Every so often I finish a drawing that is the “best thing I’ve ever drawn.” This is that drawing. For now… 
Best Yet
Waiting… waiting… waiting…
While I’m waiting for my .pdf to download so I can work on my next figure drawing, I thought I would upload a figure drawing from last week.
Nupastel. 2011.
I was pretty happy that my drawing finally looked as monochromatic as the example they gave us (and that the dress in my drawing looked as shiny as whatever crazy material the model was wearing in the photo), but looking at it again I think I need to re-photograph this one. It was dark outside when I finished this drawing so I had to photograph it indoors and it looks a little sad compared to the original…
… But my photo just downloaded so it’s drawing time again! More to come 
Distraction…
Sometimes, I just wish I had something sugary…. like right now… when I should be working on my figure drawing homework! … But, since I have none of the above, I decided to sketch it instead
I think I like the style this ended up being, even if the character doesn’t look much like me. I’ll have to experiment with drawing some more people this way… it reminds me of something, but I can’t think of what! But, at least for now it will have to remain a mystery because I need to get back to work.
Thanks for checking out my drawings!
Figure Drawings
It’s been a really long time! Lots of exciting things have happened though: school started, my computer died, I got a full time job, and I’ve done a bunch of new drawings! (At least I was productive, right?)
These are from class:
Nupastel. 2011.
Nupastel. 2011.
Nupastel 2011. Not my favorite.
Nupastel. 2011.
I hate that third drawing… but I’m not sure any more if there is something off in my drawing or it just looks weird because of the bizarre way the model decided to stand. But, it seems like over all these have been improving so I’m happy for now .
More to come!
Work in Progress…
Work in Progress 2011
My original plan was to color this sketch and post it for the Illustration Friday topic “swell” … but painting is taking a lot longer (and requires a lot more “undoing”) than I thought it would, so I haven’t finished coloring this yet. But, since I haven’t posted anything in a few days, I thought I would upload the line drawing as a “Work in Progress.”
This drawing is for Mom! When we were little, my twin sister and I liked to ask our Mom if we could “style” her hair. We were four, so a good hair style meant getting out the container of hair clips, rubber bands, bobby pins, and other hair-do things and putting as many of them as possible on Mom’s head. We told Mom we were making her hair beautiful before she went to work (and plastic hair clips are beautiful, so you should really wear as many of them as possible).
For this drawing, I was trying out a cartoon-y style of drawing, maybe something you would find in a children’s book. I want to have some variety in my portfolio, so I thought I would try something different. Hope you like it!
That’s all for now! Thanks for checking out my work!
This might be a character design…
Digital. 2011.
I’m trying to build up my portfolio with more professional-related work. So, since I’m interested in concept art, I decided to try my hand at character design… and for some reason “pirate” was my first idea.
I think there’s still a lot of room for improvement here, but I am pretty happy with it for a first-try, so I decided to post it
Nevermind…
I changed the theme back to what it was before. I realized that I liked this theme, I just hated my header image. I’ll start working on a new one .
Though now that I’ve changed the theme back and removed the header image, do you see those light and dark grey smudges in the header area? Those end up on top of the header image, so finding a way to design around them will be interesting!
Changes…
I’ve been playing with the theme of this blog, yet again. I’m trying to find something that will work better with a colorful header image – I had to use dark greyish colors for the last one and it was looking a bit depressing for an illustration blog.
I have to make a new header image, so for now you’ll just have to look at this picture of the ocean.
I also edited this picture:
It still doesn’t look great, but I was able to increase the contrast and lighten the image a bit. I drew this with a 5H pencil so the drawing was light and the contrast low to begin with, so this might be as good as it’s going to get until I finish tracing and coloring the sketch in Painter.
That’s all for now! I’m off to play with more themes :p
My “anti-motivational” poster…
This summer I’ve been trying to check out the work of other artists and, in browsing blogs and other sites I’ve found some really amazing work!
I’ve also found there seems to be an over-abundance of posters with motivational quotes that use the same design and typography – usually, very plain left justified text, some type of alphabet or repeated phrase theme, or “keep calm and… whatever.”
So, since motivational posters don’t really motivate me, and I’ve been seeing the same designs all over the place, I decided a parody was in order!
Here’s what I came up with:
Anti-Motivational Poster. 2011.
… This is the type of sense of humor I have….
It might be too small to read because this is a pretty low res .jpg, but the text on the square with the blue background reads: “Stop looking for distractions.” Special thanks for this phrase goes to whoever graffitied the desk on the second floor of Shields Library at UC Davis. I used to study on the second floor of the library between classes and frequently sat at a desk where “stop looking for distractions” was written in pencil in about 8 places on the desk. I always thought it was kind of funny.
I just made this for fun and design/ Adobe Illustrator practice, but just out of curiosity… would anyone be interested in buying one of these posters if they were available?
That’s all for now! … maybe I’ll print one and hang it by my desk
Merrows – Update!
I finally made some significant progress on my latest digital painting!
Digital Painting - Work in Progress. Corel Painter. 2011.
I tried to work on using some of the rendering techniques I learned in my chiaroscuro and head drawing classes to make the figure look less flat. I still have some work to do, especially on the arm, but I’m a lot happier with this version – it looks less cartoony.
I also tried out a couple new tools in Corel Painter: the “just add water” blender and the “burn” photo tool. The just add water tool worked great for blending out some of the brush strokes and adding some depth to the water. I used the darkest water color at a low opacity (I think 5%) and blended over the figure to make it look like her lower half was deeper in the water. I used the photo burn tool to darken some of the shadow areas.
Here’s the first version for comparison:
Digital Painting - Work in Progress - Part One. 2011.
Part two looks better, right? … I hope…
Also, solved the mystery on whether or not Irish Merrows are meant to be “evil.”
In Irish mythology, there is a huge difference between male and female “mer-people.” From Ireland’s Eye.Com, Female merrows were exceptionally beautiful, but with flatter feet than a human and webbed fingers. Male merrows on the other hand, were supposed to be extremely ugly with pig-like features and long pointed teeth; they were rarely seen.
So, here’s where the mix-up happened: back in high school was trying to write a story using Irish mythology, and decided (for reasons I don’t remember) to combine the features of male and female merrows into one character. So, apparently when I started this drawing I had my version of a merrow in mind instead of the real version. But, so far it’s made for an interesting painting so I think I’ll leave it that way
That’s all for now - Hope you like the new painting!
Here are the links to Ireland’s Eye if you’re interested:
