Mini Challenge

The La Habra Art Gallery is displaying their Small and Miniature Show this month.  Art work has to be 8x10 or smaller.  It seemed like a fun challenge.  I began with my blank wooden nesting dolls.  I had bought them over a year ago.  I never drew on them because I was afraid to mess up.  But I ended up having a lot of fun drawing on them. I used pencil and a rapidograph pen.  The ink began to bleed in some areas, so I coated the wood with a light layer of gel medium.  That seemed to help.

I always seems to have odd sized canvases in my home and decided to draw on a small 4"x 4" square.  This is the 2nd piece I did for the show.  I wanted to include a drawing of all of the main Mizzles that I love to draw.  After finishing the drawing on the top, I began to draw on the sides.  The entire canvas is drawn with a rapidograph pen and ink.  

The last piece I created is my favorite and from the amount of "likes" on Facebook, it seems others feel the same.   The canvas is 12"x4".  I drew this illustration onto watercolor paper and used Derwent Inktense pencils and Prismacolor Watercolor pencils to color it.  Then I used Gel medium to adhere it to the canvas.  I was a bit surprised to hear that it won 3rd place.  The work in the gallery tends to be more traditional.  I like showing my work, so I never expect to win any awards when entering the group shows.  But I'm delighted about the award!  It makes me feel like I'm definitely headed down the right path.