Okay, so some blog viewers have recognized me on the street from my drawings - that's a good thing for me, since that means I get a likeness. But I'm not quite ready to post my face on the blog. I think holding back is a good thing. Anyhow, this was a portrait I did with a photo (in the vein of the Mass series, which is a take-off on the Supermass series of fabu artist James Roper) for Facebook. The swirls remind me of Murakami's kinkier work, but I've always loved my swirly fabric since I was a kid so I can say it's original. And I redrew my face by tracing, which doesn't seem to yield a good product for me. Guess I'm too used to working my own way and tracing? Not so much.
The problem with improving drawings is that when parts get better, other parts have to step up as well... so it becomes this endless cycle of revision. Although I'm liking this much better - a lot of the superfluous lines have been eliminated, and it's looking very old school but still updated.
I've been wanting to do detail work rather than these quick sketches I've posted of late, but that would require finishing a piece more completely than I seem capable of lately. I did find an older piece to touch up, and I like the improvements (minimal as they may seem) a lot. It's my old-school, John Byrne-esque rendition of Dark Phoenix form the 80s, but with a bit of Adam Hughes shading in the body thrown in, as well as a Dave Cockrum-inspired DP effect (from Kitty's Fairy Tale). Can you X-fans from way back tell what I'm referencing?
I'm so tired of just doing quick sketches and wanted to do something more complex, but I just don't seem to have it this week. This one could have been all kinds of detailed, but in the end I went sketchy again. Guess all the new work at the office is taking its toll.
I thought I had done everything for the evening of a rather long day, but I forgot to draw right before heading off to bed, and as you can see, I had sleep on my mind. Fortunately I had the oil paint tool still selected in Painter, as the choice of medium really affects how I draw - the effects of the oil brushes still seem fresh enough to me that just the quality of theline is encouraging. If I had my standard pencil line on (which in this version of Painter's Essentials program for me, is an airbrush) I would have abandoned this sketch after two lines.
This was actually a drawing for yesterday: I found a fellow passenger in the subway train to be rather interesting, so I took note of her goth looks to do as a quick sketch later. I didn't get too far into it, but this was the gist of what I liked: her angeled bangs and her light lilac lids on her pale, pale skin.
While taking a conference call today, I pulled one of a bunch of these multi-colored pencils that we were using more as display pieces. My coworker Alton asked me if I liked them, but since I had never really used these versions before, I decided to try them out. Can't say I love the randomness of the colors (nor the very basic, almost primary range) but it certainly makes for interestingly possibilities.
I'd been using the oil brushes a lot lately in Painter, and I wanted to try and do something minimal after putting down a few washes. The strokes were interesting enough to me because they're so different from my normal ones that I kinda tried to leave well enough alone. It's a tad 80s, but hell, so am I. Heh.
I was so busy Sunday night I forgot to do a drawing, so this morning before I got ready for work I hastily tried to do a sketch. Lemme tell you, not always the best time when rushing on a Monday morning.
I can't leave well enough alone. I went in and fine-tuned some of the facial features and added some more hair details as well as some yellow highlights.
I had a long exhausting day, but it was a good one regardless. So I should consider it a challenge if I can do something worth posting that's quick and easy. I don't think I did too badly with this one.
I was playing around with the oil brushes in Painter and decided to do a very painterly set of lips. I miss natural media - the effects are so fun to see again, even if they're just digital approximations. I think this turned out better than I thought it would, since I was just mucking about with the colors and shading. They look very glossy.
When I was younger, say, maybe around 4 or 5, I used to love drawing cakes. Don't ask me why - I always drew them as tiered affairs, but they were always birthday cakes (even if they resembled wedding cakes) which you knew by the many, flaming candles. I would try and get them really really elaborate, because decorated cakes seemed so fascinating to me.
I love the wet strokes of some of the brushes in Photoshop and I kept swooshing it back and forth to get a very painterly feel. Though I'm not really satisfied with the composition, I like it enough as a sketch to play with.
My problem is I often admire the linework of really accomplished minimalists, but never deem my own work done unless it's realized in a very complex and extensive manner. But I didn't want to work too much on a piece last night, although when I put the lines down for the nose and lips and jawline, it came together so nicely I didn't want to go further until another day. I did play around with the background just to make it a bit more interesting. This was Friday's drawing.
I decided that as a redhead/strawberry blonde, if this was a comicbook character in day clothes, she'd be better off in teal. So I'm thinking she looks like Siryn from the comic book X-factor. I added some darker linework around her face as well... the original was looking a bit wan.
I was going to take more care painting this, but followed through on keeping the hand in it. It's not bad - a tad rough for my normal, but not a bad look.
I kept working on the linework, but seemed to be hard-pressed to really clean it up too much - guess I wanted to keep some of the hand in it. Was curious to see what the linework looked like in reverse... et voila.
I kinda love the way this stance turned out - it reminds me of when I used to go to fashion illustration classes at FIT, and I finally developed a style that had more structure to it (less Antonio Lopez, more Vogue Patterns, but I kinda always liked those more mundane sketches). This one is definitely affected by comics, but I'll try and fix that as I add more details.
While I like this drawing, I'm a little annoyed with the direction the style has taken: it's influenced by very current X-men comic book artists work that I dislike. I cant even name the illustrators, but they have a tendency to draw all their women the same way (for example, even if it's established the characters have a particular hairstyle, these artists will just draw them with bangs. All of them. Even if a few panels ago they might have had one length hair. ) And even if I can't name them, I see it in this piece, when I added some lines to add some movement to the hair. Man, I'm so easily influenced.
I was watching the new season of Project Runway on Lifetime's website, and on this second episode I took note again of Heidi Klum's dress and stance in the end of the intro credits. I liked the way she looked in it so I decided to do a croquis of it... although I'm thinking this might turn into a superhero in plainclothes.
Thought I'd try playing with the face a bit because it's too undone for my liking, but I'm probably gonna have to abandon working on this sketch any further...
Since I was more interested in the colors than the actual guy, I really wanted this to be a cleaner, simpler line. It's not quite my stye, but I think I got influenced by another blogger who has a more cartoony line.
There are a couple of African Americans at my gym who always seem to have such great color combinations in their outfits. I think that black skin, especially when it's a rich tone, really brings out neutrals in ways that I find really attractive. This one guy was wearing warm heather grey sweats, a peachy beige shirt and bright cobalt shoes - and I couldn't stop looking at him because of the colors. If I put those together, the peach would immediately look sallow on me.
This is totally out of order, but this was a very quick doodle I did of my friend, thinking I would get something clean and easy, but I was rushing to get to bed to wake up for the Monday morning meeting that would. not. end. In any case, this was supposed to be my entry for Sunday.
