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 12 Lags

I had grand plans for Week 12 but they weren't cooperating. It's just as well I suppose. It's not Spring Break anymore so I no longer have an abundance of free time. So instead of an amusing idea given to me by friends on Twitter, it's going to be a simple picture of Bit... again. I don't feel like the character turn chart showed her shape that much, so that's what this is for. Simple but do-able at least with the papers I need to write.

And for the record these papers aren't due for a good month at least so I'm not procrastinating.

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 8 Is Dog Tired

Actually I'm not especially tired right now, nor am I tired of working on this but I ran out of bad dog jokes. I'm content with it and thus shall leave it as is. It's not meant to be perfect, just fun.

Also I've started my next painting. It's inspired by Crime and Punishment and will depict some symbolism Rodion Romanavich's inner conflict.

Week 7 Brightens Up A Bit

I apologize that this isn't as clear as I would like. My apartment has terrible electric lighting and I couldn't use natural light because it was dark outside when I took the photo.

Anyway, just blocked in some more details and the shape of the dress. Whoosh!

Week 7 Has A Late Start

The lack of updates over the past few days is due to school continuing to be a cruel mistress with high demands that are never met. These demands include having to start over on my painting for class. The other concept is actually too illustrative  and since it's a painting class, the piece needs to be universally readable, meaning you can make something of it whether you're "in" on the subject or not.

Though I'm going to take a different approach, The Hunger Games will still be the subject matter. I'm keeping the other painting because I like it for what it is, but since I have until Wednesday for my second attempt, it's going to be the Weekly Art this time.

The new idea is a portrayal of Katniss in her interview dress, doing the awesome twirl that shows the fake fire effect. You can see (maybe) an animated GIF of that here.

Week 6 Drags Its Feet

This week has been busy with little time (or motivation) to work on the poster for the contest. I toyed with giving up but after coming this far I will make myself finish even if I don't like it enough to enter it on March 2nd. Hopefully the girl looks more "Disney Princess" than "anime girl".

Also, started adding Katniss and Peeta to the top of the painting. She looks weird and blobby right now but hopefully once I add more highlights and detail to her hair so you can actually see it, she'll look better. Also the numbers are more annoying than I expected.

This is Not for Week 5

No, indeed it is not. It is, however, my current painting project for class. It's another conceptual book cover, this time for The Hunger Games. It's going to be far more symbolic than the last one, but the book itself uses a lot of symbolism.

The Roman numerals will all be white with dripping blood in them (hey it's a very macabre book), and there will be a forest on fire at the top with silhouettes of Peeta and Katniss at the top of the "clock" where the 12 is. I'm considering using a bow and arrow for the clock hands.

None of that probably makes any sense at all unless you've read the book or seen the movie, but I'll explain it more as the painting progresses and makes more sense in and of itself. Also my canvas was lop-sided when I took the photo. The numbers need work but they are straighter than that.

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 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 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.

Page Six and A Finished Painting

Wherein Rose carries out on her warning and I call it (temporary?) quits on the "Surreal" painting. The highlighting on the fabric is still ugly, but the rest looks better enough for me to be satisfied until I get bored later and fix it.

I Can Fix It!

"Wreck-It Ralph" is a great movie by the way. Just thought should be put out there.

Today most of Intermediate Painting was spent making more adjustments to old pieces. A great deal of time also went into my current piece, but again it's going to be a gift so won't be shown here until after Christmas. Instead let's take a look at what I worked on today, and compare them to photos of how they looked before.

First, the "surrealist" painting that I was so disappointed in. Here's how it used to look:

Here's how it looks now. It still isn't finished, but it's a large improvement. The chairs still need work, and several more details will be added to the cheese house and the wine glass as well as its contents. The drapery will also be changed.

 Here's the last assignment I did, in all it's frustrating "glory"...

 ...and here's how it looks now sitting in my locker in the studio. I decided to cover the bricks, but not with paint so thick that you can't see some hint of them. It simply isn't possible with my skill level and the remaining time to fix all those bricks and make them presentable. Something needs to be added along be bottom to make the wall more tidy, and the flowers will be made neater and have more details. It's much easier for me to look at just because the bricks are covered.

Page Four

In which the just desserts start to be served and the heroine speaks for the first time! Also a nod to women taking a stand in the comic world in the background there.

Pages One and Two

I started celebrating too soon yesterday. I realized after updating my blog that I forgot to put a few speech bubbles on page one. That has been rectified and page two is also finished. It's my personal goal to have the entire thing done by Sunday night. We'll see what happens.

Page One

I just now finished the first page of this silly thing after neglecting it and most every other school-related work since the beginning of Thanksgiving break. I worked on some Biology notes during the week and finished one of the eight artworks I need for my Mixed Media final, but other than that I was either busy shopping, wrapping gifts, or doing absolutely nothing.

Seeing this finished is rather satisfying, hopefully enough to fuel me through completing most of Page 2.