Real life people get logged away & giveaway four

Artists get ideas from people in the real world. They do it all the time.

The other day I was sitting my car at a stop light and a man walked across the street in front of me. He had no chin, a giant nose, a skinny neck, and a comb over. He was drowning in his sweat shirt and had this way of walking that reminded me of a pigeon.

It was awesome. 

Since I was driving I couldn't pull out my sketchbook right then, but I logged him away in my brain for ... something later on.

Yesterday I drew him at the movies.

Observation is a great way to get ideas.


The winner of last week's giveaway is...
... J-Dawg!
(winner was chosen completely at random by drawing numbers from a bowl)
please email me at illustration(at)manelleoliphant(dot)com with your name and mailing address, and I will send you your prize 

Now if you didn't win no worries.
There are two more giveaways to go.

If you don't want to wait check out my print shop or card shop to get your own Manelle art right away. (once you have won you are no longer eligible to enter again but feel free to spread the word. ;)

Here is what you can win.

Three illustrated art prints. They are printed on Epson Velvet fin art paper and signed by me.
They are in two sizes one 5.75x8.5 and two 13x8.5 prints.  (not standard frame sizes)

To enter this contest here is what you need to do.

1. Comment below before Midnight MST on December 26, 2011 (p.s. Merry Christmas!)

You can comment anything but if you need a jump start I'd love to hear about any of your people watching experiences, or if there is any art in my portfolio that you would like to see as a print I'd love to hear that too.

2. Tweet or Facebook status a link back to this blog post.

I'll announce the winner next Thursday.
Good luck everyone. 


Love this art? Buy Prints or Cards and Gifts illustrated by Manelle.

My Sketchbook Idea Generator + Winners + Giveaway 2

Sometimes I feel like drawing but end up just staring at a blank page.

My solution?

THE SKETCHBOOK IDEA GENERATOR

This idea started at a workshop I attended about a year ago with Priscilla Burris. She had a everyone randomly write down an animal and an emotion which we then had to draw. I got an "ecstatic pig".

I enjoyed the exercise, and after some thought on it I came up with my Sketchbook Idea Generator.
I started out making some lists in a word program under the categories of: Person, Action/Emotion, Time, and Place.
This is what I came up with. (if you want to try it, feel free to print the jpg)

As you can see, some of the people aren't actually people, and things range from general to really specific. I did that on purpose

After that I printed the list, cut the words into little paper pieces and put them in envelopes in the back pocket of my sketchbook.

Now if I'm stumped on what to draw. I just pull out the envelopes, pick some papers randomly out of them, and sketch away.

I usually pick one from the person category, and anywhere from one to all of the other categories, but you can do any combo that you want.

With some of my 20 min sketches this week I've gotten: Edwardian + Cat + Car

Teenage girl + Dragon + a Snowy place

And
Clown + Sad +1700's

I'll be at it on my Sketch blog all month long so check back often to see what other ideas are generated.
You can also give it a whirl yourself. I'd love to hear about your experiences.

Now for the moment you might have been waiting for, last weeks Giveaway winner is:
# 3 Dashbo!
(winner was chosen completely at random by drawing numbers from a bowl)
contact me and I will get you your prize. 

Now if you didn't win, no worries.
There are still four more giveaways to try your typing fingers at or you can check out my print shop or card shop to get your own Manelle art right away. (once you have won you are no longer eligible to enter again)

Here is what you can win.

Three illustrated art prints. They are printed on Epson Velvet fin art paper and signed by me.
They are in two sizes one 5.75x8.5 and two 13x8.5 prints.  (not standard frame sizes)

To enter this contest here is what you need to do.

1. Comment below before Midnight MST on December 12, 2011
Tell me one or all of these things: what your favorite fairy tale is,
or if there is any art in my portfolio that you would like to see as a print,
or if you try out the "generator" I'd love a link to see your sketches.

2. Tweet or Facebook status a link back to this blog post.

I'll announce the winner next Thursday.
Good luck everyone.

Sketchbook Marathon (toy)

Last night I had a little time, and a sketchbook that's almost full. Here are two things you need to know at this point. 1. For some reason I feel the need to fill up a sketchbook all the way before I move onto the next one. 2. The sketchbook I'm using now I don't like very much.

So, I had time and about 12 pages left, and I decided to have a little sketchbook marathon to fill up the empty pages.

Well, I didn't get all the pages full. In fact I only did three sketches. I had way too much fun with the watercolors. Here they are, the first sketch (which I actually drew second) is for this weeks Illustration Friday theme "toy".

Letters Home

For this weeks  IF topic "Mail" here is what came out.  I just watched White Christmas so WWII was on the brain, my guess is the idea came from that some how.

Have you ever thought about how different movies are now compared to then? I love White Christmas but at the same time can't help but get a little annoyed at how much dancing they do. During those scenes I always think "Pretty cool dancing, but what does it have to do with anything?" I have the same problem with Singin' In the Rain when Gene Kelly is dancing in that one scene that really has nothing to do with the plot of the Movie. You know the one. I can't describe it really because let's be honest, the last couple of times I watched the movie I fast forwarded it. It seems like he knocks on some doors or something.
I love Singin' In the Rain and White Christmas but, yeah, movies are different now.
Manelle

P.S. If you haven't checked out my Blog A Story book called Accidentally The Greatest Wizard in the World you can catch the first page here. Merry Christmas!

Spooky

I recently watched what I think is my first Zombie movie, and this sketch came out of it. You can probably guess which one by the quote at the bottom. ;)  I thought about adding color but since the movie is black and white I decided the sketch should match.
It was a quick-y, but fun to do. (and I may or may not have been at church when I drew it, but I'm not admitting anything.)

Bluegrass

A couple week ago I went to the annual Bluegrass festival and instrument competition. It was great fun and besides getting a little jamming in myself I also spent a lot of time drawing the jammers, and the mountains. Here are some of my favorite sketches.

Also here is an interview I watched today that I really loved and drew a lot of artsy insight from. :)

p.s. I really don't know how I ever got a long in life with out my pocket watercolor set.

Sketches

I just filled a sketchbook. Here are some of the more recent sketches.

More from the Sketchbook.

I just barely finished writing a VERY interesting blog post about how my friend Stephen and I have been doing a sketch day this year and keeping tabs on each other by text to make sure we do it. I talked about how good its been to sketch more and probably said some other interesting stuff about how much I like looking at other peoples sketches on their art blogs so I wanted to post more of mine. Then my computer did a weird freaky thing that it had never done before and I had to restart and thus, I lost the text. So I suppose you don't get to know about all that. Here are some sketches.

A Sketchbook Page

Here is some stuff from my sketchbook.

I've been sketching everyday and it's been so fun. Good stuff is coming out.

This is me...

...I'm working really hard. Ok, ok I know it looks like I'm being sarcastic but it was a hard day. Really. Maybe you can't tell from the picture but I'm working on thumbnails for a picture book. Oi, it makes my brain hurt just thinking about it.

However, lest you feel bad for me and my hard hard life, here is what I did the day before.


I needed help with my character design for the book, so I rode my bike to the animal shelter and drew these. Have I mentioned before that I have a crush on my pocket watercolor set? Well... now you know.


And just for fun, here is my view of the Iron & Wine concert I went to last night.

Yes, I did draw while the concert was going on. But can you blame me, all those fun looking people were in front of me, and as you might be able to tell I couldn't really see the stage. The music was pretty fantastic too so all in all it was a good night.

I.F.-Shaky (warning this post may contain spoilers)

The House Of Clennam comes from Charles Dickens' book Little Dorrit. It is the house where Mrs. Clennam lives with her servants and it's totally creepy and shaky and at the end it falls down. Sorry to ruin the ending but really it's Charles Dickens' so you can pretty much conclude that there is a lot more to the ending than a house falling down. It has murders and secrets and all that. So really I didn't ruin it.
I did this sketch with pen and watercolor.

I'm such a Blog slacker.

Sorry, I've been such a blog slacker lately. So much has been going on, including a couple of funish projects I've been working on. Maybe sometime I'll show them to you.

So, here is some of what I've been up to. (In Washington DC)







Most of the sketches are form Mount Vernon. The last sketch is of some of the people on the flight home. Besides Mount Vernon I also go to see, a car on fire in Missouri, the National Gallery of Art, the Freer Gallery, (my favorite, tons of Whistler paintings, so great!), the Ruby Slippers, (who wouldn't miss out on those), and the White House. (Lucky me! Thanks again Thad!)
And there was a lot more to see but I only had 5 days and it's exhausting doing that much sight seeing.

I know that is only one week out of the four I haven't posted so what else has been going on? Well it may or may not have included seeing UP multiple times since it's come out. GO SEE IT! It's brilliant!

Sketches are still better than nothing

It's crazy how time flies. I keep meaning to post all kinds of things and not getting the stuff I can post to posting point. Thus we see that today you just get to see some more from my sketchbook. I've been having fun with it lately so I think it'll do for now.

On another note. I totally broke a hundred bowling yesterday. First time ever. My score was 101. Yippee!

Sketchbook Page.

Happy Christmas!
(Yes, yes, I know this picture has nothing to do with Christmas, but have a happy one anyway.)
Oh yeah, and my website had been updated, so check it out and let me know what you think!

A Crazy Vacation! (this post complete with sketches for your viewing pleasure)

Picture this: One motor home containing two parents and seven of their children ranging from 26 (that's me) to seven years old, (don't forget the teenagers) driving from Salt Lake City, Utah to upstate New York in 12 days. Does that sound like fun to you? Well I didn't to me either, but I went anyway and it had it's pretty great moments...and I am so glad to be home.

Sorry I haven't posted for almost a month but here are some of the sketches I did on thsis crazy vacation. I had a great time with my little micron pen.









So now you've seen the sketches I think I better just tell you what they are pictures of.

Here is the story: we went to pick up my younger brother. He has been on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This means that basically he has been hanging out in upstate New York telling people about the true gospel of Jesus Christ for two years. Pretty cool!

So any way, we went to get him and on the way home we stopped at many of the major sites in our churches history, and that is what a lot of the sketches are, excepting the Niagara Falls pictures.

Hopefully I'll have some new art to post for you soon. Have a great day!

I realized I'm Not a Fan of Scanning...

...but here are a lot of pictures anyway. One of them is my latest watercolor a day, the rest are from my sketchbook.

Sometimes I watch too Many Movies, (okay, most the time)

A lot of times I listen to Books on Tape while I draw but a lot of time I watch movies. Most days I do both. What more could you ask for in a job. Really I don't have much more to say about that except if I told you how many movies and books on tape I watch you would think me the laziest person in the world. Luckily I still get a lot of work done.

Enjoy the watercolors for this week. The first one is really a digital painting. I didn't have my watercolors that day I was in Idaho. Maybe I should buy a traveling watercolor set.