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: 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!

Home-Stretch and a Pony

The painting is almost finished! Right now the plan is to add something to the sky to make it obvious that it's supposed to be s sky, add more shadowing to the face, and somehow put window-light into the buildings because what they are still isn't obvious enough. Thankfully she finally has hair. The bright red under-sketch was really throwing things off:


Also, while some may consider it shameful for a twenty-four-year-old woman to be into My Little Pony again fifteen years later, I am anyway. Lauren Faust's "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" is amazing, but no less can be expected for one of the major minds behind "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends". It's a great show; witty and fun but still a good influence on kids, plus doesn't look like it was animated within an hour using Flash. Also, this show has a huge internet following of people around my age.

That being said, I recently bought a figure of my favorite pony, Rarity, and messed with her hair a bit to try and give it the curl her character actually has. I didn't cut it at all because scissors + hair + me = disaster. But the curling worked nicely. Here's before and after:



I think she's cute. And I have every intention of buying and styling other characters as well. Hey, we all have hobbies. Some of mine just happens to include things I should have outgrown by now.

Yep, Still Tough + Sketches!

The painting is coming along. According to my instructor it's turning out great, while I'm half-way between loathing and being okay with it. Thankfully as I look at it from the photo right now it's tilting more towards "okay".

And finally got around to scanning a few sketches! The first was a quick birthday sketch for my cousin because I fail and won't be able to mail her gifts to her until Friday and her birthday was earlier this week. It's her character Denver from a role-play that we're doing together.

I also tried to draw my half of the role-play, Corvus. However, I don't think I like it enough to be bothered with finishing it. Alas.
Finally just something I sketched during my lecture classes this week. Yes, more Hetalia fan art. Also some... thing I just started doodling. It starts with a random shape and I just build on it. they're kinda fun.

This is Gonna Be Tough

This week marked the start of the next assignment in my painting studio, and also my first time working on a real canvas. Let me say, that stuff sure is greedy when it comes to trying to spread pigment, or maybe it's the gesso on top of it? Granted, the point with oil is to lay it on thick anyway.

The real tricky part of this assignment is that it's meant to be "arbitrary color", and based purely on the color value rather than representing anything with color. Yes, that's as complicated as it sounds. The most simple way for me to describe it is that every thing has to more or less be made of a quilt of various colors as long as they have the same value.

The drapery up top is being done correctly, but my teacher wants me to separate the colors out more on the bottom so they're not simply blended, but each color needs to have its own place.

I've been doing sketching here and there, but haven't gotten around to scanning anything.

Contains Nudity

Well, now that I have everyone's attention, let's start things with my finished painting for my studio class.

It's... not something I'm particularly fond of, but I knew it wouldn't be from the start. I never expect that of my first time trying something. It's main issue is that it's incredibly dark, even where it should be bright. I've noticed that I have that problem a lot, however. Hopefully this semester will help correct that. Hopefully I'll also stop comparing my work to the other students and convincing myself that I'm not as good as they are.

This may be shameless and may be resulting in the rolling of several sets of eyes, but I did it strictly to enjoy myself. In my defense, however, it was also good anatomy practice. It's been a while since I really sat and studied a reference, so this was helpful (the reference was a hard-bound book called Anatomy for the Artist for those wondering.) And hey, drawing Ivan (Hetalia) as a sexy vampire was therapeutic. A real vampire, mind you. None of that Twilight nonsense.

Happy Long Weekend!

Hello Friday of Labor Day weekend. A few stresses going on to start my three days of chilling, but I'm not letting them bother me much. And hey, I've got some art to upload!

Maybe I've been vague about it, but since Kessie asked, allow me to explain. The painting and the digital project art two totally separate classes and not connected in any way. Speaking of, here's an update on the painting:
I've grown braver about laying the paint on thick, but having trouble blending the colors on the canvas (well, gesso-covered paper in this case).

Also! My first model car. It was easy to put together, though I ended up gluing bits into place because they'd fall off while I was doing something else. I also painted the interior black. It was white by default, which was totally unsuited to the rest of the car, I thought. I had a lot of fun, though! I think eventually I'll invest in another one.
Here's the commission, scanned better.
And last, the other commission that I need to work on. This will be the last for quite a while. Work, school, and homework mean that any non-curricular drawing I do will be for myself.
So here's to a long weekend! Hope everyone enjoys it!

Getting Classy

Sorry, it's just a play on the fact that I've started actually doing art for my classes, not that my art is suddenly more high-end.

As I expected, oil paint (yes, water-soluble since Kessie asked) is going to take some getting used to. Last class I was trying to use it like extra-thick watercolors, which of course it isn't. For today's studio I'm going to try laying the pigment on more thickly.
Also, for my digital tools class, my professor has approve my chosen project of creating a cover for the novel I wrote for National Novel Writer's Month back in 2009 (I'll be going back to it this November to write the second draft). I'll be drawing the individual images for characters in Photoshop Elements 5, then using Adobe Illustrator CS5 (which I bought at student discount) to put them together and add the desired effects and text. Here's the front-most image of the main character (so far):
For non-curricular art, I finished my friend's commission. Please excuse the poor quality; I'm at school and don't have my scanner in my backpack, so my camera had to do:
After finishing the other commission on my plate, I'm going to stop taking them for a while. Full-time class, working 25 hours a week plus homework means that any free-time drawing I do will be for myself.

Also, my model car is completed, I just happened to not have the photo I took of it on the camera card that's with me. Next entry, though!