Emmett

I am pretty pleased with how well this one turned out, considering how much time I put into it, lol. This was my friend's dog Emmett standing in the Truckee river. I thought Emmett would be pretty routine, but I did have a few difficulties. Since Emmett is a black dog, he's (obviously) supposed to be drawn dark. But since he's wet, his fur has a shine to it, and I had a hard time trying to make it seem like shiny but dark fur. Not to mention his fur was in clumps, which I don't think I showed very well. It turned out alright, I guess. BUT! In drawing this picture, I learned the importance of drawing dark things in layers with patience instead of taking your softest pencil and drawing hard. Because that's exactly what I did and almost ruined the picture because you could see every stroke I made. It took some time trying to cover that up and you can still see it pretty well. But the perk of drawing hard in graphite is he's definitely dark and still shiny! I can just attribute the shine to him being wet, lol.

But the reason I'm so proud of this picture is because despite how hard Emmett was, the water in the background was the really hard part! I spent a lot of time and sketch paper trying to get it right before I attempted it behind Emmett and risked having to draw him over again in cased I messed up. I'm still not completely happy with it, but it's very obviously water, which is what matters I guess. At least I got the fading away part instead of looking like he's standing in a wall of water :P
I did Emmett in graphite and the background in charcoal in an attempt to make Emmett more noticeable and the background more, well, backgroundy. But that backfired on me, because then the water turned out darker than Emmett and stood out more, so I had to go back and darken Emmett. I also did the closer water darker and the farther water lighter in an attempt to bring the focus on Emmett's darker head in the middle of a lighter background. But that backfired on me too because Emmett's body was darker than his head, so now the bottom of the picture is too dark and the top is too light and the whole thing looks uneven. But it turned out decently and my friend likes it, and I certainly learned a lot from every screwup on this picture! Every mistake is an opportunity to grow :)

Emmett the black lab standing in water. Emmett was done in graphite and the background in charcoal.

Charra

This was Nita's 2nd horse, Charra. As much as I like horses, after this one I was very happy to start drawing a dog! As least they don't wear saddles :P And the saddle took a long time too, because in the original picture Nita was riding Charra and I edited her out and made up my own details (which I need much more practice at.... it took a lot of time researching different kinds of saddles)
This picture took a while because I couldn't find the motivation to draw. I was pretty tired of horses as this point. But I'm happy the way it turned out. I did mess up on one of the saddle ties, let's see how many people can find it. It stands out to me because I'm my own worst critic, but I'm hoping most people won't notice it, lol. Nita was very happy with both of her pictures and took me horseback riding in thanks. We had a fun day :)  (although I didn't ride either of the horses I drew, lol)

Nita's horse Charra, done in graphite

Daxter

Unfortunately, I had to draw my friend KJ's picture first because it was a Christmas present for her daughter-in-law of her horse. So even though I promised Nita's pictures first, I ended up finishing KJ's before Nita's. And even that was pretty late, as I got really busy with my last semester of college (!!!). I have to say, drawing this horse was MUCH easier than Nita's horses, as in this picture, he wasn't wearing a saddle with all the damn straps going everywhere. This was a pretty quick draw and both KJ and her daughter-in-law were happy with it :)

KJ's daughter's horse, Daxter, done in graphite

Rock Lee

I did a little experiment. I drew an anime picture of Rock Lee from Naruto, but tried to make it look real. It turned out looking great, but it's still obviously anime so I guess technically it's a failed experiment. I like it though! :) I took a picture of my little brother in this position and when I get a chance, I'm going to use that picture as a model and try again to make it look realistic. When I get a chance!

Rock Lee from Naruto. This was done purely in graphite

Drawings

I've got some awesome friends at school! I drew another picture of Briar, which turned out awesome:

Yet another picture of my puppy Briar. This one was done in graphite and a little bit of carbon.

And I was showing it off to some of my friends and one of them commissioned me to draw a picture of her two horses. I finished this one:

My friend's horse. Also graphite and carbon

And I still have one more to do. But when news got around that I was drawing my friend's horse for her, I started getting a bunch of requests. On top of horse #2, I have 4 more pictures to do: two of dogs, one of a horse, and one of a person. And those are just my friends - my horsey friend said she's been showing off her picture to her other horsey friends and a whole bunch of them want me to do their horses too. So I gave her a stack of my business cards and maybe I'll be getting a few more requests soon. Also, another friend wants me to make her daughter a piece of jewelry for her birthday. I still have a bit of time to do that so I haven't started, but I did finish a necklace for another friend (I didn't take any pictures of it though). I gave that to her today and she's been showing it off to anybody who will listen, lol. I've already got one more (tentative) request for another piece. So as far as selling goes, I'm doing same as always (nada at Wildflower Village or Etsy), but as far as requests go and making and selling those, I'm doing great! I've never had so much work before, makes me really happy :)

Busybusybusy!

I don't have any new pictures to post, since I've been busy with final exams coming up, but once those are over, I'll be able to draw and make jewelry ALL SUMMER!! -^.^- I have made a couple of things though, just haven't taken pictures. Because my friend Erica is treasurer of the UNR Rock Hounds club and they had a big mineral sale a couple weeks ago to clean out the rooms, I got in on the deal! I got really excited when she said they had raw opals and she saved them all especially for me! So I got first choice and though they were really cheap (and a few were even cut!), I ended up blowing $100 just on those, not to mention the rest of the stones I got. I plan to go all out on these pendants! -^.^- I've already done one, but I'm not putting a picture up since it's for my mom for mother's day, but once she gets it in the mail, I'll put the picture up for you guys to Ooh and Ahh. It's pretty, I hope she likes it :) I've also wire-wrapped a couple of more blown-glass beads. Again, I'll put those pictures up when I get a chance.

As far as selling goes, I've been doing pretty good! I've sold 4 items at Wildflower Village, a little store that I have a consignment with, and 3 more to a friend via Etsy. I made business cards and have been handing them out like crazy (and seemingly at random). So far, it hasn't seemed to help in sales except for my friend Susan. It turns out, she works for a tv producing company that sells jewelry on tv!! Of course, it's really high-end stuff and there's no way I'm going to ever be able to put my stuff up for sale like that, but she knows some pretty cool people and since she bought a few of my pieces, she says she'll wear them around and hand out business cards for me! Thank you Susan, you rock! :D  She also said that my pieces were waay underpriced and she sells stuff at work that looks like mine but for hundreds! I decided to raise my prices since it's probably the economy and lack of advertising that's not getting me sales, not my prices. And when I do make a sale, I might as well get some money out of it, right? :)  But you, my followers, luck out because although my prices have risen, I made a coupon code for you guys. Put in JIBUNWOSHINJITE at checkout and I'll give you 40% off! You don't have to tell me I rock, I know it :)

Denise and Baby Leia

I think these pictures keep getting better :)  It's fun to watch myself progress, especially when it's progressing picture by picture! It's fun to see how terrible my first drawing was and then compare it to my most recent drawing, which is like drawing No. 4 or something. I've put jewelry on the back burner for now and brought drawing up to the front of my stove -- I mean mind. But I just found some really cheap raw opals thanks to a good friend and I have a feeling jewelry-making is making a quick comeback :)  Anyway, this drawing was done mostly with graphite with some charcoal. I'm still not satisfied with Leia's eyes, it's just so hard to capture the emotion and pure joy in her eyes. But other than that, this is a picture I can be proud of  :)