Breaks recharge the soul

I hope everyone who is reading this had a great break. This one was well needed for me because I fell behind in class and it gave me sometime for catch up. I also got to do a lot of personal sketches (i might upload if I find the time) and that was really refreshing.

This is my disaster project for sketchbook class. The process was due before break and I just didn't have time till now to do it. I choose the bridge that was close by because the desgin appealed to me in the beginning. The nice thing about this is that you get to see all my thoughts on how I make an image. Originally I was documenting every detail I thought might play a role. Only later did I realize I did not need them. 

This class mixed with linear perspective definitely helped me see angles that I could not photograph which gave for interesting compositions. As you can see, the disaster I choose was an earthquake. I did some studies to get the feel of what it would be like. Also while the first one is clearer the other two were more experimentations. I tried using different mediums I'm not used to. They definitely gave a different mood.

The first two are from before break. It was a calligraphy assignment working with line and I took this time to experiment. These were two of my favorite. However, I think its one of those things I need to keep practicing.

Both are about 15 minutes.

Trying to get better at focal.

Now these are what I did over break. I had a lot of time to do these and it feels like I'm applying certain things I worked on previously. There is still so much I could work on like values, focal and detail accuracy.

2 hours, trying to find accurate values with various edge work

about 20 minute.

20 minute, this was fun because my last one using this pose was

very different.

Came in bronze

I'm a little late on my postings, it has been a pretty rough week in terms of work. I've been falling behind by just one step so its hard to just regain my footing. Some of my stuff like my sketchbook assignment and last week figure drawing still need to be scanned/photographed. Tomorrow I'll upload more figure drawings.

Anatomy from last week was just to do better form skeletons. I feel like over this class I have gotten a lot better. Its now easy to pay attention to which side the form is on. The difficult part was trying to rotate the figure. 

The rest of the linear perspective class is devoted to the final project with a few random lessons here and there. I still don't know how I'm going to show my studio, but these were my first iterations. I'll do lots more later..

Studio room from different angles.

Box flaps.

A new long study that took about 80 minutes in nupastel. I did one before but there were just too many errors at about 2 hours. What I did differently was spend the first 35 minutes with just proportions. This allowed for lots of minimal problems later on. The MAJOR thing though that dragged this down was the high contrast I gave the model. One reason was because I didn't pay attention to the overall figures light/shadow relation. If thats not worse? I used ivory white thinking it was a light yellow for the highlights. This blasted them to a greater degree. On the brighter side? Because I did not have to think about proportions, I could look at the details and render to a better degree.

Dubbed the bronze statue. 

Figures and further than that

A good milestone was set forth with this recent set of figure drawings. While I didn't do the assignment quite how the teacher had planned, I still got some nice results. What I really should have done was focus on the lines and proportions. I will definitely do some of that later this weekend. However, I did these in ten minutes. There are a lot of things wrong if you put them up side by side with the reference but they still look better than ever. Confidence has been one of my key things to improve and with that came speed.

This time I tried to push focal point and render certain areas that only needed it. I don't think I achieved it. Maybe with more time, but for now I need to really just be all over the place. I also think color palette has a lot to do with the focal (obviously, but for figure drawings with such little time its really hard to plan so all I can do is experiment).

10 minute drawing with nu pastel and toned paper

The assignment had to do with foreshortening.

2 minute drawings, charcoal and newsprint.

15 minute drawing.

My finished creature design. I worked from the ground up like I said before. I had to first imagine the place that the creature resided which was tunnels and caves in a mountain high up in the sky. This type of creature digs and lives off certain rocks. The stuff it can't digest is put into a second stomach which is metal ore. This stomach melts the metal and they later use this ability to forge their city. The altitude they live up in is very high so little prey or predators. These creatures only have to worry about are the behemoths that float and try to snack on them. 

I've been coming up with names like a jackhammer dragon. These are not dragons, but earth explorers fantasize over things like this. Maybe in their tongue they are called Aih'skee, aih meaning one who breaks and skee meaning one who builds. Their civilization believes in a strong foundation and value the beginning to many problems.

Another multimedia attempt. 

Getting back into that sketchbook

Finished midterm week at TAD. To be honest, I am very happy with the choice I made going to this school. I say this a lot but people don't realize how annoying normal art colleges can be. I could rant about this, but I'll save that for another time. For now, I'm just happy to see my skills developing with teachers who are all very willing to push me. I hope to get even more quality work done this half (I plan to push myself much harder.)

Redone version of my sketchbook assignment, I used india ink washes and a black water soluble colored pencil. This technique was inspired by James Gurney, who does quite a bit of sketchbooking adventures that he shares online. I definitely like the results and hope to do more of this soon.

Old tea pot I got for like $5 at a yard sale.

I spent a good portion of my weekend working on my creature concept again. I went from the ground up by photographing new refrence to inspire me for a new location. This time I did not think of the place as what I photographed but instead an alien world. I'll post the finished sketches later. For now, here is some stuff I have on my computer.

Small ink silouettes, tried to push various ideas of a mountain cave digger.

My favorite silhouette given detail. 

Lots of work ahead

I feel like the moral of this whole blog post is if its bad then draw it again. I just need to keep pushing myself in the general direction that is set forth.

Linear perspective has been pretty tough as of late. While I am getting better at ellipses, for some reason I don't quite grasp gridding a sphere. I'm definitely going to have to rewatch the videos from class. Which is really nice because TAD is an online school that records all its sessions. This is very good when they pour tons of stuff in such a short amount of time.

Photography was an interesting assignment where I had to play with shadow. I really did not want to just use the silhouettes I was given. Instead, I played with crumpling paper and boxes to get unique shapes that I normally would not get. This was definitely a lot of fun to play with but frustrating when I can't control them all that much. So, what I get is what I get.

Heh, I did the sketchbook assignment wrong but I'll still post this anyways. Luckily, we went over the rest of the creature designs in last class. I will actually redo my creatures this week with a different process. Unlike the last time, I will focus very hard on the initial stages instead of the later ones. I get too caught up in details and then afterwords I don't want to get rid of it. I'll try to show my process. But for now, here is a teapot and cup. I did about 18 thumbs to get composition I wanted. (This is something I will also redo this weekend, all I needed was one object and I probably should render it better)

After working from strutturo uomo, I can tell my anatomy forms are getting just a slight bit better. They still have a way to go, but they show me reaching one level higher. In the beginning, I was struggling with certain things which now make lots of sense.