This week’s sketches

Happy Mother’s Day to the mom’s out there…It’s another week during Corona Virus World. I have been spending my time creating art, which is business as usual for me.

We’ve been watching Ozark in the evenings and finished the first season and are in the second season. That series shows how lies just make people dig bigger and bigger holes for themselves.

Here is last week’s dailies….

I took Carla Sonheim’s 10th Year Anniversary class and one of the lessons was “Cheater Blind Contour” drawings which I love and I have been doing some every day.

Here are some:

And here are some combined with my brush pen 5 min timed drawings….. Enjoy!

April Dailies

Here are the daily doodles for the past four weeks. I just that I have three more weeks worth of pages in this sketchbook and I need to decide if I am

1) continuing these dailies (I like them so I probably will),

2) spend money on another 500 series Strathmore mixed media sketchbook (the dailies don’t need mixed media paper)

3) try one of the toned Strathmore paper sketchbooks of the same size which I have on hand (do I really want to do these on toned paper?) or

4) Make a sketchbook like the one I used when I first started doing these

So I have three weeks to figure out what I will be doing with these…..in the meantime here are the ones from the past four weeks….

My West Side Story project

I signed up for a bundled group of workshops back in November, before John was laid off, that were running this year. They are for building my on line portfolio.

April’s assignment was West Side Story. I actually found this assignment to be a lot of fun, however, a lot of work. It was done using multiple media and many, many phases and changes to reach the final result here.

I still could do a lot to it but it was due by 3PM today so it is what it is….

Enjoy.

A coloring kitty

Ok, this is my first time offering free art. I did this on Procreate for my mom and then I printed it out on cardstock and colored it in and mailed it to her. She probably won’t see it for a while. They are holding her mail a little bit to disinfect it then they’ll give it to her.

Cleo is back with us for a while. My daughter has been furloughed from Disney because of the “Safer at Home” quarantine, so the two of them have been here for the past month. So she’s been inspiring a few ideas….

Here is a free coloring page featuring Cleo, aka Kitty . If you color it in, please post it on Instagram and tag me @ginalento so I can see it!

Kitty’s Ready!

Sketches from this week

Occasionally I like to go out sketching with a group. Since I moved to Florida this past autumn, I haven’t had the chance to get out out to sketch with any local groups. Then the corona virus hit so I guess it will be a while before I do that again. However, all is not lost. My friends at the NYC Urban Sketchers have found a way to sketch virtually so I joined them today on Facebook.

The theme was to pick your dream vacation spot so I chose the French Riviera. Here is my two page spread.

Next, I have two of my morning routine sketches and also, my daily doodles for this week.

Enjoy!

Latest sketches etc….

My head has been all over the place. The “Virus Roulette” has me terrified. My past experiences with “upper respiratory” infections usually wind up with me pretty sick and on a course of antibiotics for secondary infections. I have been exercising daily, eating better and cutting sugar from my diet trying to make myself as inhabitable as possible. I pray it passes me by.

In the meantime, creativity is always my friend. I create every day. Here are some samples of how my days have been going…

Image done on location using an iPad

Announcing Bella, the Moo Kitty!

Last week, Moo Kitty aka Bella, was sent on her way back to Catskill, NY. She came down to Florida with us as a standing cat and is going back to NY as a Cow.

Bella is part of an outdoor exhibit called Cat’n Around Catskill, which consists of fiberglass cat sculptures that will be on display this summer on Main Street in Catskill, NY. Artists submit designs and then they are “juried” by sponsors who pay to sponsor a design. The artist receives the corresponding cat (either standing or sitting) and they take it back to their studios to convert it to the design that was submitted

My “Moo Kitty” design is the standing cat converted to a Holstein cow. It took me several weeks to sculpt the cow parts and then paint it.

Here are photos with after and some of the “before.”

Chincoteague Map

Here’s a map I did for my portfolio…..Chincoteague is one of my favorite places to go. It has a small town charm and the added bonus of wild ponies. It was featured many years ago, in the story “Misty of Chincoteague” by Marguerite Henry. She wrote several books featuring Misty and this charming island. Misty is a big part of the island’s mystique.

I grew up reading the stories and back before the internet, the only way you could see these sort of places were to go there or view them through the eyes of a photographer or illustrator. I viewed Chincoteague through the illustrations of Wesley Dennis. The first time I saw Chincoteague and Assateague in person (the undeveloped barrier island to Chincoteague), I felt like I’ve always known the place.

Chincoteague will always have a spot in my heart and although I have only visited and painted there, I feel that it is a part of me and who I am.