Friday Inspiration - Drawing

There's one word that can cause beads of sweat to arise on some of the most creative people - draw!  I know that I often hear my 8th grade art teacher's voice telling me that if I'm not drawing representationally, I'm not drawing - and I did not have the skills at that time to draw representationally.  She was wrong!  I now love to draw - and even though I can draw fairly good representations of what I see, my favorite drawing is lines, doodles, cartoon type pictures, designs, ...

I'm currently taking an on-line drawing class given by Alisa Burke, Draw With Me, and having a blast with it!  This is not a how to draw class, but one designed to get you making different types of marks and become comfortable with drawing.  You can check it out on her website here.

Zentangles are a fun way to put pen to paper without the pressure of trying to have your drawings look realistic.  If you haven't heard of them, it's basically super doodling where you make sections on your page and then fill in each section with a different pattern.  CraftWhack has a good beginner's page that includes base forms to get you going.  And for inspiration, this super Zentangle from This Marvelous Facade is wonderful!

I recently started working on an art journal and am incorporating lots of doodles.  I love how light hearted and whimsical they look and they're great to draw in pen and then use colored pencils or water colors to color in.  Rachel at Planning Mindfully has some great tutorials on flower doodling - I've been using a lot of these lately as I get my gardens in shape and then journal about it.

These are just some of the sites that can get you started on "no pressure" drawing!  

Happy Creating!  Deborah