Tag: #drawing

Country Roads Take Me Home

by Free Spirit Meg, posted in FSM Updates, Travel, Work In Progress

I have this entire week off for vacation. I am pumped. I have needed a good break like this to rejuvenate myself in more ways than one. Besides working vigorously on my art and cleaning my house to the core, I am taking a much needed trip to Ohio to visit my family.

As always, expect a lot of pictures. I have a new lens that I haven’t been able to play with yet and it’s eating away at me! I need to try it out and this week will be the perfect opportunity.

I have a few pieces in the works. I have a realism piece of an otter, a zentangle of a sloth and a mini canvas painting. I will have to finish them when I get back but they are all coming along nicely.

Check back soon for more artwork and photography! Hope you’re enjoying the Summer! It’s been a busy one!

Stay sunny, free spirits!



~Totem Animal art by Free Spirit Meg~

Find your own totem animal in the shop!

Prints and Products Available here!



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W.I.P. Slumbering Sloth

by Free Spirit Meg, posted in Work In Progress, Zentangle Inspired Art (ZIA)

I’m starting my next piece and I’m giving in to this sloth obsession that has been going on. It seems like every year their is a strange animal that people go “ga-ga” over! This year is the sloth, I guess. Perhaps it’s one of those “you’re so ugly, you’re cute” kind of thing? Or is it their slow, calm and chill attitude? Whatever it may be, I’ve decided to try my hand at a sloth.

This is my rough sketch. I don’t think sloths really sleep like this but I wanted to play off of their lazy-like appearance. I’ve been really tired lately between work, family, summer activities and staying up later than I probably should. When I look at this, I can just imagine taking a nap in the trees with a nice, cool breeze. That would be the life, am I right? I think it’s safe to say we have all been there.

I have some of the ink done. This piece has a lot of patterns in it naturally so incorporating them will be fun! I also can’t wait to start the color. I don’t typically incorporate backgrounds for my totem pieces but this one definitely called for it. The leaves will be neat to create and green is one of my favorite colors to work with.

I hope you enjoyed the work in progress of my Sloth Totem. Check back soon to see the finished piece! What do you think about sloths? Cute and chill? Or Ugly and Freaky? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think?

Pleasant Dreams, Free Spirits!

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~Totem Animal art by Free Spirit Meg~

Find your own totem animal!

Prints and Products Available @ Redbubble!

Turtle Totem Finished Piece

by Free Spirit Meg, posted in Traditional Art

This piece was a challenge. I do not know why though. It was not fluid. I never really found a flow to the drawing. Usually I know what I want to do just by looking at it. Not this time. I had no idea what I wanted to incorporate of how I wanted to execute it. Perhaps a small bit of it was that I am still learning how to use the watercolor pencils. It takes time and practice. I know this but it is still frustrating when something doesn’t look the way you want it to.

I feel like I could have added a lot more detail with my ink work also. I have noticed that I have slowly slipped away from adding pointillism to my pieces to incorporate shadows. In my earlier drawings, I used this technique frequently. I should have used it with the turtle to allow it to blend more and become more real.

Although, I encountered a problem with my pens. The ink from the pen activated the watercolor pencil on the paper, therefore, it gets gunk on the tip of my pen and stops working. I thought it would be easy to add the ink after the color but it doesn’t really work. Maybe I should try doing the ink first and then use the watercolor pencils. Or else I will have to try a different type of pen.

I also grew very bored and tired of the piece. I had so many other ideas that had popped in my head that I would have rather been doing. I should have just abandoned the piece and came back to it later. I think the end result would have been better. I was just in a rush to finish it by the end. I was ready to move on. This definitely did not help the outcome.

It is not my best work but it is far from my worst. I still like the whimsical feel of this turtle. I really enjoy the smile and added that feature for a good reason. The reason I wanted to draw the turtle in the first place was because of an incident that recently happened to me. I was driving down the road with my brother in law and we saw a snapping turtle trying to cross the road. It had almost been hit a handful of times so we pulled over to rescue it. It was challenging trying to move it without getting snapped at but we were successful and got the turtle to the other side with the help of another driver passing by. We felt like super heroes and referenced a funny quote from one of our favorite TV shows, Futurama. “I saved a turtle today. What have you done with your life?” I was thrilled to be able to save the turtle and wanted to create this design to go with the phrase.

Have you saved any turtles lately? Share your story in the comments below! I would love to hear more success stories about our turtle friends! If you like this piece, you can find this and others in my shop at Redbubble!

Thanks for stopping by!

Take care, free spirits!

Horse of a Different Color

by Free Spirit Meg, posted in Free Spirit Merch

I’ve had some of these beauties hiding in a folder on my computer and decided it was time to share them with the world! I have literally gone horse crazy with my Horse Totem drawing (originally done in colored pencil). I’ve been wanting to get better with my photoshop skills and in the near future would like to get a digital drawing tablet. Yes, the digital age has finally grabbed me. So here are some designs I’ve created for horses of a different color! Which one is your favorite?

Find prints, apparel, home decor and more by clicking the links below!

Purple: rdbl.co/2FZ2n1N
Pink: rdbl.co/30p9ybz
Green: rdbl.co/2RYxPSR
Yellow: rdbl.co/2L5YoEP
Blue: rdbl.co/2V4ddsW
Orange (Plain Background): rdbl.co/2UVeRx0
Orange (Pattern Background): rdbl.co/2NDsrWM

#14 – Lacrosse Practice & Drawing Time

by Free Spirit Meg, posted in Megtography

This was the only photo I took today. Wednesdays are busy for my family but I always get a chance to draw during practice!

#6 – Green Giraffe

by Free Spirit Meg, posted in Megtography, Work In Progress

Remember this guy? I never did get around to finishing the color. It’s time. And now it’s a green giraffe. Because I said so.

Mother Bear – Happy Mother’s Day!

by Free Spirit Meg, posted in Events, Traditional Art, Zentangle Inspired Art (ZIA)

Happy Mother’s Day to all! I completed my Mother’s Day inspired drawing entitled, “Mother Bear”. I am so happy with how this turned out. Blue and orange hues together are some of my favorite colors! They really *POP* together. I have also been wanting to create a drawing of a mama bear and her cub for a very long time now. I finally got around to it and I’m happy I finally did it!

You can find it in my shop at Redbubble here. Available for prints, apparel, home décor and more! Check it out and get one for your Mother Bear!

You can also read about bear symbolism here on a post I created previously with my Bear Totem drawing.

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope your have a great day with your mother and/or children. Plus, wish Mother Earth a happy Mother’s Day! Plant a tree, a flower or just enjoy a nice nature hike!

Carpe diem, free spirit!

Flamingo Totem Drawing

by Free Spirit Meg, posted in Traditional Art, Zentangle Inspired Art (ZIA)

My Flamingo Totem is complete! It seemed like it took forever. Landscaping season started back up for me while I was half way finished with it. I can’t dedicate as much time in the day to drawing as I could over the winter. It really made the flamingo drag on but I forced myself to finish it and I’m glad I did. I am really happy with the outcome.

I actually have two versions of the flamingo. The first version, pictured above, was my initial idea of just doing the body so I had plenty of room to create the patterns and tangles within the feathers. Feathers are a lot of fun to create using Zentangle. While I was working on the body, I realized, aside from their color, one of the flamingos most distinctive features are their long legs. I thought it would be neat to incorporate the legs into the drawing making one big project. I used three sheets of my drawing paper to create one huge piece of the flamingo with it’s legs. I scanned the three images to my computer and pieced them together creating this long legged beauty!

I am really happy with how it looks as a full image. My only complaint is my scanner. Unfortunately, it couldn’t capture the really HOT pink color I was using so some of the areas are more dull compared to the original. Without comparing it though, the scanned image still looks pretty sweet!

I have both of these versions available in my shop at Redbubble. Click the links below to check out apparel, home décor, stationary and more!

Flamingo Totem (Body Only)

Flamingo Totem (with Long Legs)

You can also check out two patterns that I created from these pieces. The pretty blue background compliments the pink nicely. You can find these in my shop here and here.

Which design or drawing is your favorite? Leave a comment below! Thanks for stopping by today! I have quite a few ideas for my next couple projects so check back often for new work. I hope you are enjoying some nice weather!

Stay flashy, free spirits!

Flamingo WIP + Updates

by Free Spirit Meg, posted in Work In Progress

Happy Monday everyone! Was your Monday as blah as mine was? Sometimes, days are just like that. Rain doesn’t help those days either. You just want to curl up on the couch and watch a movie until you pass out. Any how, I survived the Monday blues long enough to write my post tonight. There are a couple updates I wanted to share.

First of all, I have added more color to my Flamingo Totem. It’s becoming very bright and I’m excited to finish it! I have always avoided pink in the past since it was far from my favorite color. Lately, I have had more of an open mind with my work and have used it for my Flying Squirrel Totem and now flamingo. It’s nice to change things up every once and a while. Plus, I have always put limits on myself and my work, unintentionally. I use to “make rules” or guidelines to my art that I wasn’t allowed to teeter from. Like I was forced to stay within a certain style of art or subject. I have no idea how I picked up this terrible habit but I am proud to say I have kicked it and now create whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. My art has improved greatly because of it! I’m even going to pick up painting again, which I am excited for. I just need to get some more supplies, first.

Secondly, I wanted to share that I’m back to my full time job as a landscaper. I’m going to have to make some changes to my future content. As you can guess, Spring and Summer are the busiest months for a landscaper! Last year, I tried to keep up with my Totem Animal posts the best I could. I always shoot for one post a week but it can be difficult keeping up with everything. Not only do I need to create the drawing itself but I put a lot of time and energy into the research for each totem. Then when I have an understanding of it, I need to type it out for my blog. This is done in between my landscaping job, family responsibilities, social obligations, appointments and every once and a while….sleep. Not to mention any other efforts that need to be put into my business as an artist such as marketing and social media, editing my work for products and uploading it to my online shops (Redbubble and Society6) and how about just talking and connecting with people! I always tend to lose my mind a bit when Spring comes around! I have to lighten the load.

I do not want my artwork to suffer and obviously I can not take time away from my family or my job that is currently paying the bills. Therefore, I am going to halt new Totem Animal symbolism posts. I will continue to create the drawings like I have been but I won’t be able to go over each one in detail about their symbolism. The art is more important than the writing and I don’t want to become discouraged because I can’t keep up with both! Don’t worry, I will still continue to keep my blog. I just won’t be able to write such lengthy posts for a little while!

I hope you like the Flamingo Totem so far. Let me know what you think in the comments below! Thanks for stopping by this week.

Happy Spring, free spirits!

Flamingo WIP

by Free Spirit Meg, posted in Work In Progress

My next totem that I am working on is the flamingo! They are a very bright colored bird and have odd proportions. The weather is finally starting to get warm and act like spring so I thought a nice tropical creature could help get us in the mood! It’s going to be beach season soon! Beach or not, I just want to be outside!

Here is the completed ink for flamingo. The entire animal is done in tangles unlike my recent horse and orca totems. I can’t help but use zentangle when creating feathers! They are too perfect for the occasion.

I will also be incorporating the legs but have decided a new and fun approach. I am drawing the flamingo on three different sheets of paper. Then, when I scan them into the computer, I can piece them together making one long print! It’s going to be cool! I like trying something new with each piece that I do so let’s see how it turns out!

Thanks for stopping by this week! Check back next week to see the finished flamingo in all it’s florescent feathers!

Stay flashy, free spirits!