Screaming My Lungs Out (With Nothing to Say)

Two drawings today. One I like. The other, eh, not so much. First the one I like:

And the second I don’t like so much, but leads me into my whining session (well, actually two whining sessions) for the week:

DIATRIBE #1: HOLDING STILL

First and foremost, I want everyone to know that being a model for a drawing class is extremely difficult, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for our models . A lot of people think that models just sit there, but imagine having to sit in a position for HOURS; actively trying to stay still. It’s tough, and the truth of the matter is that no one stays entirely still. As an artist, you have to accept it, and do the best you can to compensate.

Now, all that being said, if you’re going to be a model you have to at least TRY to stay still. This model moved so much I just wanted to scream at her. Blocking in proportions is tough to begin with, but it’s impossible when you have a moving target. Now, to be fair, the model moving isn’t the only reason why this drawing sucks, but it certainly didn’t help any. Thanks for letting me get all that off my chest.

DIATRIBE #2: THE ATTRACTIVENESS OF MODELS

I’ve wanted to talk about this for a few weeks but just haven’t had the energy to do a long post. So, I’m gonna squeeze it in here. I’ve been hearing a bunch of complaints these last few weeks that I need more attractive models. I want to make it clear to everyone: I DON’T CHOOSE THE MODELS! They are provided by the school and there’s that whole saying about beggars and choosers. Trust me, if I chose the models this blog would have nothing but images of naked twenty year old women.

Okay, that sounds shallow. Let me try to redeem myself from that last statement. I honestly don’t care what the models look like so long as they can hold (expletive) still! To be a high-caliber artist, you have to be adept at drawing any type of body, be it male, female, young, old, obese, or skinny. Even when I’m sketching people on BART, I often choose people with more (ahem) interesting looks because, well, they look more interesting – and they’re sometimes more fun to draw. So, to summarize, sometimes I am going to draw less than attractive people in very few or no clothes. Deal with it.

Man, I had a whole diatribe ready to do write about something that happened today, but I’m really too tired (aka lazy) to do it right now. So, instead, here’s something completely different:

Homework assignment for Figurative Concepts. Here’s the original. Not a ton to say about it. I purposely chose a black and white image so I could play with color. I’m really trying to use color to turn figures and push and pull things all the while trying to use the least amount of line, black and white that I can. That way, when I do use a line or black or white, those areas have a ton of emphasis and impact. I’m not sure if this image is entirely successful, but I think there are some cool things there. I dig the girl’s leg… actually, the guy’s legs as well. Faces are tough because they’re so nuanced and I don’t think I have the control of the Nupastels to really pull it off.

First and foremost, congratulations to Shaun and Jenna for getting engaged. Super awesomeness. It’s nice that a bunch of my friends seem to be getting their lives together… Now if I could only follow suit. Anyhow:

So, if you remember correctly, I worked on these pencils WAAAY back during Spring Break (about 3 or so weeks ago now, I guess). I started inking and got through the first two pages. Feeling pretty confident, plugged ‘em into my portfolio and took ‘em to show off at the comic book convention. I showed ‘em around to a few comic professionals who proceeded to rip my inking APART. God being an “artist” sucks sometimes. So, after that humbling experience, I did what any diligent person does. Wept for three days straight, bought a book on inking, and started trying to improve.

Taking advice from Mr. Matt Wagner (yeah, name-dropping makes me cool), I bought some Faber-Castell brush pens and reworked some of the lines. They gave me a much fatter line than I’m used to, but I think it looks pretty good on these cartoony pages. I was really trying to focus on line weights and using the inks to draw the viewer’s eye. I still have a long way to go before my inks are perfect, but I think taking this kind of focus to it is a good start.

Surprisingly, I actually like this drawing. This model was pretty cool, and it seems like everyone in the class did a nice drawing of her. I was really trying to get the shadow shapes down before I started into the local color and highlights.

People keep telling me that my Nupastel stuff is very colorful, which is nice to hear, but not exactly what I’m shooting for – the color is really a result of me not knowing what I’m doing. When I work in Nupastels, I basically throw color at the thing until something works. So, while I want to retain the colorful appeal of the work, I want a little more control over it – an instinctive use of color, if you will. That way I can use, say, green to make the figure turn, or red to pop an edge out, or what have you.

Holy crap do I need a tripod for my camera. I feel like I’m shooting everything in “shaky-vision.”

Not my favorite drawing ever. Honestly, I don’t feel like I’ve been drawing very well these last two or so days. Maybe I just need to stop comparing myself to everyone else.

Not my favorite drawing I’ve ever done. Not that there’s really anything wrong with it, it just feels kinda plain – almost like I’ve fallen into a Nupastel slump. Only thing I think is kinda successful is that the lights are really differentiated from the darks.

We start up painting in head drawing tomorrow. It’s been a couple of years since I really used any oil. I tried playing with some paint this weekend. I’m not going to say it was a “successful” experiment, but hopefully it kicked the rust off just enough to give me a leg up. In any case, wish me luck.

Whoa. I really almost forgot to post this time. I was already in bed when I remembered. Blame it on Lucas – we tied one on tonight and I think I drank a little more than I should’ve . So, keeping that in mind, please forgive spelling, grammatical, and political correctness errors in tonight’s update.

I really dig this drawing – possibly the best I’ve ever done. I used some pastel pencils and a little tiny bit of charcoal. I really, really, really wish I had more time to work on this, and not just for the ::ahem:: obvious reasons. I just think that I was drawing really well that day, and I hated to quit in the middle. Colors might be a little off from the original because I think I had to use my camera’s flash to capture this one, but you get the gist.

Whew, I’m buzzed. I’m gonna stop typing before I get all “I love you man” here.

No, I have not started drawing people in clown make up. I was just going to draw this in charcoal, but near the end of the session I got a wild hair up my butt and wanted to see what some of those pastel pencils would look like with the charcoal. Kind of a cool effect, but it’d be better if I had used the pastels in the shadow shapes as well. The black charcoal makes the lights on the face look too light – hence the clown face. Still, I thought the effect had some potential and I think the likeness of the drawing was pretty good.

The hard thing for me with these Carbothello pencils is getting the “darkest darks” down. You just have to keep layering and layering and layering and I always think it’s dark enough until I come back to it later. Something to work on.

Funny thing about this model is that I think this drawing looks a little bit like an old Neil Diamond (yes, I am obsessed with Neil Diamond, thanks), but a  lot of people who drew him made him look like Clint Eastwood. Strange.

More Nupastels… As if you didn’t notice that already. I like this one okay, but my teacher pointed out at the end of the class the the 3 folds on her dress are equidistant – a big “no no” for drawing. Oy. I was thinking about fixing it before I posted, but screw it… I’ll fix it later. I can’t really fix it now because I can’t see very well. I think I popped a blood vessel or something in my left eye… So it’s been bloodshot for the last two days and feels like it’s slightly too large for my eye socket. The messed up thing is that I just can’t seem to STOP DRAWING! Either in my sketchbook, or my homework, or inking those IF pages. I know that I should give it a rest, but I just can’t seem to stop. Anyhow, hopefully it feels better soon… I have homework to do.