Mixed Media WIP

Found this old watercolor I attempted awhile ago. Fixed it up a bit. I may or may not finish it as the watercolor paper I used at the time is absolutely pathetic. Not mixed media friendly...

Assignment,  a whimsical elephant. He's a war elephant, like the stories about Hannibal. 

Watercolor Tip of the Day:

When sketching the watercolor, use a water soluble pencil. (such as a light watercolor pencil)

Once graphite gets wet it is permanent, no erasing, so unless you want the pencil look, don't use a regular pencil.

My Process: The Hobbit

In celebration of the release of The Hobbit on DVD today, (Yay!) I'll share the process of my drawing of Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins.

Here's an idea of what my drawing process is. 

 I start out with a sketch. Make sure everything is in proportion. I started on a little shading before I thought to take a picture. Needs to be a very light sketch.

 I always start with the eyes. (Or one eye it seems) I play around with other parts of the drawing to get a feel for it.

 Did the other eye, and started on the hair. Also started on the nose.

 Laid down the darkest shading on his face, to be blended out later on.

 Lay down some more pencil, and start on the sword. 

Only got half an eyebrow there Bilbo.

Now it sort of looks like Martin Freeman, and not some scary guy.

Blend the skin and the blade, begin on the hair. Nose is finally shaped right. (After looking at other references)

 Lay down some pencil on the skin to give it some texture. Begin sketching out the background.

 Darken the contrasts. Do a little more hair so I can see where the background will end.

 Started on the jacket. Added highlights to his face.

 Added some shading to the background. Almost finished with the jacket. Hair is about done.

A lot has happened since the last drawing. I finished the sword blade, and background. The jacket is just about complete. At this point I'm just darkening shadows, upping the contrast.

He's not yet complete, I have one more picture that will go here once I finish the jacket and contrast.

Little African Girl

In the summer of 2012 my family traveled to Africa for five weeks of mission work with my grandparents. There were dozens of great photo opportunities and drawing references that I haven't gotten to till now.

This weekend my family attended a conference and I worked on this drawing. I got her finished in three days, with around 10 hours of sporadic work.

My dad took an adorable picture of this little girl who was listening to me tell the Bible story. Now almost eight months later, I was going through the photos from our trip and put this one to the side.

All Content Copyright Rachel Fetting 2013

Dragon Flower

The assignment was to draw a dragon. I finished him in about two days, the flower taking a large portion of time to shade.

I haven't drawn a dragon since I was a kid. (Spyro!) So this was a fun assignment, once I came up with an idea I liked. I also enjoyed drawing the tiny dragon that blends into the flower's center. The dragon itself is about 1x2 inches.

Colors of the Wind

Colors of the Wind 3/6/13

This is my latest art piece, done with watercolor and a sharpie. I'm really diggin mixed media lately. I spent about 5 hours on this guy, mostly because I wasn't happy with how he looked. The assignment was to do an expressionistic horse. Franz Marc, cornered the blue horse market back in the early 1900s, so I decided to make mine a bit more colorful. :) 

What I learned: Stepping outside of my Artistic comfort zone can be a great learning experience. I rather enjoyed using crazy colors and a different style than I usually use. It was freeing in a way.