June 2008 – Dabbled

Robot Bathtime – or an excuse to try out my new watercolor pencils

Dot — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:46:00 +0000

I tend to draw on paper, then color in photoshop. And i haven’t done watercolors in years, and my oils/acrylics haven’t seen the light of day since i had a toddler running around the house. But a trip to the art store today led to an impulse purchase of watercolor pencils, and i’ve been playing with the all night. Here’s one of the better attempts!

Robot Bathtime

Illustration Friday – "Fierce"

Dot — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:17:00 +0000

A request to my dear readers — do you think any of these are portfolio worthy? I have such a blind spot for my own work. Any honest advice appreciated!

This is a quick coloring job of a concept sketch i did for a new project. The line work is rough, but I think they are cute anyway :). Check out the new Dabbled contest – summer doldrums!
These guys try very hard to be fierce!

Dabbled Summer Doldrums Contest

Dot — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:11:00 +0000

I think it’s time for another Dabbled contest. We can’t wait all the way to halloween, can we? Cuz you know there is going to be a killer Halloween contest.

Remember the Black Heart Anti-Valentine’s Day contest and the April Fool Contest!?

But until then…
The theme is Summer Doldrums. Beat the heat (or cold, if you’re in that part of the world)! Arts & Crafts that celebrate summer, particularly stuff for kids (or for kids at heart). Accepted are: artwork, crafts, & tutorials. I’m going to ask some of our past winners to be judges this time (unless they want to enter themselves!). There will be prizes (TBA, but they will include both fun kids stuff & original artwork… Plus the fame and fortune that comes with links back to your blog! If you’d like to donate a prize — let me know -dot-at-dabbled-org-). Spread the word, the more the merrier!

Post links to your entry here.
(edit) Deadline will be July 31!

Click here to read about the judges.

Inspirations…

Dot — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:51:00 +0000

Some links to check out!

In forcing herself to get out of her creative funk, The Caffinated Crafter produced this cute little critter. I love him! (and on etsy!)

Little Arty Crafty Crow creates adorable yet slightly creepy little dressed up animals. (on etsy too!)

Bitter Betty has a tutorial/recipe for making an organic Strawberry Lime jam. Yummy!

Really simple graphic tutorial on making felt balls, by Verrito (via whipup.net)

Fabulous give-away at The Secret is in The Sauce. A real bounce castle! I could so get the boy tired out if i had one of those… (via Tip Junkie)

More webby goodness

Dot — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:52:00 +0000

More web spring cleaning…
2 things:
1) I updated my RSS feed – even though i’ve had a feed through feedburner forever, for some reason I was still using the standard blogger feed. So, hopefully i didn’t screw anything up when i changed that. So, if you’ve been reading this feed for a while, pls post and let me know that you still see it :)

2) I joined Twitter. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s kinda like a mini blog for quickie updates. Not sure exactly what i’m going to do with it, but i figured it would be a good way to post what progress i’m making on being productive during my sabbatical, without a bunch of tiny blog posts. I also added the RSS to it so if you follow it you’ll see when any new posts are posted here. So, if you’re interested (or a stalker) feel free to follow me on http://twitter.com/DotatDabbled. I also added the widget to my sidebar. And post here if you have a twitter because I’d like to check out what some other people are doing with it.

Charcoal sketch

Dot — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:05:00 +0000

And now for something completely different!
I was playing around with my charcoal pencils and decided to do something realistic. I haven’t drawn like this in ages, but I thought it would be a good brain exercise.

Nancy's Art

Dot — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:20:19 +0000

I’ve posted a great deal of art on Dabbled–watercolors, cartoons, and of course, lots of robots! You can always pop over to my art portfolio (nancydorsner.com) site to see it, but here’s where it’s been blogged.

Welcome to the craft section!

Dot — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:51:40 +0000

Here you’ll find some of the craft goodness we’ve created on Dabbled.

Like what? Well… lots of stuff! You’ll find tutorials — you’ll see some featured ones in the sidebar here, or see all of the tips/tutorials posts. Some of our best tutorials are from our great guest bloggers. Do you have a great tutorial you’d like to guest blog here? Just email it to submit.

You’ll also find

Shrinky Dinks from Recycled Plastic (Lots of experiments and projects)
Freezer Paper Stencils
Recycled Sweater Projects, like the Elephant Purse, the Sweater Snake, the Octo-puppet, Monster Puppets, a Wine Cozy, and more!

Another Nursery Rhyme – Miss Muffet

Dot — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 05:16:00 +0000

The Boy keeps repeating Little Miss Muffet and it keeps going through my head. So I felt the need to do this, just for the heck of it.

Pencil sketch, colored in Photoshop.

Previous Dark Nursery Rhymes are here…

A nifty photoshop tip for working with line art

Dot — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 02:42:00 +0000

I adore Tom Richmond’s MAD blog. He posted a great tip for working with scanned line art in photoshop a few weeks ago, and i finally got around to trying it on the drawing i’m currently working on. It works great! It even works great on the scanned pencil sketches that I like to do because I’m too lazy to ink them. Check it out..!… [ KEEP READING ]