Illustration Friday: Early

He thought maybe he was early, but then he realized the bus was late.

I saw this guy a couple of weeks ago, as I drove to work and he stuck around in my head. I also drew this guy last week, so theoretically, I was early for Illustration Friday as well.

More bugs

More bug drawing practice! Tomorrow, cactus and succulents.

Faces Galore

One of the blogs I read today listed national magazine award winners, and the winner for the photo portfolio was The New Yorker's Portraits of Power. This is an impressive body of work for the photographer, as well as for history in general, since it is documenting current world leaders. However, my initial reaction was probably far different than most people's reaction. All I could think was, "Look at all the interesting face shapes I could draw!" I was itching to pick up a drawing tool and start drawing then and there.

I know nothing about the personality, motivation, mindsets, or emotions that drive all these leaders, but the shapes of their faces, noses, quirks of almost smiles, and the tilts of their heads all make me start creating some type of story for each of them, whether or not it is at all close to whothey are in reality.

Each photo is beautiful in and of itself, but it is the grouping of all these photos together that drives home the uniqueness of each face.

I don't know if I'll draw all these faces, but I'll most likely draw a few of the ones with the most character so I can practice different and interesting faces, since all the faces I draw from my head look the same.

Bugs!

The first of a couple of pages of bugs from my composition class that just ended. These were based on images found on the web, and we were practicing building the bugs from the inside out. I think the rendered one took me about 30-60 minutes. I really need to work more on sketching faster.

Illustration Friday: Ahead

The snail came out ahead of the pack.

This one came straight from the sketchbook. I'm limiting myself to pen and marker for a while to hone my drawing skills as well as my lighting/rendering skills. I have a number of sketches to post from my Drawing for Composition class and I'm also hoping to get into the summer Drawing for Composition class. We'll be going on location and starting with organic forms, then working up to mechanical forms. I also really need to get better at my quick sketching of entire forms. I start rendering, then I render things to death, losing a bit of the vitality of the original sketch.

Illustration Friday: Linked

His boredom was linked to the old adage:

The leaf is always TASTIER on the other side.

Since I haven't really posted an illustration friday in a while, I guess it was time to come back with a bang. I've been taking composition classes this semester and while perspective is freaking me out, I understand it just fine...when it is organic. This week's drawing assignment is to draw bugs! Woohoo! Unlike some of the other girls in class, I was excited about this because as long as I'm drawing bugs and they're not crawling anywhere near me, I think they are very cool.

I also found (warning: LARGE picture of eerie bug) this amazing photo of an aphid online that was taken by Bob O'Neill that, while a little on the creepy side, is a fantastic shot. I did a drawing study based on that photo yesterday, but I didn't quite capture the correct proportions of the head to the bulbous body. That being said, I also wanted to draw fun bugs in addition to practicing my perspective and drawing in the round. Thus, I created this little guy who is not very enamored with his meal.

I filled up a page in my sketchbook with the drawing and some other misses, then I cleaned it up in photoshop and tweaked the elements of the composition until I am happier with them. I want to do a final piece of this, but I want to tweak the head to get more dimension, expression, and fix the positioning of the antennae. I also need to counterbalance the left side of the composition with something on the right, but I'm not sure what yet. I think I'm going to ask my teacher in class this week.

Chantry Flats Landscape Drawing

Went to a landscape drawing workshop yesterday at Chantry Flats, in the San Angeles mountains. It was very beautiful, with lots of water flowing, greenery, and flowers. There was a very big waterfall at the end of our hike, and lots of interesting things to look at. We were focusing on composition and while I didn't end up drawing very many things, I felt what I did draw really focused on composition and depth. I was very pleased with the result. These are three of the 4 images I did. The 4th is this cool tree that I would like to work on a bit more before posting.

Illustration Friday: Egg-spire

I'm not quite sure what he is, but because it rhymes, I'm calling him my Rhino-dino. He may be slightly inspired by How To Train Your Dragon, since we went to a show of Dreamworks production art at Art center.

I hope to get to color him this week, since i'm itching to pick up my colored pencils again, but I'm busy with the class assignment for my composition class. The class is really interesting, and I'm learning a lot, but I have a long way to go before I get really good at it. I'll definitely be retaking this class again. Once I finish up the project, I plan on posting the work, but I have more drawing to get back to. That is one of the reasons why I haven't been posting much this month. I've also decided to restart my 15 minute daily drawings, to get back into the habit of sketching regularly. You can look forward to more posts upcoming.

I really like composition class, since that is now one of my weakest elements in my work. I've gotten good at characters, but I've never been happy with not having full cinematic inspired scenes. My teacher is Will Weston and he is really interesting to listen to and an extremely knowledgeable teacher. I've already driven my husband crazy with "and the teacher said this...and the teacher said that..." But it is forcing me out of my comfort zone with my work. My drawings in the class are much stiffer and more exacting than my sketchbook work, but I think they will be like that for a while until I get more comfortable working regularly with perspective.

Update: I forgot to mention my thought process behind this drawing. the only two things I could originally think of for 'expire' were death and spoiled milk. I tried a couple of person with spoiled milk sketches and realized that even the concept was gross to me, so I stopped working on it. Last night I happened to think of egg-spire, and I knew right away what I wanted his head to look like.

Illustration Fri....Thursday: Propagate

Last minute post. Doodled this while watching Olympics

Illustration Friday: Adrift

I drew the initial sketch on Saturday and it was a cat...just an ordinary cat, with a flat head. Then we went to the zoo on Sunday and watched the snow leopards play in the snow. They were so much fun to watch, that when I came home, I redrew the head, and added lots of spots. Finally got it colored.

Illustration Friday: Muddy

I was sick for a good portion of last week, and I'm still trying to get back to my normal operating schedule. Still have a stupid cough. It's been wet and rainy and cold here, but the perk of that is the mountains are starting to look so green and beautiful. I really enjoy my drives to and from work right now.

I think that the guy looks a little weird, but he looks different then the faces I normally draw. I keep trying to expand my range of expressions and features. His face was the result of a drawing session with some friends. We did 2-minute drawings and one set of them were blind/continuous line drawings where we couldn't look at the paper. We really enjoyed the results, which were often funny and Picasso-like. This one was my favorite:

There is a certain quality to the scribble that I lost in the top drawing, but it was still fun working with an image I don't usually draw.

Illustration Friday: Focused

Schubert was so focused on what he saw he forgot to chew his cud.

I was researching sheep at work on Friday, and I really liked how funny their faces looked, thus I drew a sheep. I guess I'm back in the swing of things with Illustration Friday, because This concept came quickly and I drew it straight onto the bristol board with minimal corrections.

I also found my water pen again, instead of the gigantic chinese watercolor brush, so I'm much happier. I can add little details to my heart's content. I thought about breaking out the colored pencils to refine a few areas, but I was happy that I kept this loose (for me) so I left it alone.

Illustration Friday: Clumsy & Marvin the Marvelous duo

Marvin the Marvelous donned his pointy hat, secured his wand, opened the door, stepped out, fell on his nose.

This Marvin piece seemed perfect for this week's IF topic: Clumsy. For those who don't know, this is a project that I'm working on with my husband. He gives me a sentence each week and I have to illustrate it with my wizardly character, Marvin. I'm planning on doing one a week in between working on my first children's book project.

Marvin's character is a work in progress, and I'm using him to explore getting more movement and expression in my work, as well as more detail. I've always loved those wonderfully complex characters with elaborate outfits and gadgets and stuff everywhere.

I'm not quite sure what's up with the perspective on the background...it's wonky, and it is what happens when I freehand a background in ink after developing the character. I also couldn't decide which angle I wanted to draw Marvin at--the anticipation or the fall--so you get both! His arm also got slightly disjointed when I redrew the image on bristol using my light box. The bristol board is thick enough that with a light box I get a general idea where the line is, but it's not extremely precise. I ended up just redrawing the hands rather than tracing them.

Next time: make the color looser, and ink AFTER color.

Marvin the Marvelous colored

Marvin has been colored!

I may end up tweaking the colors throughout the course of this project...I am still putting a bit too much detail in the work. He's supposed to be colored loosely. I colored this one at the same as the Marvin piece for this week. I need to try my third Marvin piece drawn loosely with the pen instead of tracing it off the sketch.

Meet Marvin

Meet Marvin. He's MARVELOUS!

He's also my new bloggy project! I've been wanting something fun that I could post on my blog that will also teach me to dedicate shorter blocks of time to finished work, ie, work quicker and looser. He is also my work-around so I have stuff to post while working on my children's book. Like Illustration Friday, I have to do one a week, from sketch to quick finished color. Each of his adventures will be based upon a sentence or scenario that my husband comes up with. The above post is NOT this weekend's, it is just getting a feel for the character. We'll see how color pans out, and he may change slightly in appearance as my characterization develops.

I'll be adding color later, but I'm off to bed now since I work tomorrow. more to come.

Illustration Friday: Wilderness

And he looked in horror at the 'wilderness' before him...

I don't know why I had such trouble with the IF topic this week. It's pretty open-ended, providing limitless possibilities. Yet I was. I tried something with some tropical plant fronds, but it felt too much like someone else's work I saw earlier in the day. I guess the problem was that all my thoughts are on my personal project. I still need to remember to draw other things too.

Once I went back to the Re-cycler Squirrel post from 2 weeks ago, I decided to delve more into his story. What made him the way he is? Why does he travel around re-purposing trash? I also really wanted to do a more dynamic pose then 'just standing there', so it started with him perched on the edge of the cliff, then I needed to give him something to be staring at. Obviously, since he's a nekkid squirrel, this is before he acquired all his accoutrement.

Invisible work

I've been working hard on what I hope will be my first children's book. As such, I don't feel it is appropriate to show online until I get this published (hopefully!). Nor will I be mentioning anything about the story. What I do want to talk about is my approach and initial thoughts on the project.

First, this project is new and shiny, thus it is in the 'fun' stage. I have a lot of enthusiasm about the project currently and I hope to maintain a degree of enthusiasm through the end of the project. I think it helps that this project is MY project for the first time, and it is exactly what I want it to be.

The storyline I'm currently working on is one of a few concepts that have always been tagging along in the back of my mind throughout school and the past couple of years. I have sketches spattered throughout many of my sketchbooks that explore ideas and possible directions, some of them more concrete then others. I am happy to say that I feel my drawing skills have improved since those initial sketches because even though I slow down and slack off, I've never stopped.

One of the key approaches I'm taking in this book is to tackle my greatest fears and weakest points in drawing. The images will be full of hands and feet, complex expressions, and--the greatest horror of them all--perspective! I want this project to be a challenge that makes me push my skills as much as I can so I can say that the result of my first book was to make me a better artist. So far I've filled up 6 pages with preliminary concept sketches, and I have multiple folders of image references ready for my use. The more I draw, the more I'm eager to come back the next evening and draw instead of watching tv or reading books. I want to see how my own story unfolds.

There is only one negative to note currently with my project: I've gone to bed with so many ideas in my head that I've lost sleep. I even woke up in the middle of the night the other day and ended up drawing for an hour.

Illustration Friday: Confined

Over the years his expression became confined to one of loathing, disdain, & disgust.

I tried something new with this sketch. After I drew it, I taped a piece of tracing paper over the sketch and inked the tracing paper. I think the results are decent, but I could do better. The heavy outlines are too heavy for the size of the sketch. Some of the more delicate linework from the sketch got obliterated. At first I was laying in the hatching very slowly and that made a heavier line, but once I started working quickly, the hatching looked much nicer. I'm not going to go back now, but I should have hatched more on the left side of the face to push it back more. It competes too much with the nose.

Daily Sketch 2: Flickr Quickdraw

I haven't done any quick sketches in a while, and it shows...the really bad ones are the first couple, but I started to get warmed up and got a bit better. In theory, these are minute long sketches, but I think I spent up to 5 minutes on some of them. I think next time I'm going to try this with my favorite ink pens, which I find I really love using when i'm in life drawing. The permanency of it tends to make me loosen up and surprisingly draw more accurately. Go figure. My favorite of the night is the guy's nose.

All these were pulled from Flickr's interesting photos from the last 7 days :) Some of these photos are absolutely gorgeous.

Links to original photos in no specific order:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mandi615/4243364480/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41827227@N03/4259448092/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/itzick/4251519364/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joel_r/4241774044/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexissmith/4246149852/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skr1993/4256605473/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dreamless-qtr/4256064382/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamlowercasepeople/4249476612/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23934051@N02/4243540553/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomitapio/4246542168/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/krakote/4245270108/

Daily Sketch 1: Monkeys

First of all, my IF: Renewal post (previous post) got 12 posts! WOOHOO! that's already 50% more posts then my best IF post last year. I think that's a perfect way to start the year.

Next, posts were nil the past two days because my evenings became filled: saying farewell to a coworker one evening, and taking my visiting aunt and uncle to Griffith Park Observatory.

Today's sketch is monkeys, because i'm trying to fulfill a promise to my co-worker that I'd do drawings for her child's room.