The news on the street is Johnny Depp may  portray the Mad Hatter - in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.

Do you wear different hats? Does that explain anything about our personalities? Actors and actresses always have on different hats, but have you tried something new lately?

I enjoying learning different things, do you give yourself the guilt free time to try something new?

I’ve experienced several different opportunities and feel blessed that I have, from my career as a bakery clerk, cosmetologist, office manager, event planner, SEO, Internet Marketing, artist, drawing.   Many people get caught up in the grind and dull drums of every day life to realize the power in learning.  The opportunities are limitless for you to get out there and put on a different hat just for the day, or even for an hour.

When you begin the learning process, it starts a chain of events in your soul that will continue to drive you to know more & learn more.  It becomes an addiction, and it can become a real positive in your life.

Endorphins are also released by the brain as a “motivation” or “reward” when new learning is achieved.

Endorphins being a natural narcotic stimulate us - who doesn’t need some sort of stimulation these days, with all the couch potato’s out there.  Stimulate yourself today to learn something new and wear a different hat, you will be surprised at how it can effect your all around attitude when you accomplish something different and learn something new.

Speaking of Hats - I get alot of hits for the Search Term - Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Hat, and what a better place to put up Texas Hatters, for those of you who are looking.

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.

I have completed the pencil sketch of Captain Jack Sparrow.  This is on pine serving tray, and is in the basement being laquered. 

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

Happy Saturday! Johnny Depp is filling out and coming to life more each day. 

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.