Sketch Journaling

Sooo long story short, I've been doing a ton of writing, another hobby/outlet of mine, and it always finds its way into my drawing, so thus, sketch journaling lol. Again, since I have not had the discipline to do painting, I've been doing small scale drawings, and am posting them here for anyone who wants insight into my mind haha.

Minerva. 7/10
I *love* Deftones. Thus, this drawing was done under the influence of the song "Minerva" (bet you wouldn't have guessed that). Any way, that is that...

And next, a piece containing so many random elements that somehow magically came together in some mystical strange and unfortunate way lol. (Oh vagueness... how people cannot understand you...) Without going into details, the juxtaposition of the writing, the calligraphy, and the drawing it all goes hand in hand. I wasn't terribly fond of the girl's sweet, pensive expression, but then I thought about "what if" it isn't some tranquil line of thought she's persuing? Some of us are a little nuts...

risk, caution. 7/2010

And so, if I haven't lost you yet, and you're still reading, I apologize for my blabbery. Business and personal junk aren't supposed to mix, but right now, I can't find the ability to seperate the two. Please put up with me, I promise you I will eventually have something else for you folks haha.

(bulletproof) illustration

So... the last couple of months I have had no drive whatsoever to finish anything. I get half way through a painting then get super bored with it and let it sit on my easel for a couple months until I feel like messing with it again... sad sad... However, I have been doing a lot of sketching in my War-and-Peace-length leather bound sketchbook... lots of writing/sketching combos. Some just doodles, some complete illustrations. It's so completely freeing, because there are no expectations before me, I can take it anywhere, and it's a small surface, so it doesn't take as long to finish things. Plus, because it's a sketchbook, it gives me freedom to do whatever I feel like, regardless of how it turns out. It's really, really nice. So for the next couple of days/weeks, I'm going to be sharing some illustrations from my book.

(bulletproof)

Had some fun with a Kelly Smith inspired drawing. Pencil and acrylic.

Again, I apologize for the crappy resolution. I have postponed posting these because I have been waiting for a scanner to miraculously appear in my presence, but that has STILL not happened, so, camera photos instead... one day... one day...

(only in) Remission

"(only in) Remission"
2010



Originally I had considered a red heart. Although it worked for my personal meaning behind the piece, and looked beautiful with her red hair, something about it was just not working. Plus, I didn't want it to look too typical or like some kind of religious iconography, so I had a last minute overhaul of the whole concept-- the night before the show!


The idea of a bruised or grayed/decaying sort of heart came to mind. Then I also thought about how coals are black and gray; dingey and dead looking, yet still containing bright burning red embers inside. From the start, I wanted the heart to morph into something organic. The veins and arteries reminded me of roots (which tied into some complex metaphorical statement I wanted to illustrate, that I don't want to go into right now- haha) and so I was thinking of it turning into roots and twigs; like something was growing from it. The thought of rich blacks and grays reminded me of black irises- thus the idea was born.

One of my favorite, overlooked parts of this is the bust (LOL). Using a super-secret technique, I creating this pattern of colors and highlights, coming through the black of the corset. You should click the image above to see it up close.

Below you can see more textural elements I incorporated throughout this piece:

And there you have it- my latest piece.

Bleep blorp computing error! x_x

Yup, that's the way computers speak to one another... my brain (and my eyeballs) are fried. I've been working on the same stupid painting for about 5hours now... I'm sooo tired of it! haha :P I just need to take a break, go to sleep...

Just wanted to share the progress with you guys. I'm reeeeally excited because I've been having some problems with getting her colors/shading right, and for whatever reason I broke out my prismacolors and went to town... Very happy with the results! Any way, I'm gonna take a break now...

I will leave you with a shot of my messy work area. It's like a squirrel den. Or rat's nest... It can be clean and organized... but not when I'm working. Evvverything gets dragged out and tossed within a 12" radius of me for easy access haha. Those freaking lights too... It is burning up in here with them being on all day! My head hurts... zzzzzzzz

Lanvin Spring 2010 Styling

As usual, the photos suck, but I'm still pretty happy with how this turned out. While I was in Houston, I just spent my idle time doodling away, and this is one of the products. She's based off an editorial featuring Lanvin's Spring 2010 Beauty. (Lots of smokey eyes, whispy updos, and bleached brows)

I really liked the model- as you can see, she had some really sharp, stunning features, and serious attitude. I'm happy with how this turned out, especially with limited art supplies while I was away lol.



I have a couple ideas for finishing this. I like it as a simple black and white illustration, but I think a few subtle colors might be nice, or just a severe black background-- lots of different directions to take it in. That's usually why I choose to color some of my drawings digitally, because I don't want to be tied down to just ONE result.

i-D Magazine Cover

Okay, okay, so it's a mock-up, not the real deal... but I thought it would be fun to play around with!Working on getting a new portfolio together to try my hand at illustration... Thought some editorial mock-ups might be a nice touch, to see what could be done...

Teaser Pics

Not too much going on right now, just getting stuff ready for the 500x show coming up this month. Submissions are next week, so I'm just getting last minute stuff done. (Framing, touching up, etc) One of the pieces I'm submitting is something I started back in June that I've just put off to the side. I got the figure part done with, but then just got stuck with what direction I wanted to take it in. I've kind of got an idea now, so I'm working toward the finishing touches and polishing it up a bit.

Little drawing...

Getting caught up on a week's worth of recorded shows and felt like I was wasting time watching tv, so I picked up my sketchpad to make myself feel like I was "doing something" lol. I was inspired by one of the most amazing photos from the Paris fashion shows. This chick had craaazy cool hair. I felt like drawing it. I was more concerned with getting the color of her hair right lol. Attempt number one. The pics are terrible because of the horrible glare but it won't get any better any time soon, so c'est la vie... whatever.

Collage

Got my collage thrown together about an hour or two before class haha. I ended up taping everything up to a crappy crooked foam board lol. I think it turned out alright, considering everything. I really like the colors, but unfortunately, they kind of photographed yellow. Oh well. Here it is...  (click on the pics to view closer)

The assignment was to make a collage about "me" which I thought was super boring so instead I opted to take artistic licence and make it about what inspires me as an artist. touche! So I did little drawings based on my favorite muses, people who inspire me with their own artistic visions (photographers, musicians, artists, designers), and a few people who have shaped my thinking along the way.

Above I have Colin Meloy (The Decemberists), muses Meghan Collison, Coco Rocha, and Sasha Pivovarova, as well as a drawing inspired by the photography of Lara Jade, and last, a drawing based off an old photo of my grandmother.


















And pictured above is Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA and conservative pundit (HAAA) who continues to impart gifts of irony and satire to closet comedians such as myself- as well as the lovely Lily Donaldson as seen in one of my favorite photos. Plus, she kind of looks like Rachel Deschanel in my drawing, which is cool with me too (another muse).

It's quite hard to photograph, so unfortunately you are getting the crappy version of it : (
It's actually kind of like a widescreen/panoramic view. The idea was kind of like people on a stage. Some are in the background, and others, like ol' rabbit ears, actually are hanging off the edge of the stage. And then there's kind of a support collumn running through the center and far left of the stage. I hope to get some scans eventually. Until then...

It's 5am & work called in sick!

The power went out at work, so I don't have to go in for a while now!!! Any way, here's something I started on a while back. These are test shots (I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with her) but now that I see these I think I'm going to stick with the 3-d effect instead of glueing her down. What do you think?

Welcom back ME!

Ha ha. So I've been away for a while...

I've been busy with school and work. I've done a lot of sketching in the mean time, just haven't had the time to post anything. Luckily I've had the last two days in a row off and have been strangely inspired to get some stuff done. So, here she is-- (pardon the crappy photo quality)

The final piece actually consists of two canvases, so this is the first half. I'm not really going to do anything else to her, but I will do a little more with the background once the second half is ready to go (that way they tie in with eachother) Any way, I'm excited to get started on part II!

AND I've almost finished another little something I've been working on (yay!) so I'll be posting that one in days to come!

Procrastination

I'm supposed to be doing homework right now. Oops. So, I fittingly chose to upload a glimpse of something I was working on in class instead of listening to a lecture ha ha. She's not finished, and the photo quality is terrible, but I like her, and I want to do more with it.

Watercolor Sketch

Finally something to post here, yay! I've long been inspired by photographer Aneta Kowalczyk . Her work is truly beautiful! So I couldn't help but create a little 'homage' to a particular series she came out with a few years ago. Here it is.

Homage to Aneta. 8/09