WOW!!

Today was the day 232 artists would find out if they made it to the next round. I chose to spend the day at the zoo to take my mind off the MI Great Artist contest.
Needless to say, the car ride home was filled with screams.
My daughter read the email to me. I made it!
If you had cast a vote in my direction, I thank you.
This is only the beginning...

I am so excited! Absolutely thrilled! My entries have been accepted into the MI Great Artist contest this year!
Here's the link to my entries:
http://review.wizehive.com/voting/search/migreatartist2017/?q=wendy+popko&p=1
Public voting ends August 28, but you can vote once every 24 hours!
Top 20 go onto the next round of judges. Please share the link, every vote counts!

You see, that watercolor marker faded when I tried to erase my pencil lines. I went over the mechanical dragon with a deep purple and allowed DaVinci's true invention illustrations to fade, giving a ghostly image of his works. After all, the mechanical dragon was my vision, and not his :-)

I'm very happy with this mistake, or should I say, discovery?

Thank you for reading :-)

 I just completed and turned in my DaVinci Mechanical Dragon entry for the Renaissance Festival! Wahoo! 

Below you will see that I took my original sketch and enlarged it using the copier.

You'll also notice a grey sheet next to it. This is transfer paper and saves me a lot of headache in transferring images to their final destination. I can't place the plywood on top of my light table -right?

 Here you will see the graphite transfer paper under the copy of the image. Before you use this, make sure that the graphite paper is on the correct side, for the graphite to rub off onto the surface you intend to paint/ink/or whatever. I've made this silly mistake before and ended up with the image transferred onto the actual copy and not the board/canvas/watercolor paper.

Speaking of mistakes, here you will see the image transferred and inked in...using a watercolor ink pen... On plywood...

What was I thinking??? I realized this error about 2a.m. the night before deadline.

Yup. 

Note to self: hide the watercolor markers with the watercolor paper with a sign "only use for illustrating".

But sometimes our errors can change the way we see things and turn into a thing of beauty... 

 Good afternoon Blogging Peeps! Just finished this rough sketch for a little art contest. The theme this year is "Renaissance". When I think of the Renaissance, I think of DaVinci and all of his inventions, and his detailed drawings. Therefore, my painting will depict DaVinci's greatest invention: The Mechanical Dragon. Obviously, there is no such thing, but this will be my spin :-) I think my biggest risk will be going with a monochromatic color scheme -but sometimes you gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelette (or so someone once told me). By the way, this is totally out of my comfort zone! I love Steampunk designs, but have always feared designing them. I must be honest, I'm enjoying the challenge. So, lesson for today? Step out of that comfort zone! You grow as an artist and as an individual ;-)