If you want to get your very own copy you can find them at Jerry’s Artarama or on the Jerry’s websitesite, on Amazon and also on Ebay… How cool is that?!

I had so much fun yesterday I decided to do a little photo shoot of my own here at Bob Ostrom Studio. Here are a few pics. Enjoy.

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I’ve been having a lot of fun with these mini canvases lately. Here’s one I did with my class at Jerry’s Artarama. These things are great.

Our theme for the last class was Under the Sea (I thought it would be fun to do a snail). We used acrylic paint, sharpie markers, acrylic gel medium, sand and glitter.

It’s a great little project. Super fun and super affordable…and I’m hooked. Here how it works. First we sketch our drawing onto the mini-canvas (the one shown here is 4″X5″ and goes for about 3 bucks). The next step is to paint in the image using acrylic paint. Once you’ve finished that it’s time to add some texture.

I added clear gel medium to the bottom of this little canvas. Everywhere where I wanted the to be sand I covered with gel. The trick is to really lay it on thick. Once I had it coated I took some beach sand and sprinkled it over the top of the canvas. Then I shook it over a garbage can. Anywhere there was gel the sand stuck everywhere else it shook off.

My students did the same thing. Some of them used sand, some used glitter, some used both. The gel starts out a translucent white but dries clear so its easy to see what you’re doing. Once everything is dried we outlined our characters using a sharpie permanent marker. They all looked fantastic.

You can really get creative with a project like this. I highly recommend it for kids 5 and up. Just one word of caution. Acrylic paint and sharpie marker does not wash out of clothing so make sure you wear something old or cover up with a smock. Good luck can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Classes:

• January 6th – 4-6pm For Kids ages 5-9
• February 10th - 4-6pm For Kids ages 5-9
• March 17th – 4-6pm For Kids ages 5-9
• April 14th – 4-6pm For Kids ages 5-9

For more info on the classes at Jerry’s please check out their website

Appearances: As of the moment my schedule is full. I will be adding appearances later in the year.

Videos: I am doing some more videos with the fabulous group of folks down at Burning Oak Studios this year. There are a few in production right now and we are in the process of scheduling another shoot. If you haven’t seen any of the vids yet please check them out at the Jerry’s Artarama site or you can find them on Youtube.

Ustream: For those of you who do not live in the area or would prefer to watch me on line…I’ve also added a Ustream channel. Yep, now you can watch me live on my very own Ustream channel. If you’ve ever wanted to see how a professional naps at his desk…..er works then you’re in luck…. this is the place for you.

What’s coming up: For those of you who are super-serious about learning art I’ve been working on a series of courses just for you.

Later this year I am planning to open up a subscription site with advanced classes and tutorials. These classes will not be free but they will be filled to the brim with amazing amounts of Bob Ostrom Studio artistic know how. You won’t want to miss them. I’ll have more about these at a later date.

If you’re not familiar with artist trading cards here’s the idea… they are basically just a  2  1/2″ X 3  1/2″ piece of paper or board that an artist uses to create an original piece of art. Some artist sell them, others create them to trade or give away. They have become very popular lately.

Srathmore has really stepped up to the plate by offering all kinds of accessories to go with them. First of all the make the 2  1/2″ X 3  1/2″ cards in just about any kind of paper or board you can think of. They also make polypropylene sleeves you can use to protect your original art with. They make pre-cut matted frames to show off the finished cards as well as archival boxes for storage. My accessory is the 2  3/4″ by 3  3/4″ envelopes they make so you can mail them to your buds.

Here are a few pics from my demo. If this looks like something you’d like to try please come check out my next class December 15th at Jerry’s. This class is for students 5 and up. For more details please check out the Jerry’s site.

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…Don’t forget artist trading cards make great holiday gifts too.

For this demo I busted out the old acrylics and had a blast painting “JellyFish”. It’s been a little while since I’ve done a large canvass. It sure felt nice to get away from the computer and actually get messy for a few hours. The paint was flying and we were having a blast. If you missed this demo don’t worry I’ve got a few more coming up as well as some cartooning classes I think you’ll really enjoy. You can check out my schedule here to find out which class or demo time would be best for you.

Bob’s Winter Fall Scedule

More stuff from Jerry’s

Hope to see you then… and don’t forget to check back for updates.

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Just click on the little picture below and you can have your very own free panda coloring page. Use markers, crayons, colored pencils or even color it on the computer like I did. It’s all yours so have fun and happy coloring.

* Note: the coloring book pages are totally free and you can copy them as many times as you like, you can even make copies for your friends. All I ask is that you don’t try to sell them or remove my website and copyright information from them… other then that have fun and don’t forget to tell your friends where you got them. All artwork posted on this site is © Bob Ostrom illustration unless otherwise specified.

]]> http://bobostromstudio.com/how2draw/2009/07/02/panda/feed/ 0 http://bobostromstudio.com/how2draw/2009/06/27/experimenting-with-adobe-illustrator/ http://bobostromstudio.com/how2draw/2009/06/27/experimenting-with-adobe-illustrator/#comments Sun, 28 Jun 2009 02:48:38 +0000 admin http://bobostromstudio.com/how2draw/?p=525

Ink Scan.

So I’ve been experimenting with Adobe Illustrator a little bit lately. I wanted to try and find a way to bring some color to the hand inked look I’ve been having so much fun with lately. A couple of weeks back I rediscovered these really cool brush tip markers while shooting the videos for Jerry’s. It was all kind of by accident…

It was all kind of by accident. I’d used the brush tip markers once or twice over the years but wasn’t really in love with them. Then as we were shooting the videos I realized I wanted a heavier line with a more organic look. I remembered the brush markers I had sitting in my art kit and fished a few out. They turned out to be just what I was looking for.

Work in progress...

Since then I’ve been experimenting with them a little bit and I’m really kind of digging the whole shaky Charles Schultz looking line I’m getting. At first I was attempting to color the illustrations in Adobe Photo-shop but that was WAY too much work. More recently I’ve been experimenting with Adobe Illustrator and the whole live paint thing (which for some reason I keep wanting to call smart fill). Anyhow I’m pretty sure I’ve got it just about worked out. I’ll keep you guys updated as I go.

You can find some of the free art lessons posted over at the Jerry’s Site by just clicking this link
Bob’s Free Art Lessons

Special thanks to Rob from Octave Blue for the photographs:http://www.octaveblueentertainment.com/