Mod round 2

More of the same. Just experimenting with shape and color, using one of my favorite doodles as a starting point. This was also my first shot at playing with pastels, a brand new material for me that I clearly need to learn more about.

Rediscovered

You know, I hated this when I made it. I hated it and I forgot about it. But I stumbled across it this morning, and I don't think I hate it anymore. I still don't like it, but I don't hate it.

This started as a pencil drawing. I'm unnaturally obsessed with the ever popular mid-century mod look, and this was my first real crack at putting my spin on it. I scanned the drawing and wanted to get nice clean bold color in it. But I need to figure out how to compensate for the jagged edges inherent to a scanned pencil drawing when filling color.

In which Dude learns to draw

I'm jeopardizing my integrity, risking turning myself into a liar. Dude may soon be able to draw.

I've completed 3 sessions of an 8 part intro drawing class. I don't expect to come out of it as Rembrandt, but I do hope that it'll give me the foundation to actually develop drawing as a skill. Perhaps I'll actually then be able to set out to draw something and successfully draw it, rather than randomly doodle until something kinda looks good.

Week 2 was all about "blind contours". Drawing while looking only at the subject, not at the paper, and never lifting the pencil. The result is, understandably, a mess. But it's not about the result, it's about training the eye and mind to outline shapes and connect that to hand movement. The one shown here was my best effort of the day. These were my initial attempts. I got lost in the details and ended up just going over the same spot on the paper. It'd be nice to be able to say that I started there and progressed until I was doing ones like the main image here, but no. It was pretty up and down for the whole class. Just gotta remind myself that it's not about the product (no matter how much "better" the instructor's example was).

These three were a good effort, I thought (even if the one in the middle looks like something from the old Disney cartoon Gargoyles).

Pieces of Beat

This is rubbish. Oh, there are individual bits I like, but I was trying to capture a moment and a feeling and it failed miserably. Even knowing what I was trying to recreate, I can't see it in here.

Whoopee.

Over done

I loved this at first, I'm less in love with it now that I'm revisiting it.

Pleased with the Untitled legs piece earlier, I've been considering doing a series of similar mixed-media pieces, exploring digital image manipulation combined with hand drawing. That first one started as a photo, became an abstract digital canvas, and was finished with a digitally altered scan of hand drawn sketches. Each piece had its own reason and purpose and came together to a nice whole.

The process here was entirely backwards and I think the results speak to that. This time I started with the hand drawn sketch, with which I am very pleased. I should have just left it at that, and when I get a chance I'll likely revisit it as a standalone image.

I like the digital additions in theory, but I realze now that I was too conscious of the overall end result, so rather than creating a piece of background that had its own artistic reason, I was trying to fit it into a false constraint of "a piece" and ended up with something...canned. I look at it and see graphic filters, not a complete image. Meh.

Vodie's

Today I invoke my right as blogger to deviate off-message at will. I've acquired a new toy in a fit of indulgence. I'm quickly learning how little I know about photography. Oh, I understand the principles involved, but knowing what knobs there are to turn isn't the same as knowing how to turn them. But I'm slowly getting the idea, and I will be forever in debt to the inventors of digital photography for the freedom to take many thousands of bad pictures without worry.

Today's entry is a test shot for an idea I'm cultivating. I don't particularly like this shot, as I drove away I saw a much more interesting angle I could have gotten it from. I'll have to return and take some more.

I see this sign every day on my drive home. I bemoan the loss of commercial sign individuality. Miles of fluorescent block letters and neon cursive against brown/beige/terracotta colored stucco is all I ever see. So I'm on a mission to find and document as many interesting signs around Orange County as I can. My initial focus is on old ones like this guy, but I'm open to including contemporary examples, though I may be too biased and jaded to consider any new ones interesting enough to include.

Next update will likely be back to drawing. I've got something to post, I just need a title.

p.s. Ugh, scaling this thing and saving it in a web-friendly size completely ruined the image. I clearly need to find a less lossy method of prepping a photo to post.

Unproducts

Nope, still not doing this regularly, am I. Which is ridiculous because I damn well am still drawing. I mean, I've got to do something during meetings.

This post's got a little bit of everything. Cartoon animals that have stuck in my head from "how to draw" books of my childhood, odd characters, geometric doodles, and even a study for what eventually went into the image from my last post. These are all in a spiral notebook (thus the odd dark black things next to my alien friend there...and yes, that is a fro pick. Don't ask) from work, done as I said in meetings as I try not to nod off. The angular doodle top middle had me giggling when I scanned it as it wasn't until after I scanned it and saw it blown up on the monitor that I registered the odd sideways gnome dude at the top. Heh.

Anyway, by way of preview of a future post, here is a bit of brain dropping. Despite its simplicity, t's got a lot of personal meaning that I'll get into eventually, and after a long...long time in the works I actually spewed out a completed piece based around it last night. That's two completed pieces in a rather short period, a subject also for a future post. See, two things hanging over me, maybe that'll prompt a return to regular updates.

Maybe.

Sloppy birthday

I was going to start this party off with a selection from a pad of random drawings that span some time between elementary school and Jr. High. Some of them I actually like, believe it or not. It does happen. But when I went to find it, I discovered that it apparently never got unpacked after we moved.

In searching, I uncovered a treasure trove. In 5th grade, a classmate's parent came in for several weeks to give some basic drawing lessons. Actually, in violation of several laws I'm sure, she photocopied lessons from a book (specifically, a book by Mark Kistler, whose PBS show I've since seen) and went through them with us. It was great fun.

But, as you might have guessed by now, I suck. Which I didn't really mind. The things we were drawing were simple enough that even bad results were still results. But even then I could tell I was bad. With step-by-step instructions in front of me, and all the drawing paper I could ever need...well, ladies and gentleman, what you see is my best most earnest attempt at a birthday cake (Click here or on the pic for full size suckitude).

Some might tell me to not be so hard on myself. I was, afterall, only 11. And hey, it's not even all that bad, it's got style and flare. As to the latter, that's not style and flare. That implies intent. I certainly did not intend for my cake to have been baked by a retarded monkey, nor could I hope to reproduce said style and flare if I tried. Which brings me back to the former point namely that I just drew this. Right now, in the middle of composing this post. And yes, I tried. I tried hard.

I even whipped out the actual Mark Kistler birthday cake lesson, and came up with this gem. Didn't even bother decorating that one! 18 years later and look at my progression! And sadly, these kinds of rudimentary 3-d things are my favorite thing to doodle. So it's not like I haven't had practice over those 18 years.

So there you have it. Thanks for visiting. This one sketch pad I found is good for a dozen more posts at least, that's before I even find my favorite one. And I promise, I'll post the stuff I like too, I don't intend this to be all about me beating myself up. I'm really over the fact that I can't draw worth crap, but it hasn't stopped me from trying!