That time of week again...

End of the semester stress and craziness is starting to kick in -- A.K.A. for some reason, I picked the most busy time of the semester to do a project that, by it's nature, would take up all my time (and my paycheck, for that matter).

We're doing illustrations for Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree, and I've decided to do a kind of 3d-like cut paper style. I saw it here and just couldn't resist (And if you check out the example, you have to check out the rest of her work, it's simply amazing.). It may be time consuming, but I'm absolutely loving working on it, it's so different from what I've done in the past, and so much fun.

I should be able to have pictures up on it next week.

For now, though, I have what I was attempting to scan last week (Still don't know what was wrong with my scanner, but it's working, so I'm happy). It's nothing too special, just more practice, this time more realistic. Done from the image Josiah by brandonwitzel on Deviantart.

It certainly isn't perfect, the face is a little too narrow to match properly, bu it was good practice and it felt good to do something more realistic for a change.

Next up

Well, I was going to post up another drawing I did this week, but seeing as my scanner has decided to rebel...that's not quite possible. So, instead, have some photos!

These were taken at McConnell Springs in Lexington, KY. I'd love to go again when everything's green, and not just the water plants. The second image has been colorized for fun.

It's about time

So, I've been missing for a while, school (or lack of it as was the case during Spring Break) has gotten me off track. Waaay off track.

So, since I've missed so much, I'm posting much more. I won't be explaining much in this post, so feel free to ask if you have questions! (I like answering questions)


Inspiration comes in the strangest places sometimes, and can induce attempts at world-building. Like this, the idea beginning at some clouds I saw outside of the window of a plane I was on.
More sketches for the same world-building attempt
Sketches of some characters of mine. Ignore the bad attempt at a gun. I'm working on that.
Hand done type assignment for my Illustration class. It's an invitation to come see a documentary that's being shown at a film festival in Rwanda.
More fun with those grey markers on brown paper. Also white gel pen this time.
Quick mermaid sketch.
Character design sketch.
Practice at drawing poses, dresses, expressions, and fabric, done from the stock photography of Faestock at DeviantArt
Practice at drawing expressions, done from the stock photography of Faestock at DeviantArt.
First of three illustrations done to Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis.
Second Metamorphosis Illustration. Tatting shuttle, a pen, and a needle and thread
Last image of the Metamorphosis illustrations. This is the final version of the one from previous posts.

Another page in the life of...

Hmm...It's been a while, hasn't it? Perhaps I should set a specific day to update on. Maybe that would get me updating more consistently...

Have a page out of my sketchbook. Done with pencil and grey markers (which I've found has a really nice effect on brown paper)

She's a little long (face, legs, torso...everything really), but I really like the effect of the marker. *Ahem* I think the effect of the marker on the brown paper works well.

Process Contiued

Two posts in three days? Unheard of!

Anyway! Today was a beautiful day of 8 inches of snow and no class, so you all get another post.

So! The second step! Inking the bottle. This is fundamentally different from the watch because it relies much more on the form of the bottle and on the lighting than on specific things on the bottle itself. Inking the glass bottle is something that's a little bit more fluid and allows for more flexibility because other that the outline, it's all up to me to decide how my bottle is going to look as a (fake) 3D object.

The first image is the base outline that I did prior to taking photos. You can see my pencil sketch underneath the ink where I'm giving myself an idea of where I want to draw my lines to define the form. The sketch is rather loose.

In the second image I've followed my sketch and placed outlines in the basic spots to show the thickness of the glass, as well as the base of the bottle.

The third image you can see where I've added lines to form the top of the bottle, to show it stepping up to the neck. I've also thicked the outlines to show which side of the bottle is in shadow as well as to give more dimension to the glass. Having lines all one thickness on an image makes for a very boring image.

In the fourth image I've thickened a few lines a bit more to show form, but I've also added some hatching to indicate form and shadows.

The last image is the finished product, everything hatched, shaded, and inked.

Process

That ink project from my last post is still continuing, and I think I'll keep posting as it goes along. I'm actually having a lot of fun with this project, I've a newfound love for ink and watercolor. Except my ink isn't waterproof, sadly. But that's workable.

I also, for some random reason, decided to take pictures while I was working on one of the drawings. So these pictures to the left are an example of how I ink. The preliminary pencil sketches are already laid down, and I've already got certain things outlined at the beginning, so the inking process I'm showing you is for the clock face and the inside of the glass bottle.

The first image shows the drawing with most things outlined, as well as my tools: a plasic film canister for water (these things come in awfully handy for so many things because they're airtight. I use them for paint storage, water, safety pin storage, and all kinds of things. Save 'em if you got 'em), a bottle Pelikan black ink, a scrap of fabric I use to wipe my pen nib on to dry it after cleaning it, and my trusty pen (The nib is a Hunt Globe bowl pointed nib, or so it says). The second image is a close up of the face of the pocket watch. I already have the main parts outlined, so what's left is the detail.

In the third image I've started inking the details. First I went in and inked the arrows which point to the hours/numerals. This way, even if I get off my pencil sketch, I still have a point of reference. You can also see how I go about inking, first outlining, and then filling in.

The 4th image is mainly just progress, but also shows that I turn my paper while I ink, keeping my hand out of the wet ink as well as allowing me to drag the pen properly to get different thicknesses of line.

The 5th image is just more progress, getting further along and finishing up the numerals.

The 6th and last image for today is the final pocket watch. I've finished the numerals, put in the tic-marks for the minutes, and added shadows along the edges of the watch to show the dimesions of it. Another way I did that, was to thicken the lines, you can see this along the bottom of the watch, where the base is thicker to mimic the shadow you'd see at the bottom of an object.

Next post: inking the bottle and the final product.

The Answer

A couple posts back I showed a social poster designed during one of my classes for a contest in France (We've gotten confirmation that they made it, and they'll be judging the posters in late march. So around the beginning of April I'll find out if mine made the cut. And yes, Katie, your ring is on a poster in France.) I've actually been rather suprised by the answers I've gotten, both from those of you that commented here, and from classmates and friends I've showed it to. Meanings from "Marriage is timeless" to "Time is running out before marriage" to commenting on the "biological clock" to family values and things like marriage and family needing time in order to be successful.

The meaning I was trying to get across is that anymore it doesn't seem like our culture takes marriage seriously. Girls are given advice about what to look for for their first husband, their second husband, and it doesn't seem to be something that's sacred anymore, and I see this as a bad thing.

That being said, I like "Marriage is Timeless" better.

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In other news, the semester has been steadily marching on, and so we've been going through a lot in my classes. This week I show you three ink drawings that I did for my Illustration class. We were to read Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis and do one cover illustration, and two inside illustrations. Unfortunately, two of these are getting scrapped because they weren't quite successful enough for the goal of the assignment.

This is actually something that happens a lot for my classes. I may
be productive and produce a lot that gets rejected before I finally achieve what I'm going for. This happens to most (if not every) artists, designers, and illustrators, a common malady, you could say. And while it is kind of tragic and seems like a waste, many of these illustrations or designs that didn't work for one thing might come in awfully handy in a later project or assignment.

Maybe this is why I'm such a packrat.