Thursday, June 25, 2009

Fabric Marker ftw?

So I was drawing today because I was bored, and I was just doing some hands, you know, whatever. And I was like "I'm sick of pencils and pens right now" but I had just packed all my crap up to go to my moms so I had to dig through my desk and all I found was a fabric marker. I fooled around with it a bit, and I did this hand:

I really liked it. So I did some more stuff.
This is a very crude self portrait

and some more self-stuff



The point is...I really liked what came out, despite the technical errors. This fabric marker totally just inspired me. And it didn't even bleed through the paper ^.^
Also, I watched a soccer practice/kung fu practice at the park the other day. I was sitting far away from both to avoid looking like a total creeper (I mean really...you can't just sit in the middle of a field and start drawing people right in front of you. It's kind of weird) so it was a little difficult, but I managed a few sketchbook pages.








Yay! The end.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Sketchbook Stuff

I have been doing a bit in my sketchbook the past two days. Just thought I'd share.

Last night I got the sudden urge to do some gestures...so I did some of me. Yay! Here they are:


This one came out a lot sexier than it really was...but I guess thats ok? I just really exagerrated it.

awkward face
A close up of moi. Got a little squished on the page.

Probably one of my more preferred. I felt like I captured the pose with the minimum amount of drawing.


I tried to work with just shading and no lines. I couldn't help myself some places though...




Today I went to a Rockies game. I was pretty excited to capture a lot of faces but my dads girlfriend got us a box suite thingy. SO NOT BASEBALL. It was like a hotel. There were leather couches and a hotdog buffet and a fridge...geez. And we were in front on the patio-seating area-thing so I really saw nothing but the game
Blind contours of hands are neat ^.^ Unfortunately it almost looks better when I DON'T look at my paper...
I like the catchers feet...

The pitcher did this a lot, which made it easy to draw, because I saw it over again. I unfortunately spent a lot of time trying to get a batter mid-swing, but they hardly did that and it went by so fast...



So yep. Thats about it. I think I am going to a park tomorrow or maybe pearl to do some more gestures and such.
I have almost filled this sketchbook. I am quite proud of that ^.^

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Weekly Art Thingy

So, I have some real art today, but I would just like to take a look at a "before and after" thing.

These are some 1 minute gestures I did in January, at the very beginning of my class. Now, I'm not totally new to drawing, no. I've been drawing my whole life. But I never really focused on the human body. I always do more abstract stuff and just played around with ideas.
These are some 1 minute gestures done in May. See the difference? I am not amazing, but I came a very long way in 4 and 1/2 months. Hopefully, I can double my overall improvement by the time it comes to apply.
And now...
today I had my thingy out back with rowan as a model. I will not lie to you: I failed pretty hardcore today.

I was really unsure of what I was doing to begin with. Trying to do things in this whole, different way is kind of confusing because I'm not sure what I am aiming for. I like the limbs here, especially to lower leg. Leaving that line open was the hardest thing to do, but somehow I feel like it works. The torso got too thick (rowan is quite skinny) and the head...well lets just say small, horrible heads were a theme today.


Again, I like the legs, and the torso, while still too thick, still worked well. The shoulders fell too far to the side and the head=fail.

This was a really nice, interesting pose and somehow I absolutely slaughtered it. Whenever people lie down I tend to completely flatten them out.


So I tried it again, with some different colors, and it come out a little bit better, but the shoulders still died a terrible deak, as did the neck. I wish I could have fit her whole figure on the page. I think that would help strengthen the composition.

Haha...so this one I just find funny. Rowan took a "stripper" pose against a beam and we had to go fast, because she was getting a lot of splinters. The head failed so HARD here I just ripped some paper off and redid it. Unfortunately it still doesn't look right.


Rowan finally took down her long, flaming hair (which I wish she had done earlier because she looked quite manly with her hair up) and I made the head absolutely gigantic just to avoid tiny head syndrome. It would have been ok if I hadn't gotten so carried away with her hair (which was really fun)



I wish I had a teacher or something to tell me what I am doing wrong while I am doing it. Maybe I should take my dad up on that offer to find me a tutor. There just aren't any figure drawing CLASSES around which drives me crazy!

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Don't Think, Draw

Unfortunately, I have no art to share today. I was just pondering things and felt the need to write it out.
I went to the library yesterday and picked up some books on anatomy, dynamic figure drawing, heads, and figures in motion. I am hoping the books will be helpful...but what can I say? They are books. In art you learn from experience. Books just give you ideas. But I have been reading the anatomy one quite a bit, on account of the people on ab forums told me I should work on my anatomy. I am frustrated, because I understand anatomy. It's just a matter of making my pencil connect with my thoughts. Maybe I have some sort of medical condition >_< or maybe anatomy is just really hard. But this book basically just outlines all the muscles and their uses and how the interior affects the exterior. Perhaps its just not the right book. I don't know. But it sounds exactly like Jason, who made no sense to me at all. ("Oh I think you have her medial malleolus wrong" yea thanks, because that helps a lot) They also told me to look at stuff by andrew loomis. Funnily enough I've already seen it, I just didn't know it (Jason used a bunch of his stuff as handouts) So clearly, thats not where I am lacking.

Perhaps I am just thinking too hard. I decided my new motto should be "don't think, just draw." And I shall also ban myself from lines. Because I think what I am doing is going "ok so these lines define this mass here..." WRONG! Mass should define mass, not lines!


I am just struggling with keeping up all this drawing. I love it more than anything, but where do people find the willpower to just set the rest of life to the side and do nothing but draw?!?! I can't do it! There is too much going on, too many worries, too much to do! I have so many problems. College is just one of them. But I guess my future rests on this....
But does it? I mean, who knows, maybe calarts isn't the path for me. I haven't even visited the school yet, so who knows? I want to go to calarts because of the teachers, the guest lecturers, and the location. But animation is still animation, and an animator is only as good as their portfolio, no matter what school they went to. So I could go to RMCAD or somewhere else and still land in a really good job. Or even if I landed in a crappy job, well hey, whats life without challenge? John Lasseter landed in a crappy job, and look where he is now.
Maybe I should look into normal schools with animation departments. I am worried that I will end up at an art school and I will feel suffocated amongst all the other artsy people. Because I don't hang out with artsy people. I never really have (not really serious ones anyway). Maybe it will be horrible!
I wish I could watch some people do some really good figure drawing, see what technique they approach it with. I am obviously doing things wrong, but I don't know how to do it any other way!

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Thats More Like It


This is kind of the story of my life...

Self Study

Wooo art yea...
So I finally posted links to what I have out there for critique. And I got some. What did I realize? I already know everything. Yea they are flat, yea I use too much line, yea there isn't enough motion, weight, or force, blah blah blah, I already know that! I guess I was hoping for someone to show/tell me how to do it. But I don't think that can happen. I just don't know where to go, you know? I can see it correct in my head, but when my pencil/pen/charcoal/pastels hit the paper it just...no.
I was going to go to pearl today and see kendall play as well as sketch, but there was no parking and it started to rain, so I went home instead. When I got home I decided to draw myself. So I put blankets on the windows, arranged my easel so I could see me in the mirror, and got to work.
I tried really hard not to use lines. I am forbidding myself from using lines from now on. This also means I shouldn't use pencil, because I can't do anything else when I am holding a pencil.
I partially blame Jason for my over-use of lines. He didn't encourage us to start shading til, oh, 12 weeks in the class. And what was I supposed to do? I had never figure drawn before. I just did what he told me.

My first one I thought was pretty ok. The only thing wrong is that the head is very obviously too big. And unfortunately I am not this skinny.

This is actually the third. The second was just way too bad to see the internet. This one is about as good as the first. Head still too big, arms off just a tad. I tend to have a lot of random anatomy errors. It's really frustrating when I am using charcoal, because I can't fix them. Perhaps I should be more cautious and wary before putting down a line? Think about it a little more maybe. Then I might not finish faster than everyone else.

This is probably the best of them all. The head...still wrong. But I liked how it went. And the shading makes it a lot more believable IMO.


The head makes me SO SAD here. The rest of it went pretty well, especially considering the foreshortening I had to on my leg. And then it came time for the head and just...*sigh* I hate everything about the head. From its shape to it's size to it's face. I just suck at all of it. >_<


So thats it for today. Eventually I WILL get to pearl. I am trying to schedule two of my own sessions next week and hopefully I will make it down to asld at least once, maybe on friday, for a short poses class so I can get some gesture in (I miss gestures...)

Friday, June 12, 2009

Lots of Drawing!

I have been quite busy with my new job, friends, and with art. So I guess thats a good thing? I am pretty tired though, as well as broke. In debt actually. My next paycheck, well it's awhile away I guess. And I have things to pay for. Blah.
So on thursday, I had my little art shindig out back. It turned out pretty interesting. David volunteered to model, which I thought was odd, considering I hadn't seen or spoken to him in, oh, 3 years. But I can't turn down a man model. It's too precious. So I worked out a time for him to come.
Molly came, Lissa did not, Daidre came with Kyle (which was also kind of weird) and then David brought along Shawn, who I hadn't seen in over a year. And yea....I won't elaborate on that.

Anyway, here is some of the stuff I did


So I decided I wanted to play with color for once. My pictures are always so bland. It's always just black and white or graphite. So I broke out the construction paper and pastels and just had a little warm up with my cat...who wouldn't stand still, hence the bad anatomy. But in't purty?


So...turned out Shawn and David were actually terrible models. Shawn I don't blame. He just sort of showed up with David. But David! He should have been prepared. Oh well. I made them take their shirts off. Maybe that was awkward for them. But the point here is I got carried away with the pretty colors and stopped focusing on anything else.


I started over, as you can see, and it turned out a lot better, but not that much. Their faces are actually somewhat recognizable but eh. Not good anatomy. They kept moving dammit!

I feel like this one got a lot better, because kyle told me I should use fewer colors on each guy and I also was like "oh yea...body mass. shading. that stuff" and tried to stop outlining and start drawing. It helped a lot, although shawns feet got kind of weird because he was wearing shoes (damn shoes, they get me every time) and I tried starting davids legs but it was just too awkward because he got cut off by the desk and I didn't understand how it worked. So yea. He just gets to float in this one.
I got them to sit still but letting them read seventeen magazine....


As you can see we pulled the couch out and Kyle finally joined in (actually he was in the last one too I just was too lazy to add him as his entire body would have been foreshortened) This one was actually really fun to do. And not just because the electric blue burned my eyes out. I was starting to get the hang of it, although it's still too outliney and not enough insidey. Hey, they put their clothes back on what can I say. It's too tempting to work with lines when drawing clothes. They don't have volume!

This morning I woke up before 7. BEFORE 7. Because I wanted to go to the art students league and do a short poses class. But no one bothered to tell me they were closed for a week for their stupid art market thing. So I show up and had to park on a different street because theirs is closed and I just think "oh they are setting up no big deal" and I walk in and the guy is like "yea we are closed." but he was nice and offered to let me use one of the rooms to do a still life.
So I went in to do that because hey, I drove the hour and a half it takes to get down there might as well make some use out of it when I was like "HEY! I COULD GO TO THE ZOO!" So I did.
And it was awkward because I was wearing this long, blue, flowy dress which I didn't want to walk around the zoo in so I had to change into pants in the parking lot. Haha. Yea.
Anyway, so I walked around the zoo for a good 5 hours today. Amazingly, I only barely got sunburnt, so I am pretty proud of my sun evasion skills. I actually saw a couple other people there as well and felt all weird because they were all older than me and probably more skilled at the whole thing. But I got 41 sketches which makes me happy, and pretty much filled half a sketchbook, which is very satisfying (I am trying to fill 4 over the summer) since I haven't been sketchbooking a whole lot. I picked about half to post here (because face it, some were pretty bad)

I started at the mountain goats. There was one with smaller horns that I did on the page before, but my mom thought it was a horse and also the more goaty looking one showed up and well, these were just a lot better. It was all sort of warm up though, except maybe the one at the bottom.

After goats I went to the primates. And you know, everyone always says monkeys are just SOOO cute. Hell no. They are CREEPY. Bleh. But they had very human like qualities, so I thought it would be good to get some studies in. Even though they never sat still.

This was the most bitchin bear ever. He was just sittin in a tree with his head resting on a higher branch. It reminded me of Bubba. I really like this picture, and I attracted a huge crowd of little kids and their compliments (I love when little kids watch you draw, because they always think you are good, no matter what)
I like to move it move it....Lemurs. Nuff said. Oh, and they sit like they are meditating. It's awesome.
This guy sat verrrry still for me, and I wasn't the only one drawing him. I wish I had fit his butt on my paper because it would have just been that much cooler.
This guy was eating very visciously while I was doing this, but he was just too blubbery and fat to pass up the chance to not try and draw him.
I don't remember what this is. He was in the same house as the rhino and hippo. Hmmm...
Hippo in the water! His eyes are supposed to be closed. Instead they look like they are rolling into the back of his head. Otherwise I like this one.
Yay camels!
This is an ostrich. It kept moving on me! So it was mostly drawn from memory. And people got in my way a lot too.
After the ostriches, I had seen pretty much the entire zoo (wow, I can't believe I made it through the whole thing in one go) so I got a really expensive soda ($2.50, no straw, no top, no refills) and went people watching. This guy had a frog on his hat. It was weird. He worked there.
A thick lady from the back. By the way, all of the people I only got a glimpse of, and then made the rest up out of memory. Thats why none of it is very good. People at the zoo are on the MOVE.
This is a compilation of like 8 kids leaning over the railing. None of them stayed there very long, but there was always at least 1.
A girl on her dads shoulders. I literally saw this for like, a second.
I was sitting in front of the elephants while people watching, so I also drew one of the elephants. Yay!

This one is one of my favorites. While her legs are placed really wrong (what can I say I had one look at her) I like how I placed all her, er, fat. It actually really resembles what I can remember. She also had an old lady fro. No joke.
It reminds me of lilo and stich, where lilo takes the pictures of all the fat tourists. Thats what I felt like.

Last one of the day. Just a woman holding her daughter while talking to one of the staff.




So, I will definitely be going to zoo a few more times this summer for some mega life drawing fun! Talk about a lot of drawing. Oh well, it was fun. I did a lot of the cats, but none of them were any good. I would love to get some tigers or leopards. And maybe use some charcoal, or pastels. Wee!
It also made me realize how many things I do on my own. I shop, I snowboard and ski, I go to the zoo, I see movies, I do hobbies...all on my own. Kind of weird. I am just a very solitary person. Thats probably why I fail at relationships.
And I will eventually make it to the asl for some short poses...eventually. Gas is so much money though X.X