Hello!

 Just checking in to say I am still alive but less active here, obviously.  You can find my more recent art posts on social media, especially Instagram @jwogaman.  But you may also see more here in the near future.

Happy Holidays 2020

Here's the winter holiday card image for 2020. This is my first holiday card created entirely in Procreate on my new iPad Pro. 

I had some ideas that would have captured the craziness of this year, but decided against them in favor of something cozy and peaceful.  I send my card to about 50 people and I haven't kept up with all of them over the course of the year.  There's a good chance that a few of them are in a very bad place right now.  An image of a tree with Covid-shaped ornaments might not go over too well.

I hope you are reading this post from a safe and healthy place. If not, I hope the new year brings healing and hope. 

Pandemic pen-n-inking

I drew the image above first in pencil, then inked it with a Pigma Micron size 01 pen in an old hard-sided wirebound sketchbook with good quality, acid-free pages (maybe a Strathmore 400 series?). It's not for a particular project. Just for fun. We're all a bit more trapped indoors these days. So to keep from being driven too crazy by that, I'm doing drawings that play up how cozy and inviting home can be. 

Happy Holidays 2019!

This year's card image -- elves on the bookshelves.  Hand drawn on paper with Pigma Micron pens in various sizes.  The touches of color are watercolor.  The greeting inside is a simple "Happy Holidays!" in the same red that the elves are wearing.  Once again, the printer of choice was moo.com.

Season's Greetings 2018

Another year, another holiday greeting card image... pen-and-ink with watercolor.

Holiday card 2017

Here is this year's holiday card image. The inside of the card reads: Knit a New Year!

I still exist and I've finally finished a Christmas card image for 2016...

Shine on ....

May your holidays be filled with light and joy!

Holiday Card 2015

This year's holiday greeting card image:

That's old fashioned pen and ink with watercolor.  No digital enhancements.

I ordered the cards from Moo.com, and I couldn't be happier.  The greeting I chose for inside this year is "Happy Winter!" Not everyone on my list celebrates holidays in December, but they all live in the northern hemisphere.

This year's Christmas card

Here's what I've been working on today:

For my personal 2014 Christmas cards.  It took me a long time to come up with an idea for an image for this year's card.  I drew pages and pages of sketches of pffft before I settled on this.  Don't ask me how I came to think of doing a watercolor of Tudor style birdhouses, but once I landed on the idea, I knew it was the one.

New Zazzle shop

I have a new Zazzle shop at http://www.zazzle.com/jeanwogaman*

I have only posted two products so far -- a greeting card and a coffee mug -- both using the same holiday card image from 2011 (see below).  I am assured by the Zazzle website elves that the products will appear in my shop within the next 24 hours.

I created the shop for folks who've told me they'd like to be able to order batches of Christmas cards with this image.  If any of you do end up ordering them, please let me know about your experience dealing with Zazzle and your impression of the quality of their products.  I hope to be adding more items to the shop on a regular basis, but only if the company produces quality products and treats its customers well.

Now I'm off to design a Christmas card for my own use this year...

Merry Christmas!

This year's Christmas card image, brought to you by a combination of pencil sketching, Corel Painter 12, and Photoshop.  Have wonderful holidays, everyone!

More sketches ... and plans

As you can probably tell from the subject matter, I do most of my sketching these days during church.

 

One month ago, I went from working a part-time office day job for a tiny non-profit to a full-time administrative position at a mid-sized university.  The increase in income and benefits are a welcome relief, and I get to interact with a lot of interesting people, but I do miss all the extra hours I had for writing and drawing.  

As I've been learning the complex systems of a much larger organization, I've put my own creative projects completely on hold (unless you count sketching during the sermon).  I wanted to be sure my new employer reaped the full benefits of my mental energy.  But now that I'm more accustomed to how things are done, I feel free to pour some of that energy back into art.  Yesterday, I began sketching from imagination again with a vague idea of producing a Christmas card design.  The pencil sketches, above, of kids making a snowman are from my first stab at getting into that mindset.  I'll do some more this evening and hope to have a Christmas card image ready to submit to an online company for printing by the end of the Thanksgiving weekend.  

I also have a novel waiting for its writer.  It's one that I was deeply into writing this past summer, but had to set aside in mid-September when someone near and extremely dear to me had a stroke.  That special someone is now recovering nicely, and I will happily re-enter my fictional world during the university's generous Christmas vacation.  

IF: Moustache

This week's Illustration Friday topic has me dipping back into the archives for a couple of pencil sketches I did many years (decades even) ago of a former sister-in-law's cat, who happened to be named "Moustache."  Said kitty had this name because of the distinctive white markings above his mouth.

About a year ago, I scanned the sketches, then fiddled around with them using my new Painter software.  What you see above are the results of my play with the grainy watercolor brush.  Moustache, who died many years ago, was not a ginger cat, as my doodling would seem to suggest, but a seal point Siamese.  The white fur moustache really stands out against the familiar black-to-tan coloring.  It's too bad Moustache isn't around anymore to model his proper colors for me. 

(Psst, Blogger, you need to add the word "moustache" to your spelling dictionary. It really is an acceptable alternative to "mustache.")

Life changes my plans

Sorry for taking so long to post again. In mid-September, someone extremely near and dear to me experienced a medical crisis that, while her condition has improved somewhat in recent days, has not fully cleared. Circumstances have demanded that I make more use of a different set of skills for a while.  I did get a bit of sketching in before the crisis hit, however, and managed a few quick sketches during Sunday morning sermons, but getting a sketch done each day of the week has suddenly become a low priority.

Here are the sketches I did manage to get down before life changed my focus:

You might get the idea, from a few of the sketches above, that I was having some headache issues during the week of September 9th.  You would be quite correct.  Don't worry; they were not serious.  They seem merely to have been related to a combination of tension (as I was engaged in a search for a new job--having determined I need the full-time-with-benefits kind at this point in my life) and ragweed allergies.  The headaches seem especially inconsequential given what happened at the end of the week.  At any rate, I was clear-headed enough to have fun trying to translate the pain into drawings.

Here are the Sunday morning sketches from my little Moleskine:

You may notice that the last sketchbook page above is dated 10/6/2013.  That's because I have decided to revamp my September challenge to make it an ongoing one in which I attempt to average a sketch a day from here on out.  Here's hoping life will allow ...

Big batch of September sketches

As you can see, I was in a rather pensive mode in the middle of last week.

On Sunday, I did a bunch of quick sketches of people in church in my little Moleskine again.  It's a lot easier to draw the folks sitting in the pews than it is to draw the musicians and the pastors, who keep moving on me.  

When I'm out of the house, I'm usually drawing with a ballpoint pen.  At home, I tend to use pencil, at least for preliminary sketching.  I think I'll try practicing more with using the pen at the outset.  See if I can develop a more confident ink line.

Now I need to go do my sketch for today.  I'll post it with my next batch.

200th post(!!!) and Sketch-a-day September: Day 1

Hello all!  It's hard to believe -- especially considering I haven't posted since July -- that this is my 200th blog post.  Thanks for visiting and making it all seem worthwhile!  Raise your coffee mugs and toast yourselves!

Sorry it's been so long since I last posted.  I've just started the first draft of a brand new novel, and it is consuming a great deal of creative energy.  I came up for air a few days ago and saw that one of my fellow bloggers, Coreopsis, is doing an art challenge: 29 Faces in September.  (You should check out the blog; there are some great pieces up already!)  That got me thinking about how I have trouble drawing with regularity when I'm starting into a new novel.  A simple daily challenge for the month may be just the ticket for re-instilling a daily sketching habit.

So here is my first sketch for Sketch-a-day September:

As you can see (or I hope you can see), I drew this in church during the sermon.  I keep this small Moleskine in my purse at all times.  (I wish more folks would sit in the pews like the guy at the top.  His was a much more interesting pose to draw.)

The Sketch-a-day September Challenge:  I have decided that my Sketch-a-day sketch can be as simple or complex as I feel up to making it or have time for that day.  I can spend just three minutes on the piece or three hours.  Multi-tasking is fine (drawing while riding the subway or listening to a sermon or sitting in a meeting or watching TV or talking on the phone). And any subject matter will do (I'm not interested in limiting my challenge to faces).  From life or from imagination.  Realistic or abstract.  The sketch can even be a half-assed effort, but it can't be so bad that I won't share it here. But I must draw one (at least) sketch per day, and I must post it on the blog. No whipping out seven sketches on the weekend and then posting them spread out over the week.  (Although it may have to be acceptable to sketch each weekday and post all the efforts on the weekend.  This challenge is about instilling a habit of sketching each day -- not scanning and posting each day.)  I WILL sketch EVERY DAY, even if I'm under the weather.

Feel free to join me, or join Coreopsis in the 29 faces challenge.  Perhaps you have some other trick you use to keep motivated.  If so, please share it in the comments!

Illustration Friday: Jungle

For this week's quick pencil sketch on the Illustration Friday theme "Jungle," I thought, jungle means lots of trees. Then I thought, trees means treehouses.  And as anyone who has followed this blog for awhile knows, I love to draw treehouses.

Illustration Friday: Robot

Illustration Friday: Equality

Jeremy wishes Mom weren't always so keen on keeping things equal between him and Melody. But he's not as miffed as he would be if he knew that Melody is pulling Mom's arm to the left.

Meanwhile, Mom is thinking, If this cake were chocolate, I'd so be splitting it three ways!

Illustration Friday: Surveillance

The above image is a Painter 12 pen-and-ink redo of an illustration I have done two versions of before.  I think it fits this week's Illustration Friday topic well.

The previous incarnations were to be sample cover designs for the portfolio, however, neither is up to that standard.  The scene is based on image I have in my head for an early middle grade work in progress.  (This particular scene, which would occur near the end, has yet to be written.)  As you can see, I was exploring (somewhat clumsily) with different media:

I did this first, rather heavy-handed, job using pen-and-ink, watercolor, and colored pencil on Arches hot press paper.  I (inexpertly) touched up the image in Photoshop, then did the (very amateurish) layout also in Photoshop.  

I have gotten bit better with Photoshop since then.  I think that shows a little better in my next stab at the cover:

Here I was going for a scratchboard effect.  I did a pencil sketch, scanned it in, then inverted the black and white. I used the eraser tool to scrape away the black, then added the color to a background layer.  I like the boldness of this style, but the characters need more expressiveness.  The layout is still limited by my inexperience with certain features in Photoshop.  I am hard at work on my InDesign skills, however, so that should be moot point soon.