth the price. The only thing I don’t like is paying for shipping, which is usually why I wait for their sales.)

In my morning pages book, (currently a 2 page spread),I track the weather, I write on one page for at least 5 minutes, I have a column for ideas, a box for gratitudes, A box for a quote, an affirmation and a spare box. I also have a section for a blob that is scraped with a blob of Goldens High Flow Acrylics. It is the blob that is the subject of today’s post.

The Blob

The idea for doing the scraped acrylic blobs came from Carla Sonheim. Although I took a variety of Carla’s courses over the years, it was Carla’s Sketchbook Revival presentation that earned her spot in my daily practice. I believe I have been doing the scraped blobs since 2019 (?), so that’s 365 days times 6.5 years, give or take. That’s a lot of fodder to fall back on for inspiration.

I am not going to explain the process but if you would like to learn it, I would suggest following Carla since it was her idea. You’ll learn a lot of fun sketchbook exercises from Carla.

Blob sketches using several different media including Tombow Dual Brush pens and a Bic ballpoint pen

At the bottom of the page, you see a little red blob. I use a Lamy Safari with a Medium Nib and spin the page around until I find something in the blob and then I turn it into something with ink.

I move on to my trusty black Bic pen and try drawing it with the Bic pen. Sometimes this second drawing is a whole new version, and other times, like about, it was meh. So then I was like….hmmm, let me try using by Arteza brush pens. I sort of like how he turned out and then it was at that point that I thought I would use this for my post.

The top image (yes I was working from bottom to top, my blobs are always on the bottom of the page) was sketched using an Arteza Brush pen. You can see the dark patches where I wanted to blend them with a water brush, only to find that this paper didn’t allow for that. The ink stayed put. I am stuck with this book for the next 70 days so I’ll have to live with it.

It was at this point that I took this photo with my iPhone.

Developing a character

You can see my note on the page that I liked the bottom one the best.

This next process is when I want the characters to stay the same as how I drew them. If I redraw them freehand, they don’t come out the same and sometimes that’s OK, but in this case, I liked the bottom one just as it was in my book.

I Airdropped the image to my iPad, and pulled it into Procreate. Redrew the line in black on white background. I then exported the image to my photos. Airdropped the line drawing to my MacBook, pulled it into my photos so that I could print it out in the size I wanted. Then I printed it out, trimmed the image to the size to fit in my sketchbook.

At this point, I slid the image under my working page in my sketchbook. I put my light box behind that and redrew the image in my sketchbook. I used some acrylic markers to play with color. These acrylic pens don’t blend very well and I can’t layer color because layering just covers the color below. It’s also hit or miss when trying to do highlights so I used a white gel pen and a grey wash pen for shadow and value.

Blob character with color and potential environment setting.

Not being satisfied with the color, I proceeded to tweak it a little with colored pencil and more grey wash pen.

Updated blob character with more shadow and colored pencil.

At this point, I am looking at this and it’s a start. I am going to continue this in next week’s post where I more into the process of how much further I can take this character.

Happy Birthday America!

Happy Independence Day!

The art of stickers

Last week, I wrote to you that I was finishing my “dailies” sketchbook from the past two years. This week, I started a new one and I am really excited that the Leuchtturm1917 square sketchbooks now come in lavender.

What’s so exciting about that?

I do a small daily sketch and it takes over two years to fill these sketchbooks. Being able to carry around a lavender one just made my day. Lavender is such a perky color and is so inviting that I can’t wait to draw in it every day.

Decorating a fresh new sketchbook

When I start a new sketchbook, I like to adorn it with something so it isn’t just a blank cover. With all of the black sketchbooks I have, decorating them also made it easier to identify them so I could quickly grab any specific sketchbook I was looking for. Sometimes I decorate them by decoupaging copies of my own art to the cover. I also like to use stickers that people or businesses give out, or even the ones they give you when you vote.

For instance, the bottom right sticker on my new daily sketchbook is a perfect example of a travel sticker that I purchased while visiting Cedar Key, FL.

I also love product stickers like the Sweetwater coffee stickers, on the lower left of my sketchbook, that were shipped with the coffee I purchased for my husband for Father’s Day. I was delighted to receive the Sweetwater stickers because we were introduced to their coffee when we spent those few days in Cedar Key, FL. It seemed perfect to put those stickers on my new daily sketchbook.

Making my own stickers

I have been wanting to make stickers for many years as a fun way to share my art. Over the past year, I made 5. While I was selecting stickers for this sketchbook, it only made sense that I would advertise my own art on the sketchbook, too.

I designed 4 stickers in past several months and I ordered them from Sticker App. I started with a circle shape but I have a few ideas for shape outlined stickers.

The first batch, I ordered them at 2 inch but when I received them, I realized I should have gone larger. The next two I designed and ordered them at the 3 inch size. I already have designs started for two more stickers. I am really excited how they came out.

Selling the stickers?

I haven’t made up my mind about how I want to sell the stickers. I might offer them for sale for a small fee to just my Substack subscribers since I don’t charge a fee for membership. Or on an on line shop. I have to figure that all out, yet.

About these stickers

The upper left hand one is Dickens and the quote is something my husband says all the time. It seemed applicable to use it for the cat.

The Surfer Teddy sticker was inspired by Mike Lowery’s sticker workshop (which is how I learned how to make stickers) where Mike drew a surf board and a guy on a board, I think. I went with Teddy on the beach in his surfer duds and gear.

The middle sticker is Lucy, who is indeed, the Back Seat Badass. Lucy is a total coward until you put her in her car seat. Then, she morphs into the Back Seat Badass. She’ll tell everyone off from that back seat, human or animal. Lucy LOVES riding in the truck. She’ll stay in there all day if you let her so she can tell everyone off. LOL

Take her out? Nervous Nellie.

Enjoy!

Car butt sketch

Trying to get back outside more to sketch. I started this post last Thursday evening but as I was typing it, my daughter sent us a text

“I feel like there’s no way you guys didn’t hear that explosion? I just saw it on FB”

So, I didn’t finish this because we sort of were a little distracted…lol…

We had scooped up the dog children and put them in their car seats and drove over to the water. The city has been redoing the waterfront and it’s starting to come together. The trees still look like they are having bad hair day.

We parked a few spots down from a tiny car and I decided to sketch a car butt. Hey, it was there, ya know. It beats sketching just the landscape.

We left around 8:20-ish. Give or take. If we had sat there for another half hour or so, we would have see the New Glenn rocket explosion. The irony of this? We have cat 5 rated windows and slider installed at our house. Which makes the interior of our house sound proofed. When our daughter sent us a text, I was typing this and hubby was watching TV.

We drove down to the riverfront but by the time we got there, it was a low fire so we came home.

Nothing to see here.

A week later, today, apparently not everything was ruined so they may be back up and launching by the end of the year.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Some Valentine Art for you to enjoy today.

Over the past couple of days, I have been working on some Valentine’s Day art. I was given 5 prompts to post over the past few days, and today. The prompts came from a small group of artists that I have been working with on line. The leader of the group, Flori Fama, posted 5 prompts for Valentine’s Day and we each came up with our own interpretations.

Squirrels have been on our minds lately here at the house since there seems to be a sudden absence of them. We don’t know if the raptors are eating them but there has been some accidents with cars and falling out of tall trees lately. Our neighbors have all commented on the lack of squirrels but it has been cold here. I imagine the squirrels aren’t used to the severe cold, either.

The squirrels became the subject of this one.

Head-over-heels breakfast. tea squirrels exchanging a strawberry as a symbol of the love they have for the other. There are hearts over the squirrels. the background is a pink heart

I tried some different ways of doing my mailbox prompt, which included pulling in other work and to redo as Valentine’s Day. I love that I can do this in Procreate without having to reinvent the wheel. I even pulled in the painted background that was done with acryl-gouache on wood panel.

Heart Melting Mailbox....Pink Mailbox set in a winter scene with snow and two mice are living in the mailbox

I was able to redo previous pieces like the cake and cookies below, that were originally done for Halloween, and recreated a whole new version for Valentine’s Day.

Some objects, like the teapot and teacup, were sketched from actual items in my house that I made up all new pieces for this prompt.

Patisseries Display of affection
A dessert scene with a heart decorated teapot, heart decorated teacup, slice of cake and cookies

I had a ball with the carousel horse below. I found a whole new way to do horses in Procreate!

Lovestruck Carousel - Palomino carousel horse decorated with flowers and hearts — Lovestruck Carousel

And I also recolored the squirrels into monotone colors. I had to stop myself because it was becoming too addicting and I could have played with values all night!

There was a 5th prompt but unfortunately, I am not finished it yet so I will be posting that one later on our group board. I may add that as a Note later in Substack. Not sure if I can do notes here on WordPress. Something to play with, I guess.

Hope you enjoyed these!

Happy Valentine’s Day 2026!

Monotone purple - Head-over-heels breakfast. tea squirrels exchanging a strawberry as a symbol of the love they have for the other. There are hearts over the squirrels.

Monotone pink - Head-over-heels breakfast. tea squirrels exchanging a strawberry as a symbol of the love they have for the other. There are hearts over the squirrels.

A Fun Way to Track Your Reading in a Bullet Journal

My book tracker for 2026

Over the summer of 2025, I attended a virtual week long event hosted by Peggy Dean. One of the artists contributing to the event was Jessica Mack. She presented a Bullet Journal (aka BUJO) spread that she makes every year in her BUJO to track the books she read during that year. I use Goodreads for tracking my reading, but this is waaaaayyyyy more fun. Now I do both.

These are not meant to be a masterpiece. Just a creative and functional page (or spread) to track the books you read. I gave it a try in 2025. It was very satisfying to write my finished titles on one of the randomly colored books on the shelf. Not to mention that it looks so adorable in my bullet journal!

So far I have read 5 books in January. I am currently reading another that I am two-thirds of the way through. I mostly do my reading at night before bed, but I also try to squeeze it in at others times of the day. I have a goal to read at least 20 minutes a day.

New Genre for me

During December, I wanted to read more Christmas type of books. I found a bunch of authors I never read before. I became addicted to reading them, so I still have a bunch in my Kindle queue. I can’t believe I never knew that L Frank Baum wrote a Christmas book! I read that, too!

I like to read books in both the real version and the digital version. I mostly download the digital versions from the library and if I can’t find what I am looking for there, I head over to Kindle. I much prefer the physical book, but reading the digital versions that I only want to borrow saves money, too. Books I actually want to keep, I usually purchase the physical version.

Making the BUJO book page

Jessica Mack makes the page simple and easy to do. Measure out and make shelves, add books and then add plants and decor. And of course, the pet children. I did this mine with black ink and Tombow Dual Brush pens.

In 2025, I forgot to add Cleo to both my Christmas card and the book shelf. My daughter pointed that out so you’ll see that there is also a frame with Cleo for 2026. If you have been following me a while, you’ll remember Cleo as the black kitty who was running in and out of my sketches. She left us for the rainbow bridge in 2020.

Try it for yourself, your way. It doesn’t need to be perfect. Just have fun. You might find yourself reading more, too.

(Oh, if the ink smears a bit. That’s ok, too. Just make sure the black ink you use is permanent to lessen that issue.)

Bookshelves drawn with ink and Tombow markers with blank books for filling in as one finishes a book — What I am reading….

Here is the finished page from my 2025 Bullet Journal.

Closing out 2025

The last 6 holiday sketches and saying good-bye to 2025

I am closing out 2025 with my last holiday sketches of 2025. Plus how this year went….

2025 as the new year

At the beginning of 2025, I sat down with my Bullet Journal and various artists’ suggestions on how to plan out your year; setting goals and scheduling target dates, and so on.

“Yeah, I GOT this,” I was thinking as I planned out the year. I diligently mapped out each month and quarter. I thought I planned and accounted for everything, including my daughter’s wedding, expected travel plans, holiday weekends and activities during the Thanksgiving/Christmas season.

The wedding plans absorbed more time than I originally thought I’d need but I happily chugged along with the planning assistance and creative tasks. The wedding was beautiful and we had a great time in St Augustine. A happy beginning to the year.

After the wedding…..

Dickens, our 6 month old kitten, had a routine kitten checkup where a potential dental issue turned into a trip to Gainesville to a dental specialist.

In the meantime, Mack, our geriatric Chihuahua became ill and eventually left to go to the rainbow bridge. There was a post back in June about Mack.

Summer

Dickens’ dental issues, turned out to be self inflicted. Not the brightest bulb in the box, but at least we know it wasn’t serious.

We up drove up to the grandkids in NJ & NY. It was good to see everyone. We took Lucy, our other Chihuahua, and left Dickens with our daughter.

Lucy had her first Cape May Ferry ride and she flew for the first time. At the airport, she tried to take on the airport security dog, who got in hot water with his handler for letting a tiny chihuahua distract him from his duties.

Around the end of summer, I found Flori Fama from one of my artist groups. She was so excited about Halloween that she started a group to start sketching for Halloween. I joined her group and I awaited September.

Autumn

Flori’s Halloween Challenge started and was so much fun. I didn’t do Inktober this year because they don’t do Halloween prompts and I love Halloween so that was a no brainer.

Holidays

A new addition to the family

While we were Christmas shopping in November….a little black fur ball came into our lives. We came across a long haired black chihuahua that we named Teddy. Where Mack had a heavy thick coat, Teddy has a very fine coat and he feels the cold, unlike Mack, who used to play in the snow and have snow dingles hanging from him.

After Halloween, the Holiday prompts

When Halloween ended, we all wanted to keep going with Flori and the group. Flori came up with prompts for December and we had a blast doing them..

I posted the first 6 in last week’s news for December. Here are the final 6.

Day 7 – North Pole bound – I interpreted this as letters to Santa..featuring Teddy because Flori’s holiday group wanted to see Teddy in my illustrations

Day 8 – Snow Kissed Village

Day 9 – Chimney Jam – featuring Teddy

Day 10 – Sugar Cookies by the fire. My Christmas card was used as a springboard for this one. I already had the cookies and milk. I moved the whole scene over to add the fireplace, which was our fireplace when we used to live on Long Island.

Day 11 – A gingerbread tail (tale) – I used my past characters from #drawcatsformom to create this scene.

Day 12 – Flori suggested Summer Christmas since she was originally from Argentina and it is summer there right now. I went with Tropical Christmas because I live in Florida.

Christmas and December were nice. I had fun doing the Christmas prompts. I also managed to get some reading done. I can’t complain about 2025, even though we lost Mack. And I found out some things about myself that helped me realize where I was chasing my own tail and what it is I really like doing.

Happy New Year.

December 2025

Here’s a peek at what I have been creating this month

Aside from the usual mayhem that December brings…I have also been working with a small group to do a Christmas Challenge. You can read more about it on my Substack at this link:

https://open.substack.com/pub/ginalento/p/december-2025?r=1bcr0m&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Day 1 – Odd Stocking

Revisiting an old “friend” that has been frequently used in the past. A Pier One Stocking we purchased many years ago because of its quirkiness. I have drawn this several times in many ways and settings….I had it sitting on my desk and drew it again.

I did two color versions:

Day 2 – Rudolph where’s your nose?

A reindeer character I have been working on….

Day 3 – Snow Globe Wonderland

I was pressed for time and I have been hitting the sketchbooks and old work….this is a new and improved Snow Globe

Day 4 – Dyker Heights Teasures

My version using a summer plein air painting of Patchogue, NY, as a reference…I believe I also used it as a Christmas card several years ago….IIt was when I was doing my postcards – #drawcatsformom art to mail to my mom. took my current Procreate skills to tweak this for a new and improved version.

Day 5 – Silent Santa Night

Another Pastel painting inspired piece. I have been playing with this one off and on and tried some new composition ideas.

Day 6 – Ugly Sweater Collection

My “collection” is displayed on snow people…..

Well that’s all for now…hope you enjoyed them!

Saying Good-bye to Mack

Yesterday, John and I had to make the tough decision to say good-bye to a member of our family. He was a long haired Chihuahua who came into our lives March 2 of 2011. Mack was born at Christmastime, and Christmas was one of his favorite times of year. He was especially fond of unwrapping gifts, even if they didn’t belong to him. Christmas will be really sad without him. He was just like a child, but in fur. We looked forward to seeing Christmas through his eyes every year.

Mack’s nickname was MR GQ, because he was always posing for the camera. He was such a handsome little dude. Lucy would be all over the place and Mack would patiently hold his pose.

Mack was a happy little guy. He was such a good boy, even with all of the vet visits. He didn’t care, as long as he got his dog cookie. He didn’t like children at first until he realized that they were walking food dispensers. He had an angle for everything.

I could go on and on about Mack. Our daughters wanted to call him Mac n Cheese or something like it. He got his name after he pushed the puppy gate that fell on him during the naming discussion, he just kept right on going, and my husband said he was like a Mack truck. So Mack became his name.

We loved him so much. He was our Buddy. He went out peacefully yesterday morning in John’s lap with me scratching his head. Our vet gave him a peaceful transition. He was a good boy even up until the end.

I am grateful that this little guy came into our family. He was a little sparkle of sunshine. Everyday with him, especially these last few years, was a gift that I always thanked God for everyday.

Ever since Chloe was taken from us 2 years ago, with no warning or inkling of a problem, I answer the following question when asked; “was it worth it; having them in your life, knowing what was to come?”

Yes, the joy and devotion that both Mack and Chloe gave us? Yes Yes Yes. It was worth every minute.

Good-bye little Buddy. You were such a GOOD BOY. I will miss you.

National Chihuahua Appreciation Day

collage of painted tiny chihuahua sketches

I have so many Chihuahuas that I have sketched or painted that I had a bit of a tough time choosing which ones to post. I decided to repost some of my Tiny Dogs from my Tin Dog series of 2020. These tiny dogs were painted in a tiny sketchbook that was provided by the (sadly now defunct) Sketchbook Project. Many of these tiny dogs were Mack and Chloe, but I also used reference photos from the Museum App (formerly the Sktchy app).

I played around with Canva this morning to present some of these in a fun format. All of the photos were taken of me holding the sketchbook so that readers can have an idea how tiny this sketchbook is. I was told that this was one of the more popular sketchbooks when folks used to go to the Sketchbook Project Library. When they announced their closing, I immediately went to retrieve my sketchbooks. I am so glad I did because this one out of all of them is one my favorite treasures.

To give credit to the creator of the Canva template, I used NassyArt’s “Beige and Black Scrapbook Film Photo Collage Portrait Instagram Post” template.

The second image is some recent Chihuahua paintings done on 4×4 wooden hearts.