art critics April 23, 2008

My craft project for the day was making this abstract expressionist masterpiece to illustrate a feature about two art critics: Clash of the Titans.

The "drawing" is just two particularly sloppy tracings. I composited my two reference pics in Photoshop and printed them out on cheap copier paper, then used the poor woman’s lightbox (i.e., my office window) to trace the guys onto the back with a supersize Sharpie. On the first try, the guy on the right came out well but the one on the left was a bit too cubist, because it was a low-contrast photo and I had trouble following the contours. So I printed it out again, used a writing pen on the right side to trace the fainter outlines, and then repeated my tracing with the fat Sharpie from the wrong side. The second time, only the guy on the left was any good. So I mashed them together in Photoshop and then layered on the crap for the background. I’m heavily indebted to bittbox for these splatter brushes.

My office still reeks of Sharpie, four hours later.

love bites April 22, 2008

This was just a cartoon I draw at an all day drawing conference at the local university. They had a 15 foot long piece of construction paper up on the wall that you could draw anything on, and I decided to draw this cartoon on. I like the bright colors.

African American Girl in dress March 9, 2008

I go to a nude figure drawing class every week, but last week it was sort of cold in our room, so our model chose to wear a dress she had with her. And it was sort of nice, for a change, to be able to draw material.

Falling person February 28, 2008

There was a terrible snow storm last night and I was unable to attend my beloved figure drawing class and I really felt like creating something, so I ravaged the house and found one tiny canvas and started to paint. I haven’t painted much since summer. I really miss it. I also really had no idea what I was going to paint. I looked through some art magazines. And then amongst my MySpace art friends, trying to find an idea. I finally saw a falling man image and took it and made it my own.  Its definitely mine. Yup.

WASPs February 20, 2008

I made this to illustrate a story for work that I’d been hiding on the bottom of the “to do” pile for almost a year because I had no idea what image to use for it. Then yesterday the editor came in and said she’d swapped some stories around, and it was up next, so I had to come up with something, fast. I actually like how it came out, to my great surprise.

The original drawings were done with my handy Pitt Artist Pen—I mean, really, handy: I just grabbed the pen that was closest to the couch; had the nearest pen been a Uniball office pen, I’d have used that, instead. Then I scanned them and Photoshopped the hell out of them, as you can see.

african american woman 2 February 20, 2008

Just the face of a woman I found in this magazine I have that I thought was interesting. I really like drawing African American people because they’re so interesting to draw. Trying to draw every day again. We’ll see.

Display unit February 18, 2008

I’m sorry, India. I’ve been neglecting Drawmo.

Girl with Mardi Gras Mask February 8, 2008

I had hoped to keep going with the daily drawing thing, but I have slowed down. Bad artist, bad! But I do, of course, continue to attend my weekly figure drawing class. This week we had a Mardi Gras celebration, listening to blues music from  New Orleans, wearing beads and masks and drawing a model who actually wore a bird-like mask she made herself.

Blanket February 7, 2008

Part of a baby blanket I’m making for my brother’s forthcoming boy.

I started knitting this on Tuesday and then remembered that "Blanket" is the current theme for Illustration Friday, and I thought, "Hey! I should draw it!" Originally I imagined doing a super-macro drawing of just a couple of stitches, but I started too small, and grew crosseyed and bored very quickly, so I gave up and went for evocative abstraction.

Fluevog February 3, 2008

I work a block away from a Fluevog store, and I’ve been eyeing these pumps for months. Every time there’s a sale, I go in to check the price. This style never goes on sale. So today I finally bit the bullet, tried them on, and bought them.

The polka dots belong to a Douglas Coupland coffee table that’s at the office where I do some of my freelance work. The white on the left is my sketchbook, open on my knee.

I used a mix of pen and colored pencil, because I needed brown. My mini-pen set doesn’t contain any browns, as I’ve complained many times, but the pencil set at the office had two.