Sketchpad. Hot girl with Spots

I found this toothy, smiling girl in a magazine in the doctor's office yesterday.  Gary just had back surgery and we were in for a post-surgery check.  The wait was surprisingly short, so I had only maybe five minutes to draw this.

My purse sketchpad is currently probably 6"x8".  Just fits.  Anywhere I go, I sketch quick pictures into it when I find myself waiting for something.  I view my little sketchpads as cookbooks of ideas.  Everything in them is rough, but they're a plethora of ideas, sketches, reminders and notes at my fingertips when I'm casting around for a subject for a serious painting.

Generally, I draw in my purse sketchpads only with pen.  Pitt pens to be exact.  What this means is that there's no erasing, which I also enjoy.  To me, it makes the drawing appear fresher, more immediate and interesting, with more movement and quirkiness.  (Is 'quirkiness' a word? Quirky. Quirkyness - definitely not.  Let's stay with quirkiness.)

This week I was teaching my students about complimentary colors, along with warm colors and cool colors.  I took the florescent, HOT colors along to compliment their cool backgrounds.  They had rollers and stamps and all kinds of texture makers to cover their cool colors.

For a moment in one class I was searching around for something upon which to spread some of this hot stuff, and remembered my smiling girl.  Exactly.  So, what you see here is a finger painted happy person, with textured spots rolled all over her.  Sometimes art is a lot more fun when you just let it flow.