Week 5 - Daddy Was A Pistol

Oh look, another Jensen Ackles drawing. It's actually for the original intended idea for the previous one, being a print for my Intermediate Printmaking class. Basically I have to transfer it onto a giant slab of rock and then use said rock to make the print. It's actually a bigger pain in the rear than I made it sound, but it's so labor intensive that I feel it deserves a whole week dedicated to it.

This is the sketch on paper that I did last night, using a photo as a reference. It's very scribbly at some points, but that's more of a tone reference for me.

And here's the start of my putting the image on the stone. I used transfer paper to put down the light basics and have been going over it again and adding lights and darks with special grease crayons and a grease resistant. The latter is what appears to be brown smudges here but will in fact be white in the final product. Basically those are the highlights. The border is just to keep me from printing or drawing too far out.

There won't be a ton of updates for this, but after the week I've had I think I deserve something of a break.

Week 4 Takes a Bow

Much to my delight and surprise I was bored enough to completely color Week 4. A photo will once again have to suffice, but again by the end of the week I should have the means to scan it.

Week 4 Dusts Itself Off

 My Toshiba laptop of five years, Marvin, more or less passed away on Friday. He was a good computer, and far outlasted his planned obsolescence. Granted this was mainly due to my continually and stubbornly replacing parts on him. He will be missed, especially right now as I'm in the limbo of awaiting his replacement.

Right now I'm using my cute little back-up laptop. It's an HP mini that's mostly just used when Marvin is out of commission or when I'm really feeling the multitasking mojo. Alas, his 9X5 inch screen and small amount of RAM is not meant for graphic-heavy tasks like Paint Tool SAI, so I've had to take a different route with Week 4.

Basically I printed out what I had so far, transferred it onto clean paper with carbon paper, and inked it. Tonight and tomorrow will be the coloring phases and hopefully it will be finished on Wednesday as I intended. This is a photo of the paper so hopefully by then I'll have a better means of putting it on my computer too.

The Waterhsip Down painting, however, is finished. Hazel looks much better now and less like a donkey-guinea pig hybrid. I also tried to make the roots look more dirty and like part of the ground rather than just mutant worms.

My next painting is going to be a sort of symbolic image for The Hunger Games.

Short (?) Hiatus

Since my computer is being... itself... I have to take a short hiatus from updating the blog and doing digital art. Right now I'm accessing it in Safe Mode which only allows me the use of very few things. SAI is not one of those things, nor are the SD cards for my camera which of course has painting photos on it. It's my hope that I will have this sorted out by tomorrow. Naturally, I'll give myself two more days for Week 4 since even though I wanted to work on it, I couldn't.

Week 4.3

There's not much to say today other than that I will be fixing that poor rabbit's face as soon as I can. It looks like a cross between a donkey and a guinea pig right now.

Also my space bar needs to start behaving better.

Week 4.2

After last week's blog titles it looks like it would just be easier to use lyrics from a different song each week because I clearly lack the motivation and energy to give them decent titles most of the time. Will make note of this for Week 5...

For now, however, I made an acceptable amount of progress on the anatomy comparison. Somewhere between last Spring semester and this one I clearly forgot how to draw legs, however. Clearly it's time to sit down and draw two pages of nothing but legs so it's beaten back into my memory.

Also the painting is back, for better or worse. It figures that the most important part is the most challenging. Sigh. We have an in-progress critique tomorrow.

By the way, I typed this entry around a cat who is very insistent upon having her cuddles. You're welcome.

Week 4 Is an Early Riser

Since I finished Week 3 yesterday (because 3-day weekends are a glorious thing), and finished my homework, there's no harm in starting Week 4 early, is there? Good, because I did.

It's actually going to be my second attempt at something I did a couple months ago and totally hate. The anatomy is atrocious, so it's time for attempt #2. The one on the left still isn't scrawny enough here.

Still no painting update. I did work on it today but the lighting in my apartment is awful, so maybe I'll take a photo tomorrow when it's back in the studio.

Week Three is Born to be Wild

I realize that is not the next line in the song, but the drawing is done now so I might a well use the title lyrics. Colored with Prismacolor pencils over Prisma color markers, plus a sharpie and a graphite stick.

No update for the painting today since I haven't worked on it since Friday morning.

Dean you are a very pretty man.

Week 3 Is Looking for Adventure...

...or whatever comes its way. I wasn't going to try and use that part of the line in a title by itself.

Something is still off about this lovely man's lips, which is why they aren't inked. They'll probably remain that way and just be implied with shading and color. I'm still undecided about the rest of the car interior but I really don't want to draw it. Maybe a nice medium gray background will make it unnoticeable how lazy I am.

Also, here's more or less the big reveal of the painting. It's a cover for Watership Down by Richard Adams. The rabbit (Hazel) won't be black when it's done, but with oils the key is to start dark and build up the light colors, so black seemed like a good way to sketch him in. He might also need to be larger.

I also added some more realistic trees in the background and put highlights on the roots, though they might need some toning down. They're a bit distracting.

Week 3 Heads Out on the Highway

You're probably seeing what I'm doing there with the titles for this week. Supernatural fan art is involved, I can't help it.

The only thing that still looks off about Dean is his mouth, but the lips will be less pronounced when it's finished and I'll move them a bit and that should solve things. Yes, he's looking out the window of his car but it's undecided how much of the interior I'll bother drawing.

The painting has made quite a leap just with the roots in the hole and the start of the lights and darks as well. Don't worry, the roots will have shades and highlights so they look less like veins/possessed worms/something else horrific.

And no, Amanda, it's not a cover for "Fraggle Rock". You're getting colder. ;)

Week 3 Gets Its Motor Runnin'

 Despite my hopes, the opportunity to start Week 3 early didn't really rise. That's fine, though. The two days of not having to worry about finishing a piece was probably healthy. There was homework to catch up on and a small amount of relaxing to do.

For this week, I want to do something of a portrait of Dean Winchester from the TV show Supernatural, as played by Jensen Ackles. There's something quite off about it right now but I can't put my finger on it. I considered starting over but since I already started penciling in the rest so we'll keep it.

Also, if you guessed "The Hobbit" or any of  J.R.R Tolkien book for my Painting III project you were incorrect but close. The author is English and the characters do live underground. Still not giving the big reveal yet.

Week 2 Closes Early

Much to my pride and delight, there was plenty of time to finish this yesterday afternoon. I personally like the look of it and feel that it functions well. I would prefer the character a bit thinner since that's how I imagined him, but it works anyway. Perhaps he's built up a little since he took up archery.

Today was also the first real day of my Advanced Painting studio. I started on the background of my painting   but forgot my palette knife today so color blending wasn't going too well. As much as I dislike doing landscapes, this at least won't be the actual subject of the painting as much as a small detail of it. I don't want to reveal too much but I will say that it's going to be a sort of fan-made cover of a classic book. You can guess if you want but I may wait until a few more class sessions before revealing which book it is.

Week 2 Lays Flat

While I was hoping to make a decent amount of progress on this last night, I wasn't expecting to make quite this much. By the looks of things, this could easily be finished today. After looking at my resource more I decided that he does need gloves, or at least one. There will also be feathers on the arrows, I just haven't decided on how those should look yet.

Week 2 Lines Up

Somehow the line art phase of a drawing always gets a lame pun as a title. Oh well.

I intend to work on this more tonight, adding in clothes, the arrow quiver, and ideally finishing the background. The bow may not be 100% accurate but at this phase I'll be content with it. I'm just glad I learned that arrows are drawn back with three fingers instead of two so any archers out there won't skin me alive.

Week 2 Slides Along

For some reason my recent approach to digital art is to start on a dark background and draw with bright colors on top of that. Maybe my screen-canvas is less daunting when it's not all white. The background will (hopefully) be a sort of ghostly dead forest when all is said and done.

I do realize that the arrow is off now, but it's more of a guideline for me. His legs are also a bit strange but that will also be remedied. This will probably be the last overly complex Weekly Art for a while, since I have two studio classes this semester and it's already time to start working on pieces for those.

Week One Fades Into Week Two

 Today was the first day of my last semester at University of Idaho. It was almost surreal, probably because I hadn't slept enough and even this morning's coffee wasn't enough for me to feel wholly awake all day. It wasn't a bad day, honestly. The first day seldom is because most of the classes consist of "Here's your syllabus, now get out". The rest of this week should be similar so at least I'm being eased into having to be up and moderately coherent before 9 AM.

The painting and I finally came to an agreement that I would spend a great deal of my time after work fixing it and it would cooperate as long as I set it in from of my space heater occasionally to help it dry at least a little so the colors wouldn't completely mush together. It's not perfect, but it looks a far sight better now than it did last night. I would now be alright with framing it and giving it to to my grandmother.

Not since my Lord of the Rings obsession days of high school have I really tried to draw much in the way of archery. A few pen scribbles in my sketchbook proved that muscle memory isn't everything, so I found a great archery resource and worked with that. That web page is going to be open in Chrome quite a bit in the next six days.

Week 1: One Step Back

I didn't know it was possible, but this looks even worse now than it did yesterday. I'll either fix it when I come home from Home Group tonight or finish it tomorrow after my first say back at school.

Week 1: Something Spotty and Something from '12

First I'd like to show off the last painting I did last semester, which couldn't be posted until after Christmas as it was a gift for a couple of very close friends of mine who are also the proud parents of this little cutie. His name is William and he just turned two! I'm his honorary aunt and think he's the cutest thing. I'm gonna steal him. Shh, it's a secret.

Also, until I came to the face the spots weren't nearly as horrifying as expected, but after attempting to paint the bricks in a wall I suppose anything's easy. Tonight it's being set in front of a space heater to help it dry and by this time tomorrow it should hopefully be finished. The whole face will be re-done, as well as some of the neck spots so they shrink at a more believable rate.

Week 1's Baby Steps

The painting went untouched yesterday, since it was one of those days. You all know what they're like. That's just as well, however, since it really needed to dry more before I added anything else to it. The background's done now, partly to prevent me from messing it up. The painting's actually much brighter in person but was sitting in a different room when I took the photo.

No work was done on the other piece, but this is top priority anyway.

Week 1: Different Strokes

It would have been smarter to stop before trying to lay any paint down on the cheetah since it's a bit of a smudgy mess now, but come tomorrow it should be dried enough for more work. It looks like the rest of this won't take too long, which is fine with me since I was fool enough to start another piece yesterday evening. Hey, school's not in session. I'm bored.

Make Way, It Has Begun

The year 2013 has come despite some paranoia about the world ending on 12/21/12. It looks like Time makes fools of us all, including those who misinterpreted the Mayan calendar. Despite the hopes of some, we're all still here and life continues on.

From the day that the world was supposed to end until yesterday I was up visiting family for the holidays. Now Christmas and New Year's are over and it's time to resettle the chaos that comes with them and fall back into the routine that I've set for myself. Of course, this includes Attempt #3 at the Weekly Art challenge. Considering that there's only one semester of school left for me to trudge through, I expect that the whole thing will flow much more smoothly once there's a sweet, wonderful lack of homework in the way.

The first piece of 2013 will be a small painting for my grandmother. She recently moved in with my aunt and uncle as she can no longer live alone. She's trying to give her bedroom an Africa look and mentioned to me that she needs another wall hanging with a cheetah on it. So why not? A painting of a cheetah she shall have.

Of course, while looking at reference photos I began to question my sanity for tackling this. Just thinking of all those spots is daunting...

Also, I just listened to "Over the Misty Mountains Cold" from The Hobbit soundtrack. Repeatedly. Hey, Dwarfs sing pretty!