Non sequitur comic of the day: The bird lady thief

During teaching today, as the co-teacher was talking to the students about comics and they had to do their own, I decided to join them. So I sat on the tiny lunch table and did this little weird bird lady that steals eggs from a basket. I think I have a thing with egg stealing. Analyze that later. Enjoy the comic.

International woman's day

For international woman's day I decided to geek out and do a quick Sunday afternoon drawing of two if my favorite comic women. Just having some fun. Enjoy.

Freestyle hand embroidery

I've always wanted to try cross stitch or embroidery. But I never found a pattern kit that I liked. So I decided to find my old hoop and just go for it. Freestyle embroidery. Just letting the image flow from my hand to the fabric.

It's been fun so far. This is 2 sittings so approximately 2 hours.  I'll need to look up new and different techniques but this is fun for now.

Angel sketch

Had some time at work a couple of weeks ago and did a quick sketch. It was nice to see that I haven't totally lost it. It kinda reminds me of things I used to do in high school. Very stiff. Need to keep at it. My lose is too lose and my stuff is too stiff. Gota find that middle ground.

Imaginary still life

Another late night post. Playing with markers and pens. Just generally having fun.

Reclining woman

So my thing lately, is to copy images I see. Not to claim them as my own but to study light, composition, color theory... I'm enjoying it a lot. I need to do this on a daily basis and keep posting.

Pencil city sreet

A quick pencil sketch from memory/imagination of a cityscape. A little rusty on my perspective
But I think I did a good job nonetheless. Need to keep practicing though.

Fierce Women

I decided to finally go back and use some of the pictures that I'm collecting in my Art Reference pinterest board.

I'm still struggling with getting myself creating more art. So I'll keep posting and hopefully that'll inspire me to keep producing.

Lost girl fan art

My one and only (so far) fan art. It's Dyson from lost girl. It's a really quick sketch.

Color studies 2: Prince of Egypt

Continuing with the theme of color studies I did a marker rendition of a color study that was used for the movie "The Prince of Egypt" by Dreamworks. I remember watching that movie and being amazed by the level of animation produced. I had at that point begun to become jaded by Disney animation and feeling that all those proclamations of "animation is dead" were true. This movie blew my mind and remember thinking "Disney is back" and then "Holy S#!% this isn't Disney!". I was blown away and pulling out this art of book after all those years just reinforced that idea. The art direction in this movie is amazing and more films need to be made with this level of dedication, details, and love.

Sorry to gush. I was really impressed.

Going back to color studies, I was using my limited palette of handy Copic markers. I usually try to buy a limited palette of them to carry with me. I sometimes feel having a full palette makes you lazy. Not think of how colors are created, how they look next to each other, how they can create different moods. I'm trying to think more about how I use color. I'm obsessed. And trying to draw my own subjects sidetracks me. I'm happy with the way this came out.

Color Studies

Last but not least last week was Color Studies. To start with after working 2 days on value studies, we had to switch gears to color. Using the same concepts of values, we had to color pick the light, medium, dark values of each area of the photograph to help us realize the shear amount of colors that a single object can have. I started with the image on the bottom and worked my way up, changing the way I not only picked the color, but also how I placed them in the image for easy access of review. The last (top most) image is a screen capture of an amazing artist names Craig Mullins. His photoshop paintings have so much depth, lighting, and variations, I had to try to break it down. It was amazing. You should try it yourself, with an artist that you like. You'll be surprised at what you can learn. I hope to post more color studies soon. 

Value Studies

In the Environment class from last week, I had to break images down into value studies. Using only 3 values I had to describe an exterior scene, showing depth and shape to tell the entire landscape with only those limitations. I had to do various versions, as you can tell by the image below. Some of the first ones weren't very successful, but after looking at scenes from Limbo I had a better idea of what needed to be done. (Side note, I need to purchase and play that game, it looks gorgeous!). Can you tell which ones came after looking at Limbo?

 The following day it was interiors, and we did the same thing with value studies, but he allowed us to work with 6 values this time around. I had even more trouble with those as I was lost as to the type, style, time of day, and lived-in-ness of each interior and that overwhelmed me. So I picked a photograph of an interior, desaturated it and worked off of it to create my own value study and add some of my own elements to it. On the bottom though you can see an image I created from my head that has it's merits. It's not completely successful, but isn't a bad start.

Overall I feel that what I really learned about all of this for me personally was that in the beginning I was both too wild and too timid with my values in creating the basic shapes. Eventually the whole image becomes one "muddy" medium toned bland image that has no interest (no matter how well designed and/or imagined the picture is), and only after I take step back can I see that I'm wasting all my schooling and I need to push it more does it come together and show it's true potential. Still have a lot of work to do, but it's nice to get back into the swing of things.

Seaside Sorceress Tower Keep

I'm taking another Environmental Design class with a new teacher. He has a different way if thinking of design that I think is beneficial. He makes me think of story, and culture, and "specificity" ( his word that's why in quotation). The other day we had to design a tower for a seaside sorceress, I had to figure out if she was good, bad, or neutral. Was the tower is it? Inviting? Or lonely? After the tower, was a bridge and then a keep. I used the form of the tower to help me design the keep. You can see my process here. Color is later this week. Maybe I'll finish it on my own.

Midnight skull

Playing with markers again. Enjoy.

Marker Environments

Having fun with shapes, shadows, and colors. Keep working it.

Stone walls

So I've been doing a lot more painting for the show and I needed to take foam carved walls and make them look like ancient temple stone walls. After priming them white, I have them a base layer of warm grey. After that it was just a matter of dirtying then up and throw on some highlights. I had loads of fun doing it. Hope you enjoy.

Environmental Design

Through my studio in able to take 2 courses I would otherwise be unable to attend. One is environmental design. It's mostly photoshop shortcuts in the use of concept drawings, but it's still very helpful. I'm enjoying myself. On my first day we all used the same reference photo to learn said techniques and this is what came out of it for me. He's making us work exclusively in values and not color to help us focus on silhouette and composition. I think that's very smart. I do love how creepy it came out. I guess I'm just that kind of girl.

Another case of the midnight sketch

It always happens. I come home full of desire to be artistic but life gets in the way (and currently Star Trek TNG marathons) and so I head to bed and pull out my night stand sketchbook and draw. Right before bed. Right around midnight. I want to remember that incessant desire to draw I had back in HS. Did too many years of art schools wipe that desire out? Or is it because I've learned other techniques and realized that three dimensionality is my prefered medium, drawing feels cumbersome and to flat? No matter what you always start with a sketch so I must suck it up and continue drawing.

Always learning. Always improving (one hopes). You keep trucking away. Enjoy.

What I've been up to: RC7!

I've been busy. Busy both artistically and professionally. Thankfully they overlap. I've become the art department coordinator of season 7 of Robot Chicken. And besides crunching numbers and filling out forms I've been able to paint for the show. Here are some examples of the work I've been producing.

Cause I'm all about the midnight drawings

I think and think and think some more. But drawings are few and far between. I've been watching old sci fi TV shows and thinking about a project I've hinted at before. Here is another rendition of both. I realize that it's only late at night I remember this exists and if no one reads this... Well I'm OK with whispers in the wind. Enjoy. I know I do.