Making Art

I've been 'doing art' since I was a tiny child, and working as a professional artist or designer all of my adult life. But as a 'commercial' artist, it seems that everything I do professionally is an assignment or job, not necessarily creating art for arts sake.

My digital design/ scrapbooking is most often what I do that's sort of 'art for arts sake'.... except it's not really that either.

Two weeks ago when I was in Utah, I had the opportunity to stay with my brother and sister-in-law. My SIL Joanne is a very creative person, and she loves to work in her studio, painting in watercolor, and planning and sketching mural projects and other artistic ventures. She and her sister (and my bestie) Nancy, who lives here in So. Cal, have set up a weekly 'creative class' together. They paint, take online classes, and do iPhone FaceTime together, inspiring each other, and sharing each other's work. Nancy is an accomplished watercolorist, and has recently begun exhibiting her work, and accepting commissions. So, when I was visiting Joanne, I participated in their weekly FaceTime, just talking about art, and projects, and getting more and more inspired myself. One thing I've been wanting to do for a long time, is to do some color drawing projects. Just for me. As a designer and illustrator, I rarely do "fine art". But you know, I'm not getting any younger! I don't plan to be a painter- no watercolors or oils or acrylics for me. I'm must more comfortable with pen and ink,  Prismacolor colored pencils, or perhaps in the future, pastels.

So, using one of the photos I shot in Utah, I decided to use it to inspire a color drawing. Smallish, just for fun. I pushed myself to finish it, because, while I can easily spend 6 hours on a complicated digital illustration, doing a 5x7 Prismacolor drawing seemed daunting. But over the course of a few days- a few minutes here, an hour or so there, I finally finished it.

Not a work of art, but I think it's decent. So, now I'm a maker of art.