More sketchbook sketches

A high school friend..

.

and another drawing board face

Game Face

Now its time to get to work...

More Drawing Board People

Inauguration 2009

Out with the old...

And in with the new...

More quick Sketches

Couple more drawing board folks.  I've been working on watercolor swatches for my painting class,  they can be quite monotonous so I do these in-between for a change of pace.  Real quick, especially the second one...

Oil Painting... again...

Alright, I know that I posted this before but I was never happy about the digital representation of the artwork.  I know that it still is pretty much on the sucky side of well... everything, with anatomical errors and to poor color usage in the skin.  yea.  But I did spend a lot of time on this piece and feel like I should correctly represent it.  

More Quick Sketches

A couple more Drawing Board peeps...

Drawing Board Peeps

Her are a couple faces from the drawing board.  Sorry about the blurryness on a couple of them, they didn't scan well...

My New Red Eyed Tree Frogs!

The Reptile Show was in town this weekend and I headed over there and picked me up a pair of Red Eyed Tree Frogs, the unofficial mascot of rain forests everywhere!  One Male (smaller one on top in the below picture), and One Female (Larger on on bottom).  They are SO awesome!  Beautiful creatures!  I couldn't be more pleased!  Just thought I'd share them with you.  

Male and Female together on my hand. One of the interesting things about these frogs is they are never 100% asleep.  Take a look at the females "closed" eyes and you'll notice she has transparent gold laced eye lids.  The "gold lace" is actually veins, and resembles the veins on a leaf, it acts as a sort of camouflage.  When they are sleeping, they can rest portions of their brains uniquely so they are always on alert for oncoming predators.  A must for such a bright, spectacular creature such as the Red Eyed Tree Frog. 

Male Red Eyed spotting a Cricket

Male Red Eyed scaling the back wall of the enclosure

Female Red Eyed using the computer.

Another quick copic sketch

Opinions and a sketch.

Now heres an interesting piece off of Thursdays Colbert Report.  Its about artists copyrights when Stephen has Lawrence Lessig (author of "Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy") on to discuss his views on American copyright laws.  Usually Stephen is blatantly, outlandishly sarcastic in proving his point, but I think this time he's right on the money...  scary part is this guy doesn't seem to have a problem with Stephen's action... he completely believes that if you take someone's creative works and "add value" more power to you... whatever

This is an important issue, and only about 6 minutes long...and quite entertaining as always, stick with it. 

And another Office sketch...

Quick Sketch

Also, look below at my previous House post for an updated, more accurate version.

Ink Washing.

Well, after today my winter break is officially over, and here is my latest effort.  I know I said like a week ago the daily posts would stop, and well, they haven't they've just gone in a different direction... less "polished"  That happened for two reasons:

1) less time at my desk drawing.

2) a need for sketching rather than completing "finished" drawings.

With classes starting Thursday, now I will DEFINITELY have less time to draw.

But... good news!  I am taking 4 studio classes so I will have lots of "academic" art to share... 

Honestly, I am not completely satisfied with how this came out.  I was going for a stronger graphic look but this is what happened.  

Let me know what you think! 

**EDIT**

The above image is a better representation of the original.  

Copic Sketching.

Alright, while it's possible to create fully rendered drawings using these markers, I think their strong suit is to do quick gestural value/color sketches.  Heres one I did in that manner, once again I think that the likeness could be stronger, but I'll work on another later probably.  For now, this is what I have. 

Keeping Slightly Busy

     I learned of an exhibit right here in Atlanta a couple months ago that boasts a collection of several mummies with a somewhat unique history.  In 1999, The Michael C. Carlos Museum purchased a set of nine mummies from a museum in Niagara Falls. Among those mummies was Ramses I, he was returned to Egypt upon his discovery in 2003.  Recently I visited the Michael C. Carlos Museum to see the collection, and thought I'd share a few pictures of some of their collections; Greek and Roman, Asian, Sub-Saharan, and Egyptian.

Greek and Roman

Asian

Sub-Saharan

Egyptian

The above display case was one of the most interesting displays in the entire museums,  They are actually mummified animal remains, consisting of two falcons(one on each of the two "platforms") , a lizard (the lower of the two small rectangle boxes), and even a kitten (in the bottom right hand corner)

Canopic Jars

Something else that ha been keeping me slightly busy is this.  I've been wanting to do a drawing of House for some while now, and I've been working on an ink wash work-up of him.  I'm not completely sure how I like it so far, but the "washy" look I think is fitting for the character, we'll see... I may have to abandon this idea and go with another medium. 

More Office Sketches

The Office

Unpolished Sketching

Well, just can't keep the pencil out of my hand, I still have some things I want to work on in improving, and this is just another way I hope to get there...

Last Month in Review

For the past month or so I have really been pushing myself, and set a personal goal to post something up on this blog everyday for the month of December.  Well, December is over, goal was met, and now I want to share what I learned.

Copic Markers are GREAT!  They can do so much in so little time.  They allow the user to be intuitive, throw colors and values into a sketch, and if it doesn't work, they are forgiving because they can also be "erased" using the colorless blender (0).  

Copic Markers are at best sketch markers, good for quickly conveying a basic idea, but inadequate for the completion of a full on illustration. 

Although Copic Markers have a wide variety of colors, their options for creating a "believable" skin tone are limited.  Sometimes it works, but most times it doesn't.  The colors are very saturated and at times can overpower the work you have already done.  

But I have also noticed that they act a lot like watercolors, in that they are a translucent brush tipped marker.  What I have learned using them will more than likely translate into my work in my upcoming watercolor class next semester.  I am extremely excited to be jumping into watercolors next semester. 

I started off the month looking for an "illustrative style." Hoping that I could find something that was quick, easy, and appealing.  I didn't find it.  Although I am significantly closer than I was at the beginning of the month.  

With all that said, here is my last effort for the time being in this particular "style." I started this one off with a quick sketch with a non-photo blue col-erase pencil, and jumped right in with the copic cool grey set.  Because of that, I am not completely sold on the likeness,  but I like the overall effect of this method.  Let me know what you think

This ends the daily posts on my blog, although I will be sketching much more in the year 2009, and sharing them here, it is a lot of work to put new work up on a daily basis, and with school starting in a week, and life starting to pick up again, it is not within my capabilities anymore.  Thanks to all those who have offered their advice and input on my sketches. It was all greatly appreciate! 

Thanks! 

Ringing in 2009...

...With a real loose copic sketch.  I decided that I didn't want to take this one further, because I liked how it seemed to be emerging from the page, and wanted to retain that, but didn't think it would be kept in a tighter more refined sketch...

Last post of 2008...

This one was a lot of fun for me, and I feel like I got pretty close to my initial goal of what I wanted to accomplish with this drawing, to get a somewhat painted look with the markers.  I don't mean that in the sense of the strokes used, because that would take FOREVER!  But I mean that more in how I build up form, and use color and what not...

Hope you all had a great 2008, and that 2009 treats you even better! 

In color...

I think this one looks creeepy... and I'm not sure if I enjoy that look, because it really wasn't what it was going for.  I was going more for the intense look he usually has, but this is what came out.  I think the grey scale drawing does him more justice.... but I did enjoy the treatment of colors on this one.

Plus, does anyone know what I am doing in photoshop to get this color negative look when I upload picture online?  This is a new problem for me, I experienced it with my "lot of chin" post, and never before that....  The JPEG image looks normal on my computer BEFORE I upload, and kinda cool like this after... I fixed it by saving it as a GIF image, and presto! no color negative...