Week 16 Carries On My Wayward Son

The good thing about the anime style, often sloppy though it is, is the bold black shading that it uses. This will make my job incredibly easy. I haven't started Dean yet, probably because I'm saving the most beautiful character for last.

Also, I have school work to show off this time!

For my final project in Advanced Painting, I chose to try a portrait of my art heroine, Frida Kahlo. It's coming along well, and I'm well aware of the oddities in her facial anatomy right now. They will be corrected soon but the lighting looks nice right now.

This is my second-to-last print for my Printmaking class, another intaglio. It's another case of me going where I was emotionally led and not caring about the implications.

Week 13 Will Return After These Messages

While I have started doing concept sketches for this week's art project, none of them have been scanned and none of the actual drawings have been started. I am not without new artwork, however, so here's some things I've been doing for Painting and Printmaking to hold you over until tomorrow.

Since I can't remember if I showed the more or less finished version of the Crime and Punishment painting on here yet or not, here it is... possibly for the second time. The rim of the mug needs fixed but other than that I'm pretty satisfied.

I've also started my next painting which is sort of... corny... but eh. It's portrait practice, obviously of Liam Neeson with some North Irish landscape in the background, since that's where the man hails from. I also haven't touched it since last Wednesday because I played hooky yesterday.

Last is my latest print, which is polyester lithography and I'm too tired to go into the long explanation of how it works. Google would probably do better, but here's a photo of the plate I drew on (Bottom) and one of the prints that came off of it (top). The teacher mentioned at midterms that my prints have an angry theme (gee I wonder why?), so might as well keep going in that direction.

Week 10 Slept In

And as far as I'm concerned, Week 10 earned that extra sleep. I just dealt with the week of midterms and am looking forward to Spring break. Besides that I tried this drawing three times on paper before giving up and going with SAI. The last one was traditional media anyway so I might as well.

Also because of midterms, Week 10 is going to be sweet and simple. I'm going with a relaxing, comforting Father-And-Child image.

As for my painting, the professor suggested that the ax on the table was a little too obvious, and that instead having blood on the figure's hands would engage the viewer more. Also it saves me the trouble of trying to accurately represent a shiny metal surface so I'm fine with it.

Lastly for this entry, my latest printmaking assignment. Make no mistake that this class is still the ultimate low of my semester and the bane of my existence, but I'm doing what I can to stay a few steps ahead with it. I work outside of class a lot because when the instructor is around she's over-bearing and frustrating.

This is a copper-plate intalgio with lace used to make the background pattern.

Week 5 Waves Goodbye and Week 6 Arrives

Aside from the fact that this looks nothing like Jensen Ackles anymore, the print turned out decently. I'm not sure what went wrong there.

Lithography is stressful (partly because of my instructor) and I plan to never do it again. Ever.

On a happier, more relaxed note, I started Week 6 last night at a craft night get together with a friend. The local Renaissance Fair is having a poster contest and it wouldn't hurt to enter. The theme is Springtime. I did a lost last night but there are far more details to add. The deadline is March 2nd, but no harm in having it done early and being able to fix anything before-hand.

Week 5 - He's a Son of a Gun

This morning I finished drawing on the lithography stone and there progress will halt until I print on Tuesday morning. There will only be eight prints on nice paper from this. After that the stone has to be washed off so that the next person can use it. I've already decided to give one away, but I'll hold onto the rest as long as I can.

In other news, my new computer has arrived! I picked it up from the Post Office this morning. The "shell" of it is an old Thinkpad, but the internal workings are wonderful and smooth. As long as it works the exterior isn't a big deal to me. It's running Windows 7 beautifully and I'm very grateful to have Google Chrome back, plus a large screen.

The mass installation of all my software will take place tonight once I'm home from work.

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 Fifteen With An Extra

The inking on this was finished during a slow period at work yesterday, but this is the latest version that's been scanned. Since it's Friday and I have no homework (aside from studying; finals week ahoy!) I might start coloring it. Also, here's part of my Printmaking Final, the only project that wasn't a huge pain in the rear: 

Week Ten: Is It April Yet? Artistic Nudity

March could be over already and that would be fine with me. It has been an inexplicably rough month even with Spring Break. At the very least my goal of finishing my second commission by April appears doable. It's just clothing and a simple background from here, and while skin is fun to color it can be difficult, especially with colored pencil.

We're onto our next project in Printmaking, which will be Intaglio. Trust me when I say Wikipedia could explain it better. At the very least it should go more smoothly than silk screen. This is my concept so far. I was not in the best of moods.

Finally started on the third commission, and it and the fourth are for the same person. This one will only be line art, but the other will be color.
Lastly, something from Figure Drawing on Monday because there weren't any results from Wednesday worth posting. We're doing India ink now. For some reason the longer poses are less stressful for me than warming up.

Week Eleven: Second Commission

As stated last time, Weekly Art will be commissions until they're all finished. This one will be inked, colored, and have a background; the whole nine yards as far as commissions. The man on the right is African-American and his face is being challenging. The lips and nose finally look right, but thankfully his left eye needs to have a patch on it. Just as well since it doesn't look good.

Also, the print that's been giving me so much trouble in Printmaking I has finally taken form. Here it is in all its painted glory. Sort of. It would look bet scanned than as a photograph.

Week 8: A Collection - Part 2

And now for the other things created this week, mainly outside of class. For starters is something in color! A gift for a friend who had her birthday on Leap Day. It's a character from a video came galled Phoenix Wright, which I know very little about. But he's a German character, hence the German phrase that more or less means "Happy Birthday".

This next one is a Work In Progress for my Printmaking I class. We're doing screen prints this time which are easy but tedious. I'm not at the actual printing phase yet, but I will be next week. This is the pre-embossing transparency of mine. Well, one of them. The idea may have subconsciously come from a Madame Butterfly poster that a friend of mine has. Never seen the play myself, but the concept of a geisha and butterflies was too interesting to pass up.

This one's not a drawing, but a creative creation all the same. I've been trying to get back into sculpting clay food, and did these donuts last Friday night. I recently bought some more sculpting supplies and found more tutorials, so hopefully more like this will be soon in coming.

And finally some crazy emotional stuff that I forced out while un-medicated last week. It kept me from going any more insane than I already was.

And with that it's time to start planning what to draw for my re-entry into Weekly Art! Looking forward to that.

Week Six: Leaps and Bounds

This week has been pretty merciful as far as allowing time to work on this piece. The face is being saved for last along with the hair because they're my favorite thing to do. Doing them first would mean being bored with the rest.

The rest, however, is turning out well! It's been really fun.

More progress has finally been made in Printmaking. The prints have one more block of color going on them, which will be done next week. And unless the internet was lying to me, the Russian means "Sunrise".
Also, some exercises from Figure Drawing. The actual drawings exercises didn't turn out well at all, but these were cool. The idea was to work starting with the darks as guidelines and working up to lights.

Week Four: Busy (Artistic Nudity)

It's already the middle of the week and this little artist is exhausted. It's been a week of running nonstop with small and few breathing periods and early mornings. But today things are finally slowed down at least enough for me to work on my drawing for the week after a day of creativity including Figure Drawing and actually doing something in Printmaking for the first time this semester. The results are the following. Enjoy!

Also, Scrubs is messing with my emotions. They have a big deal about the end of season 8 which was the end of the show, almost made me cry, and then they have a season 9?! What are you people doing to me?!