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Valentines

I’ve been inspired to draw valentine cards this week. I start by drawing in pencil, then use a black pen to outline and a wet brush to shade. I finish the image on the computer, cleaning it up.

Here are some images of works in progress:

I’ve been posting all of my daily haiku and drawings on my Patreon page: http://patreon.com/heathergoff

The Patreon page offers (to patrons) digital downloads of drawings as well as a glimpse of all of my daily endeavors. I hope to make it a window into my creative process. If you are interested in becoming more of a participant in my creative journey or would like to see more of my work, please consider becoming a Patron.

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Daily Sketch, June 2, 2015

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PROCESS

I took photographs of some old bottles that I placed on our window sill. When I am drawing on the computer, my monitor is large enough that I can look at the photograph while I draw on the software canvas. I am drawing using an intuos tablet and pressure sensitive stylus. The software that I use is Painter 12.

I start with very loose sketching and blocking out some colors to try to get the composition worked out.

On the left of my monitor is the photograph that I’m referencing, and on the right is the Painter 12 canvas. I am using the fine tip marker tool in Painter, using various widths and opacity.

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Brandy Brow Illustration

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This is an illustration that the Vineyard Gazette asked me to do for their new “Streetwise” series, short columns that research the history of different neighborhoods on the island. The third article is about Brandy Brow in West Tisbury. I decided to focus on a visual reference to the location of Brandy Brow, as it took me awhile to figure out where it was.

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Experimentation April 11, 2015

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I participated in a creativity workshop today run by Fae Kontje-Gibbs. A good part of the time was spent free writing, but we did also do some drawing/painting towards the end trying to draw in the moment, from a visceral place, not thinking about representation at all, but rather marks on the paper. Tonight I decided to try scanning my drawing and then working over it with layers of color and texture, experimenting with different techniques, looking only at the layers of colors and patterns and how they interact, abandoning realism entirely.

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Daily Sketch, March 16, 2015

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I’m visiting my daughter and granddaughter for a week, which is why I’m not getting much drawing done. I had forgotten how exhausting toddlers can be, no matter how delightful.

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Dodger’s Hole illustration

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This is an illustration that the Vineyard Gazette asked me to do for their new “Streetwise” series, short columns that research the history of different neighborhoods on the island. The second article is about Dodger’s Hole and mentioned spring peepers and snapping turtles. I worked on it instead of my daily sketch, and incorporated earlier studies of the frogs.
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Daily Sketch, February 16, 2015

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I visited my daughter in Quincy, MA this weekend, and they had almost two more feet of snow fall Saturday night. Walking Sunday late afternoon, I was struck by the beauty of the light hitting the houses contrasting against the shadows on the snow drifts.

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Daily Sketch, February 13, 2015

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I wanted to make a valentine for my husband. I started with an image of hands, envisioning corny phrases like, “I give you my heart” or “you hold my heart”, thinking I’d work a heart into the image, but I ended up with a frog, which probably does not give the right message. Now it is more like, “if I kiss this, will it turn back in to a prince?”, or “take me as I am, I’m yours.”

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Daily Sketch, February 12, 2015

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A very quick drawing tonight..

With all of the snow, my dogs need to be walked where it has been plowed, which means leash walking. We go round and round and round our neighborhood. This is often my view.

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Daily Sketch, February 8, 2015

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Yesterday, I treated myself to an all day workshop on collage taught by Alexandra Sheldon at her studio in Cambridge, MA. http://alexandrasheldon.com/index.php?page=bio&display=311

It was a very fun class and taught me some basic techniques used in making a collage. After transferring and painting on papers to use in our collages, she had us work on multiple 4 x 4 inch pieces of heavier stock. It was refreshing to work non-digitally and completely abstractly, without thought to anything except texture, color and pattern.

She encouraged us to put our finished pieces in to a blank book or journal, one square per page.

At some point I hope to combine my digitally drawings with collage techniques.

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“Chicken Alley” illustration

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This is an illustration that the Vineyard Gazette asked me to do for their new “Streetwise” series, short columns that research the history of different neighborhoods on the island. The first column is about “Chicken Alley” and should be in tomorrow’s paper. I worked on this drawing over a handful of days and incorporated Saturday’s daily sketch of the pigs into it.

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Daily Sketch, October 2, 2014

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Having a very busy day and unable to start my sketch until 11:00pm,  I stuck with a quick draw and a model close at hand. Thus, we have another drawing of my puppy.

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The Month of May to Illustrate

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My imagination has been brewing an idea for a children’s book. I realized that I don’t have time to do both a daily sketch and to work on illustrations for my book in the few evening hours that I have to draw. I have decided to take the month of May to draw every night, but instead of producing a daily sketch, to work on my book idea. I may still be posting drawings, but they won’t be a daily occurrence.

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Daily Sketch, April 6, 2013

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I went up to Chilmark, hoping to catch some signs of spring. Although I did see some clumps of daffodils, their blossoms pointing to the ground, not the sky, with a rather defeated air, what caught my eye was the stream meandering by the field, with the tree overhanging.

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Daily Sketch, January 19, 2013

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My dog and I startled these geese as we walked on the golf course this morning. We actually startled them more than once, causing them to change location, and on this flight they were abandoning ground all together and heading towards Sengekontacket Pond.

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Daily Sketch, December 5, 2012

I was looking through photographs that I’d taken from years ago, and I found one where everyone else was engaged in talk, flipping burgers on the grill, turned away from the camera, but my niece was posing, staring at me, an energetic focus in a mediocre photo, and I decided that I had to draw her.

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Unit 4, August 26

Unit 4 Assignment

To turn in two illustrations. One based on criteria outlined in the lesson, where they can use their own characters and one colored drawing using all three characters.

 

SKETCH  1

Featuring Rosco, his friend, Crow and Cat.

I think I probably blew the collaboration part on this portion of the assignment. In using the characters that I created, I left out the motorcycle and driver. My initial thought was that Rosco would chase Cat wildly, all over the road and risk getting hit by a car, so the cross walk guard is trying to stop him. I brought the cross walk guard forward because it worked better in the composition to have her in the foreground.

SKETCH 2