One of the many nights my sister and I spent hidden away in blanket forts reading fairy tales by flashlight. (Watercolor and Colored pencil on Arches 300lb cold press)
I tried to keep it simple since painting glowy light is very new to me, but might revisit this again after I watch some more classes and feel like I can add all the things I wanted to.

Keep to the path through the wood and don’t ever stop!

Materials are watercolor, Colored pencil, cut paper, and chalk. I don’t have any digital capabilities so I’m experimenting with ways to use traditional art and still have the depth and dimension I want.

I asked my 10 year old what she would do in a mushroom village and she didn’t even hesitate, “play hide and seek!” So, here it is. Hide and seek in the mushroom village. I should have done the whole thing bigger. Sorry if it’s a bit blurry. It’s watercolor, colored pencil and cut paper. No digital because I don’t know how. ️

I’m not sure if I took this one too far... but I got a little excited. Does a poster style mashup with Labyrinth count? I did a few more than 4 characters.

I've actually been planning and sketching and working this one out in my head for quite a while. I love cut paper and tiny things so I made this candy tin illustration/ diorama (inspired by Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere")this month. It feels like you open the lid on a tiny magical world. I'll definitely be making more. It took a lot of planning to figure out how I wanted the layers and then I had to paint and place all these impossibly small elements, but it was really fun.

Here’s mine! Aside from seeing the growth over a year, highlights for me include actually finishing the Draw 50 things assignment, having Mindy Kahling share my sketch on her Instagram, and participating in MerMay.

I also can't figure out how to post more than one photo at a time. Grrrrr. Me and technology.

This little sketch was probably my most honest and vulnerable piece this year. And, as unplanned and quickly done as it was, I love how simple and true it is.

Here's a little illustration that popped into my head today. Obviously, it isn't perfect, but I'm happy with the general composition. Still trying to find a way to work on lighting.

@demotlj Thank you!!! That is so helpful.

@demotlj a light box, like a projector? I’ve thought about trying to track one of those down honestly! Maybe I should look at Facebook marketplace. Someone’s got to have one lying around.
I’m terrible with technology. But my husband is super techy. If you know the name of the program your friend uses, I can see if my husband could help me try that. I can’t imagine how nice it would be to work off of an actual thumbnail I like.

This is a great idea. I'm adding it to my "to do" list.

Thats awesome! Congratulations!

@LisaF I was able to get on this one! That was awesome. I needed that little break. And something about it being a live zoom meeting made my kids okay with giving me a bit of time in my office.

@carlianne that’s a good idea. It kinda limits me to 8.5x11 but it’s bigger than my usual 4x6. ️ I’ve seen people transfer images using chalk before.

@demotlj that’s so awesome. It really is a great platform for meeting. I think their servers were probably a bit overloaded this week with all the schools and churches setting up meetings.

@Jake-Parker @Lee-White @Will-Terry This was awesome. I love watching you guys on YouTube. I was just wondering if any of you had some tips for traditional painters going from that thumbnail to the bigger piece? I have struggled so much with this and it seems like all of you guys have just dealt with this problem digitally. I don’t have a digital option, though, so I either just make a lot of tiny art, or out of frustration, skip the thumbnails all together. I just try to rough it out big on throw-away paper to settle on a design. Thumbnails are important, but if you can’t get that image to go bigger, if feels like a giant disappointment. This is a HUGE hang up for me. Any advice for someone who is doing it all traditionally?

@Jake-Parker Armand Baltazar is amazing too and very responsive and open to sharing his process on Instagram.

@LisaF thanks Lisa. I was also wondering, I keep getting email invited to “become a member” of SVS so I can join the live meetings. I haven’t gotten any of the invites to the critique arenas. I don’t want to miss this but, for some reason I’m only on the promo emails instead of the member ones. Do I need to change something in my email settings?