Danielle Calabro

Still just doodling away, my goal is to fill this small sketchbook up over the next few months.  The biggest challenge with this trying to use different patters for each section.

So things have been a bit busy since Christmas, mostly at work. We have had a few changes and it is taking time to adjust but we will get there, just a little wore out. The only thing I have been able to do lately is doodle, but being creative non-the-less. The one on the right may actually make a good coloring page. I also had to take time this weekend to clean up and organize my creative space, honestly I have refused to go into this room unless I had too, I have been doing all of my doodling in a small sketch book for the las couple of months in the living room. I also had to move the game system out of this space, my son is a very talkative and expressive kids so he can become very distracting, only a bad thing when you are trying to focus. Excuses I know, but I have remedied most of them so on to more creative fun.

We are in that time of the year when it is holiday after holiday. No time to breath or recover, just full steam ahead. This year we are doing Thanksgiving since we finally have a house and I can't wait. Then it will be our daughters and my mother-in-laws birthday, an anniversary, Christmas and we finish it off with New Years. So basically we will be going, going, going until January. In between all of this I will be doing my best to keep posting as much as I can. This is my transition from Halloween into Thanksgiving Here's to the hustle and bustle of the Holidays

I have always been fascinated with Sugar Skulls and how colorful and decorative they are, I know it had something to do with the "Day of the Dead," which I never understood, so being the curious person I am, I did a little research. If I am going to draw something I have to know what it is I am drawing and if there is a deeper meaning. "Day of the Dead" is held on November 1st and 2nd and is a day that family and friends gather to pray and remember their loved ones that have passed on and to help them on their spiritual journey. So where did the "Sugar Skull" get its name? Well once again something I had to find out for myself. Sugar art was brought over by Italian missionaries in the 17th century and adopted by the people who quickly learned how to make sugar art. Personally I find them beautiful. "Day of the Dead" is also celebrated on the same days as the Catholic holy days of "All Saints' Day" on Nov. 1st which is dedicat...

One of my favorite things to bake is cupcakes, so for Day 21 of #inktober you got a cupcake. Of course I can never get my icing as perfect as this but they always taste good. They are so much easier to make then a regular cake, you don't have to worry about the bottom sticking to the pan or cutting the top of the layers to make it flat. Bake the cupcake and throw some icing on them unless of course you are going for a more creative look but even then it's still easier in my opinion. Hey Cupcake keep on inking!!

Day 10 of #inktober2016 Zentangle, I never heard of this until about 2 years ago, had no clue what it was but I loved it.  Of course I wanted to find out more so I looked it up and found that it was created as a form of therapy. You are not to use an eraser, at first I thought, that is absolutely crazy, I have to have my eraser, what if I mess up? but what this teaches you is, don't throw out something you are working on just because the line goes in the wrong spot, work with it and make it work for you.  Happy Inking my Friends

Well, we survived the storm. No damage to the houses, except to the guy who drilled wood into his house to cover some of his windows. He was crazy, these are new houses and they make clips for that, No way would I have done that. Anyway, as I said before I had plenty of time on my hands so I used my time wisely. So for Day 8 of #inktober I choose to do a pumpkin. It is a little darker then I would have liked but I am still learning how each pen works. I also grabbed the few grey Copic markers I have to do the shading. I think it came out fine but the grey's I have were not close enough together so you it is not a gradient shading that I was going for. Which is ok, I have some warm and cool grey markers coming in on Tuesday so I will just have to be patient. So, how many people have their pumpkins? We do, we got 2 already. I would like to get a couple bales of hey too, I am hoping that some of these local farms will sell some, time to start calling around. Just before the sto...

October 1st, 2016, this is my first year of participating in #Inktober. I received my goodies from art snacks but I will be honest, I was a little disappointed in the products for spending $99.00, I think I could have purchased the same products on Amazon for less and still been able to get more. Either way the money has been spent and I am not going to waste it. So this is day 1, todays prompt is "fast," and whats faster then a spaceship? I assumed I  should follow the prompts but I have seen others that have not, so I will be bouncing back and forth between prompts and my own ideas. I have a lot to learn when it comes to shading with ink and using brush pens but I am excited and ready to learn. Happy #inktober

In Honor of our wonderful Independence day and day 4 of #worldwatercolormonth: Watercolor and black and white ink

I love some good coffee, I even splurge on a more expensive brand at the grocery store. I like my coffee to taste good and be strong (just like my man),  if I forget it at home, I am not a nice person for a couple of hours. On occasion I will stop at a popular coffee shop and pick up a coffee on my way home from work for my and my hubby, usually after payday, have to watch those pennies. Here is the latest idea for our soon to be coffee station. A little more then a sketch but definitely not a finished product. I wanted to play with color and see what I liked and didn't like. I used Ph Martin inks and watercolors. I think I will be changing the color of the bottom cup and making the table a little lighter and the cups a bit bigger. Other then that I am very happy with the way it came out. The lettering was added once I scanned the painting into the computer. There were a few changes I would have loved to make after I had it in the computer, but I don't have one of those...

I have been experimenting with Ph Martin inks lately, I like them.  They are pretty much like watercolors but seem to have a bit more pigment in them. The background on this was done with the inks, the clouds and the foreground was done using black and white gouache.  I feel like I am the middle tree, my dreams are on one side of me growing larger and larger, while my regular 9 to 5 is on the other getting smaller. I am reaching for the dream but I still have the 9 to 5 pulling at me. One day it will only be the two trees and I intend on it being the larger one. Dream big and don't give up, through all the fog there is a bright future.

We have been super busy with the holidays Lately and I have found it hard to stay on top of everything. So where to start, we are waiting for the final "Gold Cert." on the loan approval for the house and it is driving me crazy and stressing me out. Its hard not to think about but we keep praying that everything will work out. Thanksgiving was great and time flew by getting to Christmas, only a few more days left and of course I have a couple more things to get got to love waiting on a pay check.  One thing I did not wait until the last possible minute on was Christmas cards. I only did 5, to be honest I loved doing the outside of the cards but the blank inside is what scared me the most.  THE SNOWMAN He is my favorite, just so darn cute. I used watercolor for the background and took a chance on the snowman and used gouache. I loved the matte finish the gouache has, I outlined using india ink. THE LIGHTS This is my second favorite, the lines were done with cop...

Unfortunately, here in Florida there is no such thing as seasons, you have hot, comfortable or wait its not supposed to be this cold in Florida. I have grown up in florida and have never had the opportunity to see the changing leaves of fall, when it gets to what we call cold in Florida you just see the trees loose their leaves. So in celebration of the fall season...... I wanted to try something a little different, this is done in india ink. I started with a cheap calligraphy brush but couldn't get the thin lines I was looking for so I switched to a calligraphy dip pen and #0 and #00 watercolor brushes. I did not draw this out first, I wanted to see what I could come up with right out of my head, there were a few mistakes but I made them work for me. I really like the way this came out and I am considering trying this on canvas with acrylics, maybe even add a little color.