Doodles I've done over the past few months

I just got back from another trip.  You read in a post I did a couple of years ago how someone asked if I was a Zentangle artist.  I had no idea what this was so Googled it and found it was a form of doodling.  I was leaving on a trip the next day so took a sketch pad and a black Sharpie which I used to doodle with while riding in our car.  I found it was a great way to kill time and create art at the same time.  Everything I did in the next year was in black and white but last year I decided to add color to my doodles.  Since then I have been on a number of trips both flying and driving and I have always taken my sketch pad and bag of colored sharpies and magic markers with me.  When I got back from this most recent trip I realized I had 35 doodles that done in the past year that I had not scanned into my computer.  Since I have no painting project I had to work on I decided to take the time to scan and to combine the scanned images onto sheets with 4 to 6 images on each sheet.  I spent most of yesterday and all of this afternoon doing that.  I am posting the 8 sheets below.  Keep in mind that most of these doodles were done in a moving vehicle.  A few of them were done in waiting rooms or other places where I had time to kill and wanted something to help me pass that time.  None of these were done at home.

Click on each sheet to enlarge the images so you can see all the detail.  When I do one of these I have no idea what the finished drawing will look like.  I just randomly start drawing lines and shapes and fill in with color and then do the detail work.  I still have no idea of  how to use these images I have been collecting. I want to keep the originals but can print off copies. At this point the only thing I can think to do with them is to use them on greeting cards.  Another idea is to  print a larger size of the doodle and sell it as a print to be framed. I wonder if they would sell?  I have never sold prints before.  It is something to think about.

  I have another long trip planned later in May so you can expect to see more doodles when I get back.  In the mean time I hope to get back to cleaning and organizing my shop tomorrow.  Once that is done I will start painting again.

Happy Easter 2015

I have had two commissions to work on last week.  The first was for a couple from CA who were visiting some friends of ours.  They came to the house to see my work and bought a butterfly tray and commissioned me to do a painting of a quail.  They wanted the tail to overflow onto the frame.  I happened to have the perfect frame for the project.  Before I had it done they called because they decided to also buy a divided dish with a quail on it that they had seen while here.  Below is a photo of the painting and also the two other pieces they bought.

The other commission was for a friend who had a small table that her father had built many years ago. She wanted me to paint it as a companion piece to a small step stool that she had bought from me last year.  Below are photos of both.

Before I got these commissions I had prepped a couple of items which I put aside to do the commissioned projects.  After they were completed I finished work on the prepped items.  The first is a wood carved coyote and the other a medium sized bowl that decorated with butterflies.

I took a photo of each side of this little guy. The next photo is of the butterfly bowl.

Now that I am caught up with all my work it is time to give my shop a good spring cleaning.  The last few times I cleaned I did a quick surface clean.  This time it has to be a top to bottom cleaning.  Time to sort through things and get rid of old dried bottles of paint, old beat up brushes and junk that I have collected over the years.  I'm not looking forward to it but it must be done!

I hope everyone had a Happy, Blessed Easter Day.