Category: 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project Week 7

Post author By Jaime
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This week is primarily from Everyday Fashions of the Sixties and Christopher Hart books, so credit needs to go to him, not me. Once I start making something original, you’ll be able to find it in the studio shop. 😊

Day 50

This is the cover character from Christopher Hart’s Cartoon Cool: How to Draw New Retro-Style Characters book. She reminds me a little of Francine from American Dad…maybe it’s the angry face. I generally like how she came out. I feel like I need to work more on hands and feet.

Day 51

I’ve been enjoying the drawings in Fashion Design Studio, but they don’t seem like they’re in the right decade. So when I got my Everyday Fashions of the Sixties book, I was excited because I figured I could try blending the two together. One of the biggest problems I’m having is getting the full body to fit on the page (I’m using quarter sheets of letter-sized paper). I think that’s causing some of the proportions to be extra off. This girl came out younger looking than I expected, but I think she came out cute.

Day 52

Again, I used the two books I used the day before for this one. I think she’s supposed to be a teen in the catalog, but I somehow made her look older. I keep seeing Mrs. Cunningham from Happy Days! I’m starting to think I like the heavy outline on these types of drawings too!

Day 53

This girl seemed like a lot of fun! I saw a set of tiny drawings in the background of one of the catalog pages and I wanted to draw this one. I have no idea what the stance is, but I think I got the form right. It kind of killed me to not outline this one!

Day 54

Here’s another from the Everyday Fashions book. My lady doesn’t really have much resemblance to the photograph, but I feel like I got the face and body forms down. She does look a little like Zsa Zsa Gabor!

Day 55

I wasn’t quite sure how I felt doing a Sixties week when I was supposed to be doing the Fifties, so I dug out my Everyday Fashions of the Forties book for a reference. To be fair to me, I am waiting for my Fifties book to come in the mail! I really did not like this one when I was done. She looked nothing like the photo at. all. It wasn’t until the next day that I started to have an appreciation for her. She doesn’t look like the reference, but she does look like a person, so that should be enough, right?!

Day 56

For this one, I just wanted to pop out a quick drawing. So I did one from memory from all the books. She’s quite wonky and out of proportion, but I kinda like her. She looked way too young when I was done, so I tired to make her look older. She was never happy looking in the first place so there’s that too.

Day 57

I was really, really curious what would happen if I took one of the more “realistic” fashion drawings and turned her into a cartoon? Here’s my result! Other than the figure (body) form, I kinda like her. I think there’s some merit to the various styles. A big part of me wants to take the same referene and do it different ways. So don’t be surpirsed if you see a batch of that next week!

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100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project Week 6

Post author By Jaime
Post date

This week is primarily from Christopher Hart books, so credit needs to go to him, not me. Once I start making something original, you’ll be able to find it in the studio shop. 😊

Day 42

I actually caught up to current day this week! The cartoon characters were super fun so I continued on with them from Christopher Hart’s Cartoon Cool: How to Draw New Retro-Style Characters book. This is my first space boy. I picture him being what last week’s little nerd boy wanted to grow up into.

Day 43

When I started making my way through the retro cartoon book, I was determined to do all of the drawings in order. I abandoned that rather quickly, but not before I did this little space girl. The cartoon I was copying looked more like the little girl from the Art of Noise from the 80’s so I changed her up to look more like a space girl. She looks a little unhappy, but I am unsure why.

Day 44

This is an altered version of another cartoon character in the book. I liked her stance, but I didn’t really know what to do when she wasn’t all outlined like the others. I was copying a sketch of a girl she wasn’t finished yet! I think my alien girl came out ok. I can’t help but think of Barbarella as I make sexier-type space girls. I don’t know why space girls tend to be underdressed (and under armored) compared to their male counterparts, besides trying to market the story to men…

Day 45

I couldn’t help myself. I had to start a new Christopher Hart book…Fashion Design Studio. I always thought fashion model sketches were cool, and I wanted to try my hand at them. I remember doing one in the 6th grade and loving the exercise, but I never tried it again. Probably because you wouldn’t put me and fashionable in the same sentence. 😂

So I took my fashion model’s face and tried to make her look like a space girl. My drawing looks nothing like the model I was copying. And my color schemes are getting a little boring as my space girls are starting to look like Lost in Space green ladies and Too Funky ladies.

Day 46

So when I started in on the new book, I thought I would draw all of the drawings in order. Again, that didn’t last very long. 😂 I really thought learning how to draw the fashion models would help my figure drawing, because that’s something I’m not really good at.

My drawing doesn’t look much like the model I was copying and I kinda screwed up the shading (I grabbed too dark of a marker), but it’s mostly ok.

And I learned something while I was drawing this girl. I didn’t buy the book I thought I bought. There’s a second fashion studio one that looks really similar to this one. So I went on another (smaller) book binge…

Day 47

The new book, The Beginner’s Fashion Design Studio, came in the mail and I was super excited! The difference between these two books is that this one has more lessons on how to draw clothed models vs how do to each part of the model. I was really hoping it was going to help me go back to the everyday retro part of the project. But as you can see, I’m still stuck on space girls!

Day 48

I am not trying to draw every lesson in this book this time! 😂 I was thinking I could turn this outfit into some kind of space outfit, but it didn’t occur to me that this particular model was in the wind and she looked cute with her head tipped. My girl ended up looking like she got dumped off on the moon. 🙄 She’s leaning pretty good and I just kinda gave up on her. If she were straighter and I were smarter, I would’ve kept her as an Earth girl!

Day 49

I felt pretty defeated after my leaning girl, so I went back to retro cartoons. I also gave up and went for the sexier space girl. I kinda like her. She needs a better costume, or better colors since I’m stuck on blue/orange, but she would be fun to turn into a character that did something. Maybe I will try that at some point…

We’re almost at the halfway point now!

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100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project Week 5

Post author By Jaime
Post date

In case this is the first time you’re seeing this, my 100 day project is a 1950’s/Mid-Century theme and I’m using alcohol markers for my illustrations. Very little of what you see below is original. I’ve been using Pinterest for my inspiration, so credit needs to go to those artists, not me. Once I start making something original, you’ll be able to find it in the studio shop. 😊

I got behind this week, so I overcompensated. Keep reading to find out what happened. 😏

Day 31

I haven’t been very good at doing one drawing a day. I seem to do a week’s worth in one day, which totally defeats the purpose of this project!

I was nearly caught up and I wasn’t feeling very inspired any more. Some of my markers are acting like they’re drying up and I felt kinda defeated. So I drew a cat because they’re easy. I also thought I’d give writing in a retro font a shot. This is not my new favorite piece!

Day 32

I don’t remember if I said, but I went on a massive eBay book binge, and I found this book with fashions from the 1940s. It’s a straight copy of a photo, but it was fun to do something that didn’t require a lot of thought (I picked a photo and just drew it). I added the city background for funsies. I do like this one. It was fun to do!

Day 33

This is another straight photo copy from this pin. I didn’t get the depth I wanted on the car, but I got depth of the car in the landscape, so that was pretty cool. I’m not the best car artist, but this was fun to do too!

Day 34

After the previous two super-detailed ones, I kind of ran out of steam. Wednesdays seems to wear me out anyway, so my inspo was in the toilet. This one is very highly borrowed off this pin. I like the actual object more than I like my drawing!

Day 35

I took a few days off from this project and I started to contemplate if I wanted to continue or not. I’ve gotten really enamored with miniatures and book binding, particularly using leather. I started to wonder if I should shift the project to that.

Then I remembered the stack of books I binged on. I really wanted to read them since I thought some would be perfect for this project, but I hadn’t had time. Then the lightbulb went off!

Now I’m following along with some of the lessons in Christopher Hart’s Cartoon Cool: How to Draw New Retro-Style Characters. It’s been fun learning a new drawing style! I thought this one was perfect while watching March Madness!

Day 36

Compared to the basketball player, this one was much easier to draw. I think the most interesting things about this style are the strong dark outlines and simplicity of the shapes. Definitely different for me!

Day 37

I was super excited to do this little girl. I had been debating if I should shade these characters or do the heavy outlines. I haven’t tried the shading thing yet, but I did do this with and without the heavy lines. You can see that on the socials next week.

Day 38

This one super excited me too! She reminds me a little of Judy Jetson. Well, the character in the book reminds me of Judy, not so much my rendition. 😂 You can see her progression on the socials next week.

Day 39

Mr. Evil Mad Scientist is just a little creepy. I originally made him green, and I didn’t like that, so I put a flesh color over it and I really like the result. It’s a great orange color!

I’m not going to win any awards for his hands, but they were complex, and I don’t think they came out too bad. Hands are not the easiest thing to draw!

Day 40

Now the old man was a fun character to draw! He reminds me of another character, but I can’t figure out who. That part is driving me crazy! So if you recognize him, please drop a comment below.

Day 41

I was really, really excited to draw this girl! She reminds me a lot of the dancing girl I did last week. I think she would be great on a travel poster too. It would be a really interesting concept to try out!

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100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project Week 4

Post author By Jaime
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Day 23

It was a winding road to get here. I’ve been following Karen Campbell’s YouTube channel and she introduced me to another artist (more on him later). I decided my space girls needed bodies, so after some Googling, I found a female superhero tutorial. I really liked the sketchy pencil lines so I decided to ink them and keep the sketchiness. It has a little bit to be desired, but I like the idea of it.

Day 24

The new artist I found is Christopher Hart. I totally fell in love with this tutorial and I ended up going on a big eBay book buying binge. I love, love, love the retro look of this character! His videos reawakened my childhood love of cartoons and wanting to be a cartoonist. Hey, it’s never too late, right?

Day 25

One of the things that I love about the retro things I find online is that they’re not outlined. I’m starting to think they’re done digitally and I’m wondering if that’s a little easier to do than on paper. I am a victim of my own poor planning on paper, because I put the wrong value down at the wrong time! This girl was based on the first girl, but without the outlines. For some reason, she reminds me of one of my aunts. I don’t know if I could picture her in go-go boots or not!

Day 26

This girl is kind of a best of the other two. I thought it would be fun to do her in black and white and do the background in stronger values of a color. I like this one. I do need to work on placement next…all of their feet are dangerously close to the bottom of the page!

Day 27

I went back to my Space Girls for this one. She’s kind of a combination of the Lost in Space and Too Funky girls. At one point I got super frustrated because the colors were awful and the contrast wasn’t there and I hated it. I don’t know what happened, but I kept going and she came out ok. She’s a little wonky, but not as bad as I thought!

Day 28

I thought I’d try another Space Girl without any kind of cowl or helmet. I liked the hair on the cartoon girls, but that didn’t seem so realistic so I did this bob thing. She started to get a little Aeon Flux on me and I didn’t want that to happen! There are things I like about this one, and things I don’t. I think all of my space girls are in shades of red and green! Makes me think I should try a new color combo!

Day 29

I don’t remember what rabbit hole took me here. I think it was a batch of suggested pins on Pinterest. I found this pin and she looked super interesting to draw. I drew her crooked on the page, so I had to have her leaning on something…so how about her rocket? This did start with a pencil drawing, but again, I liked the sketchiness, so I inked it and went with it! What do you think of the monochromes? It’s kind of interesting after the really colorful ones!

Day 30

I had fun with the previous Space Girl so I tried another one based on this pin. I realized I needed her to have something to lean on, so I made this little weird looking robot. Not sure if he appreciates being leaned on like that or not! What’s really strange is the likeness she has to Lucille Ball…I wasn’t looking at a photo of her at the time! I am kind of enjoying the fashion model-esque drawing style I’ve been doing lately. I’m sure I will change my mind again, but they definitely go really fast!

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100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project Week 3

Post author By Jaime
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I guess if I had evened out the number of drawings, I would’ve had the right amount per week. 😂 I obviously didn’t think that far ahead! Last week wasn’t as productive in terms of quantity, but I think the quality went up considerably!

Day 18

If you get the the newsletter, you’ll know where the toucan idea came from. At least I left out the alligator! This was my first try at a travel poster style.

Day 19

I’ve still been struggling to make a travel poster. I feel like I need a good architecture sort of tutorial to figure it out. If you followed along with last year’s 100 Day Project, you’ll see some of versions of the Frauenthal I did on the inchie scale. I didn’t get the funkiness I liked in some of my inchies (this one is pretty bland), but I got kind of a 40’s feeling down. Now to work on my lettering…

Day 20

R is a big old TV fan, and Lost in Space was one of the retro shows he had been watching last year. He left the DVD thing open in a chair and I saw this green lady. I loved the photo, and enjoyed the episode too. Not gonna lie, I copied the photo. I cannot tell you how much I love how this came out! So much! I wish she were of my own creation, but it was a great portrait to work on!

Day 21

The green lady reminded me of the space lady in George Michael’s Too Funky video. You can see a clip of her about midway down this article. I don’t quite like my execution of it, but I really do love the concept! I think I have the proportions of her face a little skewed, but I’m pretty close!

Day 22

This was just a quickie cat totally from this pin. I kinda picked up the wrong green for the eyes, and since there’s no erasing in marker, I had to make it look intentional…

Wanderlust 2022 Week 5

I normally wouldn’t put a Wanderlust piece in here, but I was so enamored with my marker space ladies that I did my own. I had have no reference photo for this one, I just started drawing/painting a face, and I so love this one! It’s filled with all kinds of wonderful collage bits too! I am thinking that a space lady series may be in my future!

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100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project Week 2

Post author By Jaime
Post date

I don’t think I understand the definition of what a week is. There’s more than 7 drawings here! 😂 Anyway, here is everything I’ve worked on in the past week for the 100 Day Project.

Day 9

One of the Art Retro Rendezvous lessons was to make a 1940’s girl using Karen (the instructor’s) Fun, Fab, Style. I have to say that I’m really blown away by this technique and how my girl came out. She came out so, so much better than I thought. It’s true…art will go through an ugly phase, but you need to stay with it until the end!

Day 10

This cool cat was inspired by this pin. I haven’t gotten comfortable with not outlining my drawings. I like the concept of the background (and I love the colors), but the execution of the cat is not my favorite.

Day 11

I really wanted to get a retro TV in here. The TV is from this pin. The cat and the lamp isn’t too far behind. I tried really hard to not outline this one! I’m working on becoming more comfortable with that concept!

There is a lot of layers in this one, particularly in the background. I wanted to go with a yellow’ish wall, but it ended up becoming taupe’ish instead. I also had issues buffing out the streaks. Fortunately, it came out ok, though.

Day 12

This pin and this pin had a baby. It reminds me of a postage stamp from the 70’s too. I don’t know which stamp I’m thinking of, but it’s one of the colorful ones from that era. Since I can’t get over outlining, I decided to take a Neurographic approach to my lines. It almost gave it a stained glass kind of vibe.

Day 13

The car is copied from this pin because I thought these cars were adorable! I don’t know why, but this one reminds me of the Flintstones. Maybe it’s the wonkiness of the car. It almost looks like it’s bouncing down the road, doesn’t it?

I wanted to work in some 50’s symbols and lettering into this one, but as R pointed out, the space age isn’t 2022. He’s right, but I’m going to pretend I’m right too. 😜

Day 14

Another cat. But on a stack of records this time! Aside from screwing up the highlight on the record (the angles aren’t correct), I love the little white feet on the cat. Mittens looks so annoyed that the record is as big as he is. 😂

Day 15

I’m not gonna lie. this is a blatant copy of this pin. I absolutely love, love, love how this came out! I love the colors, I love the details, I just really love it. I want to do more of these in this style. I’m not sure how to get there without copying, but at least I know I’m capable.

Day 16

My interpretation (copy) of one of the months in this calendar. I don’t know if there’s a Kepler-10. I just ran out of room on the line when I was doing my lettering and I didn’t want to start it over, so I went with it.

This is another one I wish I hadn’t outlined, but I did only because I had so many pencil lines and I wanted to remember what I wanted to keep (also, I was too lazy to erase and clean up the pencil lines.

One day I’m going to make a vibrant one of these that doesn’t have an outline on it!

Day 17

This one is fairly original. I was looking at sunflower pics, but not at any particular one. I don’t know that this one is complete. I feel like it needs more white lines, but I don’t know what those should be. This is the least retro of the bunch, but it has a lot of good shading/colors in it.

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100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project Week 1

Post author By Jaime
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I’ve been doing the 100 Day Project for the last few years and I had a bunch of fun doing it. Last year I did the inchies and really enjoyed it! I got a late start this year, but I’m going ahead anyway!

February has been the beginning of new art classes and I’ve decided to mash those up into my 100 Day Project. One class is the Art Retro Rendezvous and it’s inspired me to go on a mid-century kick for the next 100 days.

I have a thing for mid-century travel posters and 50’s icons and I would love to make that style of art. I’ve been geeked about alcohol markers (think Copics or Sharpies) and I want to get better at both of these things.

Very little of what you see below is original. I’ve been using Pinterest for my inspiration, so credit needs to go to those artists, not me. Once I start making something original, you’ll be able to find it in the studio shop. 😊

Day 1

Some of the lessons in the Art Retro Rendezvous class are to make up icons for drawing practice and future inspiration. I don’t know why I love those atomic cats so much, but I do.

This one started out ok, but adding the wallpaper was its downfall! I don’t know if anyone liked those colors together back in the day or now!

Day 2

Another one of the lessons was to take the pieces and assemble them into something new. The chair and the cabinet are straight off a Google image search, so this one is really not mine! I don’t know what I Googled, else I’d link to it.

Day 3

R and his dad are car guys. They love old cars and I’ve been to several car museums with them. Talk about two kids in a candy shop! I’m less interested in the cars themselves, but I’m fascinated with things like hood ornaments and badges. I like artsy fartsy car shots too.

This I really liked this pin and wanted to try my hand at a 50’s car. I spent a lot of time on this one and had fun doing it. It looks better matted, but I may try something like this again with one of my own old car photos.

Day 4

I thought I’d go looking for free photos since I really do feel bad about copying someone else’s work. It’s never my intention to rip off another artist and pass it off as my own work.

I found a photo of a little toy car but my execution was a little less than perfect. I don’t care for the background or the car, but I did learn that more time=better looking cars.

Day 5

Honestly, I think I have too many pins on my board and it caused me a massive case of overwhelm. There are so many styles that I love that I want to try to emulate!

I couldn’t make up my mind of what city I wanted to do, so I tried my own from a photo I took of a sunset. It’s a little meh, and it wasn’t supposed be snowing (shake the paint pen with the cap on.) but it’s ok if you know what I’m looking at. If you don’t, I don’t know why you’d want to travel there. 😂

Day 6

The cats are so ridiculously easy to do. I did this cat to boost my ego. I like this one. I really like the color palette too. I’m trying to not do 100 versions of the same cat.

Day 7

This is mostly a blatant copy of this pin. I love the original so much! I almost think this style would be easier to do digitally vs with markers, but obviously they didn’t have digital tools back in the day!

What I love about mine are the bright colors against the neutrals and I love the clouds! I think all of those years of watching cartoons must’ve stuck in my head, because that’s what I saw in them! There are elements to this one that I want to bring to future pieces.

Day 8

This one was based off the previous one, but I was trying desperately to make it my own. It started in a different manner from the other in that the white paint went down before the markers. That only happened because I was trying not to waste the paint from when I primed the paint pen.

While it’s quite similar to the one above, it is a little different. There are elements of this one that I’d like to carry into future pieces as well.

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