Illustration

Robots

| Erika Schnatz

As I mentioned in my last post, I was (sort of) working on a little robot art piece. Since I pulled out all the stops at the last minute and manage to finish the piece, I can triumphantly post about it.

Background:
Robo Taco (a Mexican eatery in SE Portland) put out a call for robot art on Craigslist (a totally reputable site to find art jobs) and I saved the post – thinking that I might get around to creating a piece. Usually, I don’t, but this time, dear reader, I did! I made a rough sketch of what I wanted my little robot to look like one evening, and the following evening I drew it out on nice paper, inked it and watercolor-d it, and Mod Podge-d it all together.

So here is the rough sketch:

And here is the finished product:

I put it in a frame I got from Goodwill for $2, and voila! A finished piece. It looks pretty classy in the frame, but I don’t have a picture of that yet.

Materials used: Watercolor paper, Micron pens, watercolors, colored pencils, and patterned scrapbook paper (the background)

A Lady & Her Pup

| Erika Schnatz

Here’s a quick post before I kick off my weekend:

We had a gift exchange in the AmeriCorps program I was in last year (we were a pretty tight-knit bunch) and I think there was a max of $5 you could spend since we were all broke and that sort of restriction leads to thoughtful, handmade gifts. (Which it totally did).

I had some small frames from IKEA that I wasn’t using for anything, so I spray painted them black and made some pen drawings to go inside of them. I figured most people would dig pictures of themselves (I adore a portrait of myself that was done in Paris – even more so because I’ve had to draw myself a countless number of times for self-portrait projects) and pictures of their pets. This particular lady was the first AmeriCorps member I met in Oregon because she let me and my boyfriend crash at her place for a few days before I moved into my house. She has a super cute dog named Pablo, and my then-boyfriend bonded with Pablo because he loves all dogs. I realize I’m getting off track now, so here are the pictures:

I apologize to Megan for this portrait – it does look like her but I did not crop this image well. It makes her look much less cute than she is in real life because of the way I cut her chin out of the picture. I did a much better job with Pablo:

Such a cute puppy!

I think these were drawn with Micron pens, but I can’t quite remember. Woo!

More Monkey Business…

| Erika Schnatz

To continue on the theme of my initial post, here is another card that also involves a monkey. Specifically, party monkey.

This was for my brother’s 18th birthday. You can never be too old for monkey cards.

I think I used the same photo reference for this card and the party monkey on the last card. Months and months apart. Weird.

Materials used: Watercolor (very muted), some kind of pen, Artists’ ink & little brushes

Firsties.

| Erika Schnatz

So after having this blog set up for ages, I’m finally going to start posting on here regularly. Probably.

To kick things off, here are some drawings of monkeys. They were for a high school graduation card for my brother. I should have gotten a picture of what the card looks like, but I’m a terrible archivist of my own work, so you’ll have to wait on that.

 The enthusiastic fellow above is on the front of the card…

 …and party monkey is on the inside of the card. You don’t mess around with party monkey. He parties hard.

Materials used: colored pencils, Micron brush pen (love that pen!!)

Whew. That wasn’t too terrible. More will come soon, I promise (pinky swear).