Mosslike.com

Category: Featured

  • Pastel Portrait Practice

    Pastel Portrait Practice

    It’s been a few days and I’m still playing with the oil pastels. Yes, they’re crayola. I’m doing these after taking the kiddo to school and before I have to start working.

    Today, I used a reference from Pinterest.

    The proportions are wrong – it’s a little long in the face. Still, it’s a good looking face.

    This background color worked nicely with the colors I chose, so I like that too!

    The morning light outside in the patio is so nice. It’s the perfect time to get outside and think about something as simple as colored lines.

    Listening to the early birds chirping around.

    One day, I’d like to draw some trees at the neighborhood park. Writing that down so I actually try to get to that…

    For now, it’s time to go to work.

  • Tiny Bright Portraits in Oil Pastel

    Tiny Bright Portraits in Oil Pastel

    As promised, I worked on some new portraits. These are done in oil pastel and are on small craft paper, 4″ x 6″. Oh, and I also used a black grease pencil. They took about 10 minutes each. There were others that I made but these were the nicest of them.

    It’s fun to mess with these faces so quickly! Oil pastels are super fun on bright paper.

    I still need to work on getting the “likeness” of my portraits correct though. I like the limited palette of the green portrait, but my favorite so far is the red. Even though the right side of her face slid outwards. They look nothing like the reference photos, but I do really like the shading.

    Thanks for looking!

  • Hawaiian Botanical Illustrations in my sketchbook

    Hawaiian Botanical Illustrations in my sketchbook

    I’m gearing up for an event in early May. I get to draw botanical type things, live, in front of people! Here are some of my warm-up illustrations.

    The first illustration is Kokiʻo ʻulaʻula. It’s an endangered, endemic Hawaiian plant. I had a plant once (that came with a red tag) and it’s flowers were so tiny and delicate. Unfortunately, the aphids tended this plant more than I did and they took it over. I hate when I go through periods of neglect and lose things that I really like.

    I haven’t had much success with hibiscus in my yard. My neighbor on the other hand has beautiful plants, taller than the fence! They are constantly blooming in different shades from orange to pink to red! They are an introduced variety that is grown more popularly here in Hawaii. AND, he’s happy to spray his plants with chemicals. Which I don’t do, so all the bugs just hop on over the fence and enjoy my organic garden. I could go on about the hours I spend blasting aphids of my plants with jet streams of water…

    The second illustration includes non-native Honohono orchids (Dendrobium anosmum). They smell SOOOOO freaking good right now. It seems like lots of people in my neighborhood grow these as well as coconut orchids. I can smell them everywhere as I walk the dog or jog around.

    Also drawn are native Hawaiian Wiliwili flowers in two shades. Not currently blooming, but always fascinating, I love coming across these trees on hikes. They drop all their leaves before blooming, so the flower bunches brightly contrast the dark branches. Like hibiscus they can range in colors. From from green to white to yellow, corals and reds. I hope to catch some late this summer!

    Botanical illustration of Kokiʻo ʻulaʻula.
    Botanical illustration of Wiliwili flowers and Honohono orchids.

    Posting this type of thing gives me major feelings of imposter syndrome. So I’m trying to just leave it up and not care too much. *whistles a tune*