Day 10 – 100 Animals

Had a contributing artist joining me today for my drawing session. She was very excited to add spots of colour to the page.

Day 9 – 100 Animals

As mentioned previously, I gave in to my need to draw cute dogs… Do you have a favourite animal?

Happy weekend!

Day 8 – 100 Animals

Half way through…and first storm of the season! Winter has officially arrived. Perfect time to stay in an be creative. It’s the first time that I am having fun with a sketchbook and trying out different things. Are you keeping a sketch book?

Day 7 – 100 Animals

Alight more dogs, but I am trying to mix it up again with. Sausage dogs are the weirdest creatures. And it’s been a long time since I drew a capybara. Here is the whole collection, in case you missed them. You can also find the odd Capybara in my Etsy shop.

I love ink. And yes it can get messy…

Day 6 – 100 Animal

I am still a dog person. I just love drawing dogs.

Adding some colour to the black and white… good to dust off those watercolours as well.

What is your favourite medium?

INKtober warm-up

Summer came and went. I am trying once again to get out of hibernation with a step by step plan. I tidied up my desk and drawers. I realised that the most valuable possessions I have are a dozen ink bottles and the piles of watercolour paper that I accumulated over the years and never used. Let’s not mention the box of Caran d’Ache coloured pencils that I bought one by one…Just like books, buying art supplies is just too tempting wherever I am. Time to use them all!

So follow along for my September plan. Join in if you want!

  • draw 100 animals
  • dust off my pencils
  • take out my ink again
  • have fun with my sketch book
  • draw daily for at least 20 min

This will be my INKtober warm up. Last year was the first year after 7 continuous years of participating in Inktober that I skipped it. Will try to make up for it this year.

Are you planning to do Inktober?

Art vs Artist

Another year is slowly coming to an end. I feel like I haven´t done much illustration wise, but going through my files it actually looks like I got more done than I thought I did.

I tried lots of new things – media and styles – started on my own book projects (more about that soon) and I am looking forward to see where this journey will take me next year!
How about you? Did you try anything new this year?

Art vs Artist 2023_Melanie Franz Illustration

Jungle Plates

Design practice for a set of jungle themed plates. I used the same drawings as for the dominoes and edited them digitally.

2302 Jungle Plates design_Melanie Franz

Jungle Dominoes

Did these also for the illustration course in February. In hindsight I should have done the drawings digitally, as it would have saved a lot of time. I might redo it again at some point. It was still a great exercise.

2302 Design sheet_jungle dominoes_Melanie Franz

Illustration practice IV

Another slight changed master copy. My favourite so far. It will get a spot on the wall for sure. You might be familiar with the boat crew. Original illustration by Janosch.

Ink and watercolour.

Have a great weekend!

My version

22 Janosh Fox fishing _Melanie Franz

The original by Janosch.

Illustration practice III

Another attempt at a master copy with my own spin. As a child I absolutely loved the stories and illustrations by Janosch. Maybe you have come across the Tigerente (lit. tiger duck)at some point? Absolutely love his whimsical style and his bear and tiger character. However, instead of copying his character I sneaked in Mr Fox’s cousin.

22 Janosh _Fox boat_Melanie Franz

Meet the Artist

Adding a new piece to my portfolio. Almost happy how it turned out. This is the third version. Ink, watercolour and coloured pencils on mixed media paper.

2304 Meet the Artist_Melanie Franz

Illustration practice II

Another attempt at a master copy which I then decided to put my own spin on it. Original “Buried Head” by Souther Salazar.

Watercolour, ink, and coloured pencils.

2203 The Bird_Melanie Franz

Illustration practice

Last year I did a couple of master copies of famous artworks. This one is based on ‘Smokey Face’ by N.C. Wyeth.

Watercolour and coloured pencil.

2203 The horse_Melanie Franz

One Week 100 People

It took me much longer than a week, due to the flu, but I eventually finished them all. I also was colouring some of them in and still want to colour in the rest. I really struggled in the end to get to 100 but I can also see a definite improvement from the first page. I haven’t been drawing people for a while, so this was a great exercise.

Next I think I will do 100 animals 🙂

Making Bubbles

Something easy and fun on this Monday morning. Started to experiment with collage and gouache. It´s a quite calming activity I have to say.

I still haven´t finished my 100 people as I have been working on different projects. Maybe this week.

One Week 100 People VI

Another page coloured in….I spent maybe 3 min on each sketch and then another 5 min to colour it in.

One Week 100 People V

Still having fun with this challenge. Here some of the coloured in sketched. I realized that I am either drawing kids or old people, which are both more interesting to draw.

One Week 100 People III

Here come number 10 to 14. Combination of watercolour, coloured pencils and for number 12-14 I used olive green ink for the outline that I bought some time ago but never used.