The Art of Shawna Apps
If you’ve been around for awhile, you know I love watercolors.
You might also know that I love drawing with graphite pencils.
I’ve been after a way to combine the two loves into one cohesive piece lately, but no matter what I’ve tried, it never looks…right.
Well, I decided to reorganize and redecorate my office, and guess what I found buried in a spot that never should have held this particular item?
WATER. SOLUBLE. GRAPHITE. PENCILS.
Continue reading “New Mediums”Just as a warning, there might be a theme for some of these newer pieces. When I started relaunching my business, we happened to have our annual Apps family vacation fall smack dab right in the middle of it. And when we stayed on a beautiful river and as an artist I am obsessed with clouds, sunrises/sunsets, and all things landscape and of nature, we can just say that there were a lot of photos taken as inspiration for future pieces (including Serenity Bay!).
While we were on vacation, I was asking some of our family members what kinds of things they’d like to see me do. The #1 response? Another blue heron…
Title: Harry
Continue reading “New Piece Alert: Harry”As an artist, you never quite know when inspiration will strike. Back in early 2019, my husband and I were heading out west to Las Vegas and because I knew we wanted to go to the desert, I just had to bring some art supplies with me.
Enter the travel bag.
Continue reading “My Travel Art Bag”Hey there little guy! Welcome to the family!!!
This pencil drawing has been in the works since OCTOBER. I started him for the documentary that Stephen and I collaborated on, and then he got pushed to the back burner. Well, he’s been staring at me for long enough from the corner of my drafting table, so I made it a priority to get him finished this week.
This piece has been a long time coming!
My thoughts behind that is two-fold: first, I’ve wanted to draw the Hogwarts castle for a really, really long time. And second, this drawing has been on my shelf as a commission for a YEAR.
Now I HATE making anyone wait for anything, especially an entire year. But this one was delayed for a lot of reasons: finding the right reference image and then having it sent to me the day before my phone decided to lose EVERYTHING on it, not being able to find the perfect reference image again, me selling and buying a house, and then still not being able to find the right image again. But, it was found and I had the drawing in hand ready for delivery less than a week later.
Is it really over???
I know I’ve said this a lot, but man, it feels like the challenge just started, yet somehow it feels like it went on forever.
I was so tempted to surprise you all and do one more week of the challenge to do some of the top requested drawings that are left, but my family is home on vacation this week and as our youngest has a birthday this week as well, that had to be my priority. I promise to get to that list soon though!
On to the recap!
What I learned:
The biggest thing I learned was that taking almost a year off from working is not good for me mentally. Every time I saw the boxes for my studio and office still in the sunroom waiting to be unpacked or my future office/studio still in shambles, I’d get more frustrated, anxious and agitated. Every day that I got to do a drawing, I felt all of that melting away. Yes, my boxes are still there and the office is no where near finished, but I had my joy back.
Continue reading “Drawing a Day Challenge 2018: What I Learned, How It Went”
HELLOOOOOOO END OF THE CHALLENGE!
I have to be honest, when I finally sat down to work on the drawing this morning, I almost started to cry. Part of it is just exhaustion from all of the work that goes into each day’s drawing, but a lot of it is I’m going to miss it so much! Thankfully I have a great project lined up to keep me busy 😉
But here he is, the final drawing of the challenge and last piece to the Hogwarts House Mascot series:
Happy 2nd to last day of the challenge!!!!
I decided to just finish out the Hogwarts House series; half of the series was already done, and I know I had some people very anxious to have the series in print, so it made sense to finish it now. Continue reading “Drawing a Day Challenge 2018: Day 24”
Today’s drawing did not go the way I wanted it to by any means…but that’s completely and utterly my fault.
I asked on Facebook if I should finish up the Hogwarts House series that I started yesterday or if I should continue to choose the subjects randomly. That question completely backfired when my results were tied! I decided to choose one subject at random and then throw that suggestion and one of the house mascots into a bowl and draw that way. Well, that ALSO backfired when I drew randomly and it was a house mascot….and it just happened to be the one I’m terrified of:
Happy last week of the challenge!!!
Crazy days like today make me anxious for it to be over. Between babysitting all day, trying to draw, doing work for my other business (I sell Monat hair products), and everyday life, one less thing on my plate is going to be a welcome thing!
Back to the Drawing Board 