birds

Birds in Hats

Top Hats Erika Schnatz
| Erika Schnatz

It’s been some time since I’ve had my work displayed anywhere. There was that one time I had a piece up in a robot-themed show at a taco shop, and then someone STOLE MY PIECE OFF OF THE WALL, so maybe that’s the reason it has been a while? Or perhaps having a full-time job was the culprit.

In any case, I drew some birds in hats for the Tiny Wonderland show at Leanna Lin’s Wonderland in Eagle Rock, CA. The rule was nothing larger than 5″x 5″, so I found some 4″x 4″ panels and was plagued with indecision until several days before I need to mail out my work (nothing like artistic procrastination). I quite like these silly little birds, and if you like them too (and would like one to hang on a wall), a few of them are still available on to purchase: https://leannalinswonderland.com/collections/tiny-wonderland-art-show

 

Bird-Brained

| Erika Schnatz

Now that I’m finding myself with free time (almost too much free time – I’m still looking for summer employment because I need to work more than one day a week) I have more time to draw. I often have a hard time figuring out what I want to draw, which is why I really like Selfless Portraits – when you agree to participate, they send you the profile picture of someone else using the app on Facebook, so you get to draw someone else’s portrait. You need to do it fairly quickly too – within 48 hours.

It’s a good exercise, though I don’t know if my random stranger is going to like my portrait. I found his features to be quite birdlike (especially his hair), so I just turned him into a bird. It’s not a very representational portrait, that’s for sure:
The poor, random boy assigned to me
The resulting portrait

Pretty crazy. But it was a fun exercise. Now I’m awaiting the portrait some random stranger drew of me. Perhaps that artist has turned me into an animal as well.
Materials: Sakura pens, Prismacolor markers

Scribbly Doodles

| Erika Schnatz

My life has been a smidgen crazy recently. I’m at the beginning of a lot of great things, and I haven’t had much time to draw as a result (I will be fixing that soon!). I found these creature doodles in a notepad and felt they warranted a post. I drew them last year during the before-school reading program I ran at an elementary school. We had a volunteer reader come in on Wednesday mornings, which gave me a bit of time to draw. Of course, the kids always wanted to see what I drew at the end of the session. Sometimes they tried to draw the same thing. It was pretty cute.

I have more of those early morning doodles stashed away, so I’ll scan them in at some point.

I love the crazy-eyed vulture-looking guy at the bottom of the page.

This doodle makes me very happy. It is the most Quentin Blake-ish thing I’ve ever drawn. (Quentin Blake did the interior illustrations for the majority of Roald Dahl’s books, for those of you who don’t have an expansive knowledge of children’s book illustrators).

These were drawn with some felt-tip pen I acquired at school. I think I pilfered a few of them from the supply cabinet because I really liked making lists and drawing with them.