This is my mother-in-law's kitty, Puddin, which I just finished. She's a long-haired cat and is a medium to lighter gray with a caramel tone with some white.
Thank-you Maria of Pencil Sanity for this award!And my nominees are: (Big Drumroll)
Be sure to stop in say hi to everyone!
Since Vincent van Gogh's birthday is coming up on March 30, I did some research on the Web and found some interesting information about his life.Vincent was born in 1853 in Holland.
He would be celebrating his 156th birthday--imagine blowing out all those candles on his birthday cake!
Vincent's father was a Reverand in the Protestant church.
He suffered horribly from epilepsy, psychotic attacks and delusions: now thought to be related to Bipolar Disorder.
During a stay at an insane asylum, he painted one of his most famous paintings, "The Starry Night".
Vincent sold only one painting during his entire lifetime. Now, some of his paintings sell for millions at auctions around the world.
He viewed his life as horribly wasted and felt that he was a failure.
Two of his closest friends were Theo, his brother and artist Paul Gaugin.
It's believed that Vincent painted about 900 paintings in a ten-year period
Sadly, passed away 2 days later after a self-inflicted gun shot to the chest. Vincent was only 37 years old.
---Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh's Self Portrait, courtesy of WP Clip http://www.wpclipart.com/index.html
Ok, here's the finished Old House pencil drawing. I added in some shading that would suggest trees around the building, deepened some shadows and added a bit more foreground ground areas. 
Here in this photo, I've added more shadow tones and some more detailing. Like I mentioned, I wanted to achieve an "aged" look. I think this is going well on the watercolor paper that I have chosen to draw on this time.
At this point, I have started to put in some medium tones with my 2b pencil and then start to add in some darker tones and shadows. As I added more and more, I would blend each addition using a tortillion, which is basically just a rolled up piece of paper, which can be purchased at art supply just about any where. They are available in small, medium and large sizes. I tend to use the small and medium for most of my work.
As you may be able to see from this photo, I started at the left front of the building, working my way around to the right side. That's how I generally work, doing sort of a layering of tone and building that up.
I have also put in just a bit of detail. For me, drawing is about realism and to achieve that, detail really is everything.
Part 3 is coming real soon!
I would like to give a big Thank-You to ronnieb of Morguefile for the use of his photo, Old House, which I used with his permission for this 4-Part series.Originally, Ronnie's photo was in color, but for my drawing, I converted it to Black and White, zoomed in a bit and heightened the contrast. I did all this in Photoshop easily, but I think the same results could be achieved in many of the photo editors out there. Even many of those that are free are perfect for these kinds of basics. I could have edited out the wires, but chose to just ignore them, leaving them out of my drawing, instead.
Then, I printed out both the color original and theblack and white versions of the photo and began to get my paper surface set up. For this drawing, I decided to do some experimenting by choosing cold-pressed watercolor paper. I wanted to give this building some texture and "aging" and have that come through to the viewer.
I started the drawing off by making a line drawing of the house and some trees. I drew these simple lines to be basic, just to guide myself along. When I drew the tree's lines I hadn't yet come to a decision as to how I would be drawing them. I would have to wait and see on that, later.
