#365Cow - The First 16

Oye! It's January 16th already. Between work, starting the new school semester, a scrapbooking retreat with friends, and foolishly packing my colored pencils away for a week and half - I haven't had a lot of time to post. I'm finally catching up, so here's the first 16 cows, fully colored:

New Year's Cow

The rest are a part of a "Disney Gals" series I started sketching out a few months ago.

Nice to finally get them finished!

#365 Cow - #1

Here's cow #1! My colored pencils are currently packed up with my scrapbooking stuff in preparation for next week's scrap retreat, so you'll have to settle for black and white for now.

365 Cow Challenge

Time to start something I've been wanting to do for a couple of years now: draw one new cow a day for a whole year! 

Why cows? Honestly, they're just kind of my thing. I've been drawing cartoon cows ever since I was in the 6th grade. I have roughly 270 cows sketched/colored to date. I just love cows! I draw them doing all sorts of things and wearing all sorts of 'costumes.' It all started with this guy on the right, Mr. Moo-Moo, my very first cow. You can check out some of my other creations in the COW tab above or on my portfolio site.

Now, for the challenge. 

The 365 Cow Challenge or #365cow

1. Draw one cow a day for a whole year. 

2. No repeats allowed, unless it is to 'freshen up' an old sketch from way back. (In which case I will provide proof of said old sketch.)

3. "Sets" may count for more than one day. 

(i.e., the number of cows in the set = the number of days it counts towards) These are pieces I typically do for Doodle United themes. 

4. Cows that are currently sketched but not fully inked/colored may count once they are completed. (I have a Disney gals themed set half drawn that I started a couple of months ago. It will be massive when I'm done, and by golly, the 30 or so I already sketched out are going to count!)

5. A cow in simple sketch or inked form may count for the day's cow, but I do intend to color them all by the end.

6. Post at least once a week - somewhere: on the blog or on Instagram. (Hopefully this will be once a day, but hey, we all get busy!)

If it sounds like I'm trying to pad my cow counts, I suppose that's partially true. It's more of trying to set myself up for success. I have tried this once in the past and didn't make it very far. The end result will still be the same: 365 NEW cows drawn/inked/colored between Jan. 1, 2015 and Dec. 31, 2015.

Wish me luck and send me your ideas! I'll need a lot to keep me going! 

You can follow me on Instagram. I'll make sure to tag everything with #365cow.

Cluedo Cows

Catching up on some posts here - back at the end of August the Doodle United theme was "Cows, Pigs, & Farmy Things." How could I resist that? I started two major new cow projects that week, but only one got finished. (The other one is still growing/in process).

Here are my Cluedo cows, based on my favorite board game.

Sketches from Scripture

Tonight at BCM Rose was talking about John 10:7-10 and Jesus being the gate. It reminded me of a sketch I did a few months back about the same verse when my pastor was preaching on the same set of verses. I've done several sketches over time inspired by scripture, so I thought I'd share some of them. I just finished scanning some that have been in my sketchbooks for a while, and I was surprised just how many there were! Some of them I drew during sermons. *gasp* I never thought I'd do that! One of my professors in college said he always did that and I used to think he was crazy. It's just not something I ever thought I would do - I raised or taught, if you will, that during the sermon you're suppose to sit and listen and do nothing else. I've found, however, that it helps me remember later on the story or the point of the message, which is pretty cool.

So below are a smattering of pencil sketches and fully finished art I've done over the last several years. Hopefully if you click on them the images will get bigger. 

Sometimes they're funny, like these two: 

Left: The whale slurping up Jonah              

Right: In Exodus 32, when Moses comes down from the mountain and Aaron had led the people in making the golden calf. It always sounded to me like Aaron was surprised and the calf just came out of nowhere. "It just . . .poof!"

 

I've tried to illustrate Psalm 23 and John 10 a few times. God as our shepherd. I like my cuddly sheep.

And some other well-known and lesser-known Bible stories:

Top Row: David with his slingshot; Hannah praying; the guy that Jesus healed after his friends lowered his through a roof

Middle: Mary Magdalene on Easter morning (left: at the sight of Jesus, right: telling Peter the news); I can't recall the Scripture for this one, but it's one of the stories where the guys are fishing, Jesus shows up on the beach, and Peter just jumps right out of the boat and swims to shore. I was trying to imagine all the weird looks his buddies must have given him. 

Bottom: Mary and Martha. I tried to capture the look on Mary's content face as she's listening to Jesus.

      

Some that don't necessarily have a 'story' behind them. 

Top: Matthew 6:25-34 (Do not worry); Isaiah 40:27-31 (run and not grow weary, soar on wings like eagles); caterpillar struggling to get out of his cocoon (dealing with troubles)

Middle: the widow who gave her last coin; a candle and a lighthouse from a message on being light

Bottom: from a message about service

    

 

Almost done! 2 more. These are 2 of my favorites: 

Exodus. Take off your shoes, for where you are standing is holy ground. A friend of mine once told me she takes her shoes of during praise & worship because of this verse. I often do the same now.

Inspired by the verses in Isaiah 6 when Isaiah sees the Lord.

The Cow Orchestra!

Here's the final piece I did for the Doodle U theme 'animals playing instruments' :

Hopefully it enlarges when you click on it so you can really see it. 

Can you spot all 33 instruments? (in addition to the conductor)

This took forever, but it was pretty fun researching/trying to draw each of the instruments. Contrabassoons are difficult to draw by the way. I looked up what instruments are typically in an orchestra and how they are arranged. This would be a more modern day orchestra; I didn't realize saxophones typically aren't part of the orchestra, and weren't included at all until modern times. Who knew! But my dad's a huge sax fan, so I felt like I needed to include them. I drew each cow/instrument individually, inked each, colored them with colored pencil, then scanned them into the computer.

Here's one of the original scans:

After I created a clipping path for each in Photoshop, I dumped them all into InDesign to do the arranging. I duplicated the cows to get the multiple instruments for the same section (which why, for instance, all the violins look identical - I'm not that crazy to draw all of those!) Then I drew a separate background and put that in. The hardest part was figuring out how to arrange them so you could still each cow/instrument. I love how the finished piece came out! And I made poster size, so I should be able to print it 18" x 24" eventually.

Animals Playing Instruments

Doodle United's latest theme was "Animals Playing Instruments." I was super excited when they posted it (cows!). While I had cow plans, I did also color some banjo playing pigs I drew a long while back:

These are inspired by the site Dueling Banjo Pigs. Colored in Painter.

Next, I drew a couple of individual cows playing some unique instruments. 

Medieval Cow playing a hammered dulcimer.
Inspired by my love for the middle ages, the desire to one day learn to play the hammered dulcimer, and an obsession/longing to join 3 of my friends in SCA. (one day!)

Highland Cow, in a kilt, playing the bagpipes.
Inspired by my friend Elise, who has a fierce love/obsession with both Highland cows and all things Scottish. 

The fourth piece I did, I will post in the next post - because it's pretty epic . . .
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