Skizzenblog

I kinda want to refine this into an illustration suitable for a t-shirt.

Finally remembered I was posting these prints on my blog. Here’s another one of the robot prints, a little less overloaded than a few of the others.

The halftone pattern was achieved by doing this weird trick with xeroxes. You rub gum arabic into a xerox, then get it wet and the ink only sticks where the toner is and you can print with it. I had a hell of a time making it work at first, turns out I wasn’t using enough easy-wipe with my ink. It’s still finicky and not really my favorite thing to do, but I think the results are really interesting. If I recall correctly, I made up these shapes from a different image I’d wanted to use, but had ripped to shreds in the process.

More work in the moleskine! I really want to work on my anatomy / observational skills this summer, and one way I want to practice that (and get a better handle on color) is by copying some master paintings. Mostly nudes, cuz.. well I like nudes.

This is based off of Bather Arranging her Hair by Renoir. He’s not actually one of my favorite painters - or so I thought - but I was really captivated by his use of color in this painting. It describes the light on the skin so beautifully, so warm and soft. I’m going to have to give his work a closer look now.

This one is all watercolor pencil. Overall I’m pleased, especially with the top left corner and the lower portion. The hair and head is.. off and clumsy, I need to work on mixing darks. So difficult.

NOT SCHOOL ART. Yessss. This is the first in what I hope will be a series of small watercolor pieces/studies, all done in my moleskine watercolor book. Those who know me are aware that I’m not the biggest fan of moleskines. I tend to think they’re overpriced, overexposed, and way too small for my purposes. (I sketch big! What can I say?) But I had been intrigued by the watercolor varieties, since I do love working in watercolor and watercolor pencil. Well, at the end of the semester everyone in my illustration class was given a shiny new moleskine, and that gave me a chance to try out this watercolor sketchbook stuff!’

This piece is a self-portrait I did in a few hours. I went back and forth between liking and hating it so many times during the course of making it, I don’t even know. It’s definitely muddy and overworked in some places, but I am really pleased overall with the light, particularly on the left.

Miniwork for a Miniassignment.

We were assigned to make 6 small spot illustrations for an article about Twitter and Milwaukee. Specifically we were pretty much illustrating some tweets about Milwaukee.

Since I like drawing people above all else, I drew some people. 6 people (well, 5 and a statue) that you’re likely to find around Milwaukee. Ink and watercolor.

Hey, finally got around to posting another print from class.

This is probably one of my favorites. About half my prints have these little robot guys in them. The first one came from a picture of the Tin Man. I wanted to use it, but not just straight up cut out the Tin Man and stick it on my piece. So, I cut out his torso, but gave him skinny legs and a big ol’ square head. And it turned into a silly robot and I drew them approximately 800 more times.

This print started out as one of my favorites, and then I killed it. You can’t see any of what was there originally- I obliterated it with other colors and textures. I was totally lost, and then I realized- there’s white ink! And I can use it!

So I did, and it went back to being one of my favorites. I love how you can see the texture behind the white. And the simplicity kinda reminds me of petroglyphs.

This semester I’m taking this awesome class on the ukiyo-e prints of Edo Japan. It’s basically 70% prints of prostitutes or porn. But they really are beautiful, so there’s that.

We had an assignment to do a “modern interpretation” of an ukiyo-e print. One large genre of ukiyo-e is kabuki actor prints. They’re always shown in character, often shown making a dramatic expression and doing a particular pose at a key moment of the play. So, for my version I did a picture of my favorite actor, Hugh Laurie, doing a classic House pose. If you’ve never watched the show- well, first, shame on you. The first few seasons are amazing television. Anyway, whenever House is thinking about a case and about to solve the medical mystery, he sits in his office and plays with this oversize tennis ball. It’s kind of a perfect contemporary example of an actor striking a pose at a key moment.

I’ve always had a really hard time drawing Hugh Laurie, but I was so pleased with myself after I did the initial lineart for this. I nailed it on my first try! Only problem is that he looks a little young.

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Click the image for full size, answers after the jump!

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Oh blog, I’ve been bad. I’ve been busy, and lazy, and bad. But I do have LOTS of art to post!

This illustration is one of my favorite things I’ve ever done. It was for a really cool school assignment. Ad agency Cramer-Krasselt does pro-bono work for a local charity, Penfield Children’s Center. Every year they hold a Croquet Ball, with proceeds going to Penfield. Part of this event involves auctioning off large printouts of posters. In the past they’ve just gone to established illustrators (I’ll post some at the bottom of the post, there are some big names!) but this year they decided to give our class at MIAD a crack, too!

It was really open. As one of my classmates said, “You can do whatever you want. As long as it’s perfect. And maybe has croquet in it.”

Anyway, my idea is pretty simple. The big cuddly monster is supposed to a) be adorable and b) represent how big of a help your donations/Penfield is to these children.

This is sort of the first time I’ve combined the drawing style I found most natural with the rendering style I find most natural (digital painting.) I’m thrilled and I’ll have more work in this vein incoming. (more…)

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