A Creativity Reference!

While browsing Tumblr, I stumbled across this website.

What it does is show you a bunch of different ideas to increase the creativity flow and give you ideas.
Personally, I go through weeks of artist's block.  I have no IDEA what to draw.
Something like this is incredibly helpful and I can't wait to give it a go.  There are over 250 different ideas to get your creative juices flowing.  If I like what I create thanks to this site, I may even post the results here.

Here is the link to the website (Click me!)

I hope you all get use out of it!

The First (of Many) Self-Portraits

To give you all a sense of what I look like, I'll start off with a few self-portraits that I've done!
I love drawing from life but sometimes it's hard to find people who are willing to model for extended periods of time, so I resort to drawing myself.
I prefer to draw from life instead of a photo.  Photos lose a sense of their three-dimensionality and drawing from something or someone in front of you is ideal.  Unfortunately, drawing your own profile is incredibly difficult so I resorted to taking a photo and drawing that.
This drawing did not take a lot of time.  It was no more than an hour and I definitely see mistakes that I've made on it (and some that I've fixed since scanning.)
The forehead is too rounded and the lips look flat.  They don't appear as though they extend to the other side of the head - which is definitely a problem!
This drawing was made entirely in ball-point pen (something I've recently taken a fancy to)
A good way to draw with pen is to utilize different hatching techniques and strokes.
As you can see, I used cross-hatching in the cheek bones.  This means that I went over in different directions in different places in order to give it more shading and depth.
The chin also has some hatching and cross-hatching.
A teacher of mine has taught me many valuable lessons - one of which being that we aren't barbies and our faces have dips and contours where hers did not.  We can't leave out under-eye bags and other aspects of our faces that give us character.

A Warm Welcome

Hi readers!

My name is Michelle and I'm currently a student double majoring in English Literature and Studio Art (with a concentration in drawing.)  As such, I love drawing and I love writing!
On this blog, I intend to post personal artwork, to write about said artwork, to post references, ideas, inspirations, and tips!
I've taken many classes (and even taught a few) and so I have many tricks of the trade to share with you all.
Because I am still a student, I am still learning.  If you want to share things with me or have constructive criticism for my work, I'd love to read and learn!
If you have anything you would like to see more of, please send me a message or comment and let me know.

Personally, I am a big fan of figure drawing.  I think that the human body is lovely - the curves, angles, highlights, and shadows are incredibly aesthetically pleasing.  This means I probably will be posting a lot of my own figure drawings as well as references.  I do enjoy still-lives and landscapes, but figure drawing is just my favorite.

Thank you all for coming to my page and I hope you like what you find!