Car Ride Doodles

Worked on this in Mom's van on the way to and from Subway. Em and Mar came, too. Oh, and our dog, Ruby. It was a fun little time. Mom said she likes watching me doodle like this. Another way to experiment, another way to release some creative energy. I love doodling.

More Experimenting

It's these kinds of little projects that make two things happen. One, it makes me miss using Photoshop. Everything about Paint Shop Pro is so limited compared to the superior program that Photoshop is. And two, it reminds me why I'd much rather be painting in real life than trying to do it digitally. I'm just so slow at it. Although it does have the benefits of no clean up, and you can change the color of something without much hassle, I still prefer traditional media.

Don't get me wrong. I did have fun with this, despite the frustrations. It started as an ink doodle, which I scanned and colored in Paint Shop Pro 7. I was doing something similar to this a little while ago, only now I'm filling in a lot more with color. This time, I was actually inspired by the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky. This, of course, is my own version and it looks nothing like his work, but I had been looking at his work online before I started this doodle. I liked the look of collaged shapes and the depth in his work. Mine is a very flat, digital doodle, but I think it could be the spark for future experiments.

Quick Portrait: Mar

My sister's friend from out of state has been visiting for a couple weeks. I was in the mood to take some portrait photos last week so I took advantage of having company over. I shot pictures of my sister Emily, her out-of-state friend Mar, and her other friend whose name I do not recall at the moment.

Ever since I finished the silverpoint series of my other sister, Kaylee, I've missed doing portraits. This drawing was a nice break from the experimental stuff I've been doing. I did it in a couple hours. That's why I call it a quick portrait. Not as much time put into it as my more detailed renderings, so I suppose you could call it more of a sketch. Well, whatever you call it, I got my temporary portrait fix. I also printed her out a copy as a little gift from Connecticut. She was quite surprised and delighted.

Society Catch Up

In a previous entry, I mentioned that I joined a blog with several of my classmates from art school, called the Open Sketch Book Society. It has definitely kept me motivated to keep drawing and making work. However, as my previous entry explains, I have not been able to keep up on the artistic area of my life every single day. So yesterday was a "catch-up" day for me. I got about four make-ups done and have three to go, the third being today's due entry. And today really is the only time for more making up because the rest of the week is wedding dress shopping, Six Flags with my sisters, babysitting, and possibly jury duty. Anyways, I'll post my make-up stuff one thing at a time, going in order of creation.

This one is a quick sketch of my cat, Rogue (yes, after the X-men character). I started it as a pencil drawing last week, and then finished it in yesterday morning in ink. "Scumble" refers to the line style, that scribble look.

Lagging Last Week

As expected, I hit a pretty big wall this past week as far as sketching is concerned. I was job searching, hanging out with family, and taking care of my sick fiance at his house while trying to get through the registry stuff together. So I haven't quite had much room for the creative stuff.

I've also been slowly making my way through the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing and Ethical Guidelines. The title sounds a lot more daunting than it is. It is very well organized, informative, and a great resource if you are an illustrator or designer. Actually, I think just about anyone could benefit from reading it, even non-artists. Why? Because it helps put into fair perspective the roles of artists and art buyers/clients. It helps set up guidelines for which art can be conducted as a business. It also establishes that artists provide a respectable service just as any other occupation, like plumbers or mechanics. We seek to meet the visual, artistic needs of others, yet artists, too, must make a living in this world. So again, this book establishes fair guidelines to pricing and business for both artist and client. Get it!

I got this book after it was strongly recommended to us by our illustration professors. I didn't have a lot of time to read during school, so it got added to the pile of books I want to read. Since being out of school, I've already gotten a few requests for possible commissions. So I made sure to pull out the Handbook and start reading. I want to make sure I do it right and not screw anyone over, including myself.

I hope to have more art up soon.

Rainy Day Doodles

As much as I wanted to go outside and draw flowers again today, I couldn't control the yucky weather. So I made a doodle day out of it. When I doodle, I come up with the most random and strange things sometimes. It's sort of a game for me when I get focused like I did here. I start with one thing and branch off to transition into another thing, and so on and so forth. It's a different kind of doodling from the ones in earlier entries. It's kind of hard to explain...

Moving on. I was getting sick of my drawings being so light on the scanner, so I went back with india ink after penciling everything out. After outlining and scanning, I experimented with adding color digitally. Here are the before and after images. Not sure how I feel about the colored one, but it was fun to do.

Another Flower

I've been enjoying drawing outside. These flower studies are very light, I know. It's just my lack of a good scanner that's the problem. I'll try to make them darker next time, or at least take a photo to see if that works better.

Anyways, I'm still doing studies before I do the actual watercolor piece. I think I'll make that a rule for myself. These are both from yesterday. Sketches (from life) in the afternoon, and the painting (from a picture I took) in the early evening. The butterfly was actually sitting there on the flower when I took the picture. There was a bug on the Columbine flower, too, but I left it out because it wasn't "cute" like the butterfly. I don't know the name of this flower. If I find out, I'll post it.

New Favorite Flower: Columbine

I found this strange flower in my front yard last week. It's quite amazing, really. It's called a Columbine. Not sure where it got that name. It reminds me more of a dragon actually, the way the top pedals shoot back those long pieces like horns and the under pedals burst out underneath the top pedals. If I could name it, I'd call it something like "Dancing Dragon."

Anyway, today I set out to draw it. It was a beautiful day so I had no excuse not to. Lately I've been so busy with cleaning, job searching, and wedding planning that I just haven't had time to draw. But today was a rest day. I felt inspired to do studies of the flower first, like Leonardo Da Vinci. I also remembered doing tulip studies for Jeremiah Patterson my freshmen year at college, before starting our final drawings. I thought maybe he'd be proud if he saw me doing it on my own now, especially since I had hated drawing tulips over and over in his class. I suppose the repetition of subjects over the last few years has helped me build patience.



I eventually took pictures of flowers around my yard, including the Columbine, and did a watercolor this evening. This rendition does not do justice to the real flower. Its colors are much more brilliant and beautiful. This is officially one of my favorite flowers now.

You can also see these images on The Open Sketch Book Society.

Tonight's sketches for Open Sketch Book Society

Ruby


Kay and Em

Open Sketchbook Society

One of my classmates from Hartford started up this collaborative blog. I got an email invite today, and since I'm all about collaborative art stuff, I joined without much hesitation. This sketch was my first contribution.

Check it out!