Flower with Sketchbook Pro: Beginner level

I have not really used Sketchbook Pro as much as I would like, due to homework and artist's block. Here is a flower I drew using an economical PenPad Tablet and pen. I felt like posting something though, so here is a flower. Thanks for stopping by this little blog!

Design--Freehand

This is a freehand pen drawing I did yesterday.

The blue and yellow tints are accidental--I had to fill the picture with light because I took the photo with my cell phone and my shadow was visible. I might use something similar to this on a brochure I am creating to commemorate May Is National Mental Health Awareness Month. I am manning a booth on campus to celebrate and I need a brochure to hand out. Unfortunately, the NAMI brochures cost 20 dollars for 50 brochures and they won't come in time anyways (4-5 week wait). I will just make my own brochures to hand out and get them printed cheap through the campus bookstore. 

As you may know from reading the first blog entry, I had started this blog to help raise funds for a mental health organization. Sadly, their funding fell through and nobody seemed particularly interested in my artwork, either. C'est la vie! That's life. On the plus side, I now have an outlet for my creative side and I am still interested in raising awareness on behalf of those who live with a mental illness. 

I bought an art book to display for the Mental Health Awareness Table. It's "Martin Ramirez: The Last Works." Ramirez was an immigrant from Mexico who was found to have schizophrenia and became institutionalized for the remainder of his life. What is great about him is that he overcame his disability and made beautiful art, which is now world famous. His artwork is mostly patterns of lines and curves. He draws a lot of railroad tracks and various religious icons. 

I first saw one of Martin Ramirez's pieces during my intermediate drawing class when the professor brought in her art book of his artwork. I was immediately captivated by his sense of symmetry and his mastery of hypnotic lines. I remember that my hands were stained with charcoal from drawing class and that I had to wash them for about 3 minutes before they were clean enough to touch the crisp, white pages of my professor's book. Once I turned the pages I didn't want to give up the book because the images and the story behind them moved me.