Mushroom Paintings in Gouache

Do you ever have a project idea just marinating on the back burner for months and then finally have the chance/supplies/time to finally do it and it feels sooooo satisfying!?!

That’s totally me with these new supa dupa mushrooms!

…which will soon turn into big bright colorful stickers!

I want the stickers to be as colorful and eye-catching as possible as good little impulse buys when hosting my art booth (yay, I am so excited to get back into craft fair vending!), and since everyone loves mushrooms I figured these would be a great subject to appeal to the crowds.

I’ll also have these stickers available on my website in two weeks when my next video comes out showing how I made them (and how you can make stickers of your own art too!)

The supplies I use today:

Gouache (not an affiliate link) https://www.amazon.com/HIMI-Gouache-Supplies-Professionals-Student/dp/B09QRKQJZB?th=1

Any purchases through my special Blick link helps to support this channel at no extra cost to you. Thank you!

Princeton Size 1 Round Brush: https://bit.ly/3gFb7cT

Princeton Size 0 Round Brush: https://bit.ly/3bb05v9

Da Vinci Size 2 Round Brush: https://bit.ly/3diLEEK

Watercolor Sketchbook: 10 X 7in https://bit.ly/3miKrXY

Make sure to tune into my next video too to see these transform into fabulous brilliant big stickers!

Which one is your favorite? Would you rock any of these as a sticker?

3.5.2023

A Collection of Figure Drawings from Fall Semester 2022

Every once in a while I like to open up the sketchbook and share my latest works with you, and since teaching multiple anatomy/figure drawing classes I’ve been drawing a lot lately. Here are a few of my favorites from the last semester..

I seriously loved this stately model; doesn’t he remind you of like a casual-cool Henry VII or some other classical regal portrait?! He just got that self-assured-scepter-holding ‘kingly’ vibe I suppose.

And keep an eye out because I have a few photos of student work to share, including a few of me I’m sharing in my newsletter this week. We had a model cancel so I sat for some portrait drawings and many of them turned out surprisingly well! (If you’re not already getting my ‘Birds of a Feather’ quarterly letter you should definitely join in at the bottom of this blog post or through this link!)

With these next few you’ll notice a trend.. and that is they are all drawn of our models’ backs. I allow my students to all get their seats with the best, most forward views of our models so sometimes the only space for me is to set up around back. But I’m not complaining at all, any chance I get with a life model is an opportunity to learn!

And did you see the drawings from my first ever pregnant figure model? Now THAT was an amazing experience! The drawings turned out beautifully, if I do say so myself ;)

1.24.2023

Audience Choice Winners :: Autumn Paintings in Gouache

Yayy I’m so excited to be sharing the Audience Choice Autumn Paintings winners with you today! Sooo many folks chimed in to vote here, through my newsletter, and on Instagram and YouTube - I was truly floored!

I have been really feeing the cozy, colorful fall vibes hard this year and I think you all chose two photos that exemplify that superbly!

So without further adieu, the winners are…

If you’re not already, subscribe to my YouTube channel while you’re up there and/or make sure you are following along on my Instagram because I will certainly be doing ‘audience choice’ artwork again since I got such a huge response from this one!

Here are the winning photos:

And here are the final paintings! Yay!

They are actually bigger here than in my sketchbook, kind of fun to see all that detail up close!

Thanks again everyone who contributed! Y’all gave a great response and I can’t wait til the next go round! Happy Autumn!

11.23.2022

Fun Skull Study

We have a full sized skeleton in the anatomy classroom which is great for helping my students understand a little more clearly how the body moves. This week I had my students spend a class session drawing it this past week, and since it has been quite a while since I’ve had the opportunity to do so myself, I figured I would join them.

Of course I am always walking around the room, checking on folks’ drawings so I couldn’t get to the entire skeleton like I would have liked to, just the skull. I’m thinking of doing a video for my YouTube channel drawing the full skeleton just for fun. I would want to have it seated and maybe holding something, or at least have the head tilted in a way that looked in thought… I’m not yet sure exactly what I’d do, but I would want the skeleton positioning to look somewhat ‘lively’, not just stiffly standing there like a dry anatomical diagram.

Let me know in the comments below if a full skeleton drawing demo on my signature toned paper would be of interest to you:)

But in the mean time, enjoy this lil skeleton shortie vid…

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Artist, Teacher, Mentor (@caleighbirdart)

..and then enjoy a few of my student’s skeleton drawings too!

7.12.2022

Custom Handmade Sketchbook Release

Hey folks I know some of you have been waiting for a new, inspiring, handmade custom sketchbook.. and I appreciate you being so patient.

I have just released the preorder forms for the custom sketchbook of your dreams, so head over here for all the details (including the deal you get if you order two!).

A few specs...

• 48 pages total

• Internal binds sheathed in tracing paper to protect drawings from touching each other

• Cloth hardback bound exterior with machine sewn bound interior pages

• Bound on the short side for ease of drawing for both righties and lefties

• Paper is acid-free and archival

• Your choice of toned paper or natural white...
  
  Learn more here!

These preorder sketchbooks are only available through Sunday May 22nd, and because I only offer them when I need to make new ones for myself, that's going to be it for this year!

I've also just come out with my latest Sketchbook Tour video so have a look at that if you need a refresh on all the awesome natural toned paper that comes in the 'Toned Variety' option.

I'm psyched to be making these again and I hope you get one!

Sketchbook Tour 2022

Yay I am so excited to be sharing my two latest full sketchbooks today! Sketchbook tour videos tend to be some of my most popular, and I totally understand why. I too love thumbing through other artists' personal works, sketches, attempts, and even (slight) failures.

These sketchbooks are comprised of all figure drawings, most from life but some from online figure models. I like to use Carbothello My Stabilo pastel pencils and white chalk for my drawings on Canson Mi-Tientes paper.

If you're interested in getting a one-of-a-kind custom handmade sketchbook from my Nest to yours, pop over here for all the info and ordering (these are only available once a year for about a week)

If you are seeing this video after May 22nd and would like more info on getting your own handmade-with-love toned (or white) paper sketchbook pop over here to be kept in the loop for my next sketchbook release.

Here are two videos on how I create my figure drawings: Vid 1 // Vid 2

5.15.2022

Attempting a 30 Day Figure Drawing Challenge

“Attempting” being the key word there - ha!

Totally on a whim on April 1st I decided to challenge myself to create a figure drawing every day for 30 days straight. I say on a whim because as of March 31 I had no plans to do a challenge, but when I enjoyed creating a figure drawing so much that very next day, I thought ‘why not?’ Just do it.

In the first couple of days I actually asked my Instagram followers if anyone had attempted any kind of 30 day art challenge in the past, and if so, what were the results. I honestly didn’t get a lot of positive responses, as in, most people either had been too intimidated to try, or they didn’t have much success when they did.

Which is kind of why I had never tried one myself!

This challenge wound up being pretty successful in my opinion. I only missed two days of drawing and I allowed myself a little wiggle room as far as doing two days of drawing at the Picasso exhibit, and three of the days were spent working on a figure painting I had previously started. I also had a little more time this month for drawing than I have in the past 6+ months so I wanted to seize that opportunity too.

Here’s a few pics from the beginning of the month, or you can see them all in order on my Instagram @caleighbirdart.

If you decided to try an art challenge too, either like mine with a personal challenge, or an official prompted one like Inktober, please let me know how it goes either here or in the video comments.

And last but not least, if you are interested in acquiring an original figure drawing I have them available at especially good rates this month to coincide with this challenge. Visit my Shop here.

5.2.2021

Finding Beauty Everywhere

As an artist, you have an inherent eye for finding the beautiful, unusual, or remarkable in everyday life. It is a very special gift we visual artists possess and we should never let location or materials hinder our creative spirit.

Today I'm going to talk to you about finding beauty everywhere while just using a simple tiny sketchbook and regular pencil to do some graphic drawings from life in order to illustrate that you can make art anywhere with anything if you just open yourself up to being inspired.

If you'd like to see my sketches up close, check out my blog post from earlier this week.

12.6.2019

Graphic Sketchbook Drawings

Although I haven’t been able to do much painting lately (my oils are literally being shipped in using ground mail from O’ahu so it may be a few more weeks still), I have been enjoying playing with some graphic sketches.

Normally I’m not a fan of such smooth, light colored paper, but this is a style I’ve been wanting to play with so when someone gifted me this tiny unused sketchbook I figured it was the perfect place to get started. I’ve noticed that over the years different materials can shift my artistic style so I love to experiment and switch things up!

With this particular drawing style I have to make bold decisions about contrast with each subject. As you can see, I’ve chosen to show only highlights and low lights, no mid tones, as a really fun exercise in shadow shapes! (everything is drawn from life )

UPDATE: I just created a YouTube video in which i discuss finding beauty wherever you go while creating two drawings in this style of a tree trunk and two tangerines hanging from a bush. You can see it here.

12.4.2019

Plein Air Ridge Painting

I spent a marvelous day last week relaxing and painting on the gorgeous Aiea ridgeline here on O’ahu accompanied by one of my closest sister artists, Zee, who also created the beautiful bouquet tattoo on my leg and the Celtic knot on my finger. It was a truly special and rejuvenating day… one of my favorite things about Zee is that we create art whenever we are together:)

6.26.2019