Bright on Black

I decided to take a break from drawing for ICAD today. I checked some of the blogs posts that I've saved for inspiration and come across this one from Peony and Parakeet.  I really like all the bright colors and white highlighting against the black background.  I did mine differently than she did. She watercolored on a piece of paper and then painted over the watercolor with black watercolor, leaving "windows" which she highlighted and doodled around.  I painted my backkground first, then glued on shapes cut from ICAD cards from last year. After I let everything dry well I added white highlighting from a Uniball white pen and some bright Orismacolor pencils.  I like the feeling of this.

I did do a little drawing today. I walked out the exit of Trader's Joe today and there was a women sitting on the bench, under an advertising sign, looking at her smart phone with an expression on her face that said she was feeling very joyful at that moment.  I immediately thought that would be a nice scene to sketch and made a mental note to try to do that later in the day.After I finished my ICAD card I opened my sketchbook and sketched this.  I didn't capture her expression well, but the whole scene looks fairly accurate and it is a good check for what areas I need to work on.  I can immediately see that my perspective needs work and creating  realistic facial expressions.