Category Archives: art

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Red is getting to be a popular color for me. My whole life I always hated it, but now it’s everywhere around me.

Ha.

I know a lot of people start off drawing the shapes and then finesse that into images. For more complex images I do so as well, but I’ve drawing since I was about three years old. So certain things I tend to do from long held instincts.

The tape is something I started a few years ago. Believe it or not, I used to just use a ruler and paint to the edges! This is sooo much simpler.

I don’t really have a particular pattern to how I get started. Lately the subject is where I start but it could be anywhere. Maybe I should think about it more diligently? Meh.

Never start with your darkest color! I used to do that when I started learning to mix them and it was a horrible period for me. It gave me nowhere to go, artwise.

There’s no worry of bleed over; it’s a LOT of red, lol. As usual, I try to work from light to dark.

Thank goodness for gel pens! Adding details to the earrings help give you the sensation of having them in front of the hair. A brush pen for the black gives the hair some depth.

I gave the blindfold/scarf a darker red to start to create separation from everything else. When all of your colours are so similar a little light tan can have a big impact.

And that’s it! This image took me about two hours, give or take. I’m about due to create an inanimate object. What’s red that I can draw?…

Red

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If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you know that I often draw people that I see on my ride into work on the commuter train. The responses I get vary, but it usually works out for everyone. Usually.

The above picture is one that almost got me in trouble. A lady called the conductor and accused me of drawing her. I wasn’t. Worse, she didn’t ask me, she just assumed. I was drawing my friend, Rebekah. Ugh.

On to happier thoughts. I did this one for a Facebook group. Everyday they post a new photo for members to draw. You have until the next post to finish it. I check in when I’m bored or need to draw, but can’t come up with anything. So there’s the pencil work. Not bad…

Then I started to color in the easiest and obvious parts. I find that if I do this it brings all the other layers forward.

Throwing in that much poppy red was a little daunting. It was either going to make the image or make it a mess! I knew some of it would leach into the subject; but if you’re in a room THAT red, that would happen from saturation.

Skin tone is being determined by values. I had to be careful not to over shade or add too much detail on one side of her. She’s supposed to seem a little washed out.

The buckles on her boots were made easier by leaving a accent line in the black of the boot. Then a slightly darker red was added to give a sense of balance. After all, if there’s a bright light on her, why would her background be flat?

Someday prismacolor is going to make a subdued red and I won’t have to blend to get this look! *sigh* It was so bright in the image so I had to go there. I removed the tape(I’ve gotten much better at it) and there you have it.

Keep in mind, while they give you 24 hours to get this done, I try to work it in about 2, tops. It’s really fun and if you draw, give it a shot!

Evidence

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My life is still out of whack right now, but drawing as therapy isn’t working. I kinda shifted where I emotionally gather the energy to draw from. Doing so, means that I have brown outs, of sorts, and can’t just put on sad or dark music to get back in the flow. My playlists are useless!!

So when I was asked to do a caricature for someone I reluctantly agreed. I’ve never been very good at those; that weird cartoony look is definitely not the Marvel style of drawing comics. But I decided to give it a shot.

It came out really well and she immediately made it her profile and put it on her Instagram, Facebook… ALL of her accounts. She was actually happy to pay and now a bunch of her friends want one. I feel a little bit better.

I think I’ll play my 2017 playlist.

1991

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While my life is going through reset at least one unexpected thing came out of it. My son found a couple of pictures in the attic. They were old but in decent shape and brought back some fond memories. Why you ask?

I painted them during a war. A war that I took part in.

Both of these were painted during Desert Storm. They’re made of watercolor and the remnants of my canteen water. I was 20 years old and drew everything I saw.

But the rest were stolen in South Korea. These are the last remaining pieces of mine from that long ago.

Hope you like them!

Reset

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I spent all of last week working for free and moving out of my home. Fun fact; landlords won’t consider being furloughed as a job, so even though I sold my home, I’m currently living in a hotel.

Yay.

Drawing superheroes is a personal favourite of mine. Trying to imagine someone in a realistic way can be fun, because you can put your own slant on the character.

However, when drawing a cosplayer, you have to reign in this desire, to a certain degree. It may seem odd, but I still manage to add a little fantasy to the mix, much to the delight of the subject.

I’m still going for realism, but part of it is getting the personality right. That’s very important.

Someone who has taken the time to bring a character to life deserves a chance to see themselves immersed in the reality that they are representing. So I try to bring that to life for them. 😊

See you next year.

Star

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I’m officially homeless.

That is, I’ve sold my home of the last 20 years and currently don’t have another place to live.

There’s no joy in this. It’s me moving on with no enthusiasm and lots of regret. But you have to keep moving forward in life and I was haunting this place instead of living in it.

I still found time to draw. It helped me not worry so much. Helped me try to be a little more dispassionate to the situation.

Maybe it worked. Who knows?

In the meantime, I dreamed of racing this Mustang and what building it would be like.

It’s important to draw objects because you can easily start making objects that float in space, without any weight to them. Cars, robots, boxes; they all let you practically work on vanishing points and multiple horizons.

I was never a fan of kaleidoscope or ruler art. I hate all the erasing you have to do. But having objects on the same plane is a big deal. Also know your model, otherwise a concept like camber for wheels would make no sense.

Well, back to house hunting ☹️

Lackadaisical

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Last week my mom was flooded out of her home by a burst pipe. Having some experience with this kind of thing, I helped her with her home.

Anyway, I find myself with a weird dilemma. Nude pics.

Lots of nude pics.

Don’t get me wrong, ladies. As problems go, it’s an interesting one to have. But on the flip side, I have people who don’t want me to draw them because they think I only draw naked women!

As some of you have noticed, that’s not true. But because I draw a lot of fitness types, well…they are proud of the work and rightly so. Oh well. Guess I’ll have to get more creative.

Wouldn’t want to be considered a one trick pony.

SUPERlazy

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Oh no! Sorry guys, I have had a seriously weird week. I’m selling my house, working projects due before the week ended and ended up in the hospital.

So when I got home Sunday I was a bit dejected. So I binged an entire snooker tournament. That got my creative juices going and late last night I created this image.

Nothing like working to a deadline! See you next week.

The Eye

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You can always tell from the start when an image is going to work out. The drawing flows out of you, the pallet is complimentary and you aren’t in a dark place emotionally.

My life feels like some semblance of order is starting to take shape. It’s nice; chaos is stress and while you can grow under pressure, it can also wear you down.

So this project was a result of a peaceful place that I haven’t been in for over a year.

That sounds worse looking at the words. Crap.

So anyway… I changed certain aspects of my blending and colored in my cool spots to take away the warmth in those areas.

In the past I would colour match for the markers, but as they dried on the mixed media paper I would lose a lot of contrast. I solved this by going a step darker than I usually would.

For me, eyes are pretty easy, but you can definitely overthink them. I see people who try to add every colour they see, without asking themselves should they. Let’s be honest; if the image isn’t big enough for that level of detail, why add it?

I learned something new. In the past my blacks never felt deep enough. I would go over them but not get to where I wanted them. But thanks to #inktober, I found a technique for that!

I also have perfect tape lines! So happy!

My goal with this was to make her “pretty ugly”; that is take a beautiful person and show them in an unflattering light. She’s crying and her nose is red and slightly runny. I hope you guys like it!