This is my niece, Nicole and the catch phrase “Watch Me, Watch Me”  still stands true, and now she has plenty of people watching her.

She danced her way into the Chicago Luv-a-Bulls, Chicago’s Adrenaline Rush, Schaumburg Flyers and now she is responsible for putting together  The Black Pearl Dance Team for the Peoria Pirates.

Nicole put together an astounding 2009 Black Pearls Calendar, her talents go beyond dancing, she designed the calendar and has an eye for flair and perfection.

The Pirate’s football season is kicking off down south of us, why not join the fun and get into the action, hey Rent A Pirate Costume for the Next Peoria Pirates Game and put your game face on!

The Black Pearl Dance Team was honored by MLN for being among the top Minor Leaque Dance Teams quite an accomplishment.

Dance as if no on is watching, live like there is no tomorrow and love as if you have never been hurt!

I am proud of you Nicole!

Captain Jack Sparrow & Captain Barbosa captivated audiences and created a spur of eclectic dress and dreadlocks.

There are a variety of pirate ranks, I’d like to focus on the captain, they are either elected or rule by force.

Captains had to keep a sensible order, and if they failed, the punishment for the one’s that were elected was not nearly as devastating as that of the one that ruled by force.

Sensible order – what is that in this day & age?

We need to be our own Captains. “ Captain of My Life by Dillinger“

I found myself loosing control of sensible order when I became quite detached from the basics of life, while I was trying to figure out a situation that was beyond my control, a situation that was beyond my scope of rational thinking, the bottom line, was there were no answers for me. I didn’t control the situation, I was only in the mix and I needed to regain my position as Captain of My Life.

If you find yourself on that sinking pirate ship, grab your life raft, it’s a simple vessel, which are the basics of life, love, happiness, harmony & trust. It could be a hand that is reaching out to you, that you can’t see through the fog, or someone’s words of encouragement that are getting lost in the choppy waters.

If there is no sensible order in your life, remember – you are your own captain.

I sketched this sexy woman pirate on an old recycled wine box that my husband found on his recycle run. This was done with both graphite and paint, first I sketched in the sexy pirate, and added the colors of the sea behind her. I left the upper left section with it’s natural wood grain to give the effect of the sky next to the sunset.

It’s a treasure box for any pirate fan!  This treasure box now belongs to Hannah…Happy Birthday

This software is way to much fun for a cold, misty Chicago weekend!

PQ DVD was running a special if you blogged about the software, you get a free copy! It’s worth trying, but I think I missed the deadline!  

Gave me hours of entertainment!

This was one of my earlier Johnny Depp done on a piece of cedar, it was about 1/8 inch think.  I did not sand this a whole lot, kept a bit of roughness to give Jack Sparrow a bit more ruddy look.

By using a variety of pencils, I got the “dirty” look of the pirate. 

The scarf is done with a Derewent Drawing Pencil – Sanguine 6220, a major portion of his dreadlocks where done with a dark brown #2453 charcoal.  I do alot of light strokes with the charcoals, and depend on blending to get the correct effect. 

To master the dreadlocks once the entire pencil sketch was finished, I used a paint pen with an overlapping S motion – Pigma Brush #1 Archival Ink AP.  This is a waterproof ink, and just adds a bit of a stand out effect.

~ Soul to Soul

Working on his dreadlocks is always alot of fun, you can let your charcoal pencils just go wild here..I start with a medium brown woodless charcoal brown and I just begin the swirling motion, try doing figure eights.

I will then go in right next to the dark brown with an ebony charcoal, figure eights tightly knitted next to the dark brown will give you a better three dimension effect.  After I get them all in, I will tortillion the lot of them, not with a hard hand, but lightly so that you can get the blend.. then I repeat the above steps with a bit harder touch, so that you can get the dimension going on. 

With the ornamental pieces and jewelry that hangs from his do-rag and the right side, I use a variety of colors from Derwent Graphitint – they have more of a waxy feel to them, so it does make it tough to adjust any mistakes, so be careful and only use these on the jewelry.  You can not go over the waxy element with any other pencil. 

Soul to Soul – Susie

Adding a little more to the depths of his cheekbones, I used a ebony woodless charcoal. I cleaned up the length of his nose as stated in the previous post, I did not like how narrow it originally looked.   Try using a lighter stroke, it is easier to clean up your lines.  I have noticed when you are using pine, as you get unfinished from Hobby Lobby and other craft stores, you are more apt to run into troubles going back and erasing any thing that you do not care for. 

Woodless charcoal does smudge easy when you use a tortillion – I love those things.  It also can blend into smaller area’s.  If you are not able to get them, you can also go with a Q-tip, remove alot of the cotton, or all of it for that matter, and you get a nice little blending tool  You can also make your own tortillion. I added a bit of color to his lips.  as well as the auburn woodless graphite pencil to add color to snap his do-rag into place.  Again, I do not recommend blending solely with your finger on this type of unfinished wood product. 

I was not happy with the lightness of his eyes that I originally put in place, so I enhanced it with a darker brown woodless charcoal. 

The work continues..blessings to all.. and stay tuned as we soon will be able to serve up some shots of rum on the serving tray in progress.

I have enjoyed each one of these drawings and projects.  This is one of the most famous poses you will find this character in.  I start out with a soft woodless graphite pencil and begin with the outline of his features.

I used to save the eyes for last, but I think if you begin with the eyes, you will notice the drawing “pop” earlier.

After I get the intial outline done, I take and begin with the darker corners of the subjects face and shade in those area’s – for this I used a woodless charcoal ebony, and then I use several sizes of “tortillions” to get the charcoal to move where I would like it.  I have often seen artists use their fingers, this works well if you are not working a porous surface as the above serving tray.

I begin to add a little color just to put it into perspective for myself.  In the piece above, I did not care for the shading on his nose, so I did go back through and lighten up the nose to make it more broad as it truly is.

More on the finishings to come…

Happy New Year

The piece shown is a copy that I turned into a book bag for my mommy, I again produced the stars and celestial effect using photoshop, but the original circle image is what was created on the bar stool  With a gloss finish on the top and a flat black on the legs of the bar stool, the contrast really was quite interesting.

The picture on the right is now floating around Wauconda, Illinois or a near suburb as someone’s ass end is sitting on Johnny’s face drinking rum no doubt, no horror in that ladies!

In the coming days, I will share with you the beginnings of a serving tray that I am working on with a very similar picture of our beloved Captain Jack Sparrow!

Soul to Soul

Susie

This is a piece that was done on a vintage window taken out of an old house.  This was an unusual piece that took me quite some time to perfect.  The front of the window was painted to create a frosted effect, the back of the window was painted black gloss.  

I used charcoal for the majority of the painting, along with some enamels to actually bring out the dreadlocks that this pirate is sporting.

I have auctioned a mighty fine bar stool at a charity auction recently that was a spot on image of the true Captain Jack Sparrow – Johnny Depp, I will post that soon.  It can as well be seen at The Trade Show Blog just search Captain Jack Sparrow and he will come up.

This piece was put on Ebay and I sent it off to Florida to a couple who belong to the Krewe of South Shore Marauders.  Mark & Annie stand here with the hand crafted treasure chest on their way to one of their parades.  

Mark had this to say about the Krewe of South Shore Marauders: 

“As a Krewe we raise money for scolarships in our area as well as performing community service projects such as Locks of Love and the cancer walk. We also do an annual Pirate Idol fundraiser. We are also participate in eight parades a year. We are in parade season now. We have already done the Ruskin Veterans Day parade and the Kwewe of Venus Christmas parade. The biggest parades are coming up in Jan. and Feb, These are the Gasparilla Childrens parade, Gasparilla Day parade and pirate Invasion(third largest in the country) and the St. Yago Knight parade.”

Thanks Mark & Annie – I hope this pirate watches over all who sleep beneath!