To the tune of “Journey to the Heavyside Layer” November 9, 2009

I never saw the musical Cats, and I don’t think my ex-boyfriend A. did, either, but whenever he wished to evoke the show (which—I can’t explain why one might do this, but, trust me, it came up more than once), he would sing, to the tune of what I have subsequently determined is the song “Journey to the Heavyside Layer” from the show, the following lyrics:

Cats, cats, cats, ca-a-ats,
Cats, cats, cats, ca-a-ats,
Ca-ats, cats cats,
Cats cats cats cats!
etc.

So, if you know the tune, you should sing it along while reviewing these sketches.

The Alamo Venus

I guess my mind has been scattered today. I thought I had already posted!

Nude #1 November 8, 2009

Alan poses for us

muscivora forficata – like

Probably doesn’t look anything like a muscivora forficata other than having a long tail and a white breast (sorta.)

The Arrival of Interdependence Day

November 8, 2009 is not only Day 8 of DrawMo (and NaNoWriMo), but for enthusiasts of David Foster Wallace’s novel Infinite Jest it’s also Interdependence Day. I found an interesting picture of sludge digesters on Deer Island that handle waste from Boston (where Infinite Jest is set) in the book Infrastructure by Brian Hayes. The barely done interloper and offspring behind the digesters in my sketch are there due to my reading The Arrival by Shaun Tan today and having my mind blow by how unbelievably amazing it was.

A great reference with amazing pictures from around the world.

Deer Island sludge digesters as seen in Infrastructure.

Digesters and some new arrivals.

The desk on Day 8.

Grab hands and hold on for Week 2 of DrawMo. We’re all in this together.

Sweater Plan

I bought this sweater/shawl/poncho thing from a friend’s pop-up clothing store recently. It’s vintage and awesome. Last night at a DIY facial birthday party (we learned to make facial scrubs and lotions,) a woman begged to let me let her borrow it so that she could use it to teach the elderly how to make one. They have a bunch of felt up in the home she works in and she thought that it would be a very simple thing that would look great on her group. Here is the plan. The colors of my particular sweater thing are a deep blue green with ivory edging. Thank you for coming.

Catching up … once again November 14, 2008

I’m not even going to prendend I did these sketches one day at a time. Hehe. Went to a really inspiring lecture yesterday about Magazine Design, and listen to Art Directors from Real Simple, GQ, Esquire, Wired and W talk, and while they talked I drew them.

This is Niels Bøje Ziegler from Denmark who put together the program of the day, and Eva Spring from Real Simple. 

 

And this is Anton Loukhnovets from Gentlemen’s Quarterly, who drank an enourmous amount of water (from a Vodka bottle) during his speach. I don’t know how he managed to get it all down. Must have been close to a liter in less than one hour. Impressive. (And so was his work.)

 

Here we have Scott Dadich from Wired. His speach was one of the best of the day I think. Made me want to go out and buy Wired. 

This is David Cucurito from Esquire. I admit I probably added a few pounds to his actual weight.

He was the most energetic speaker yesterday, and moved around a lot. 

 

And this is Nathalie Kirsheh from W. She was not moving at all.

Hear No Evil November 8, 2008

On Thursday, I left my sketchbook sitting on the scanner at work, so no drawing. Then Friday, I just didn’t get around to drawing. Today, though—sixteen sketches. Albeit small, sloppy ones.

I’m working with three classmates on a video project, and this week we had to draw storyboards for our piece. The guys wrote a script on Thursday, while I had a prior engagement. Today we split the script up into four chunks, and each of us drew the panels for one section. My first four panels are above; the rest are on Flickr: pages 2, 3, 4. The whole storyboard is in this PDF.

The gist of the story is that this guy (ML, aka Male Lead) discovers that his headphones allow him to hear other people’s thoughts—but only negative ones.

Next week, we’re somehow going to try to shoot this thing, in the subway.

Day 8. Another shoe, bored of shoes yet? I almost am but not quite. December 9, 2007

It’s a shoefly.

Drawing 9: Necklace November 15, 2007

Necklace

Originally uploaded by cynthiacloskey.
In this drawing, I worked at leaving the highlighted facets of the stones lighter and showing the various directions that shadows and reflections were coming in, from all the light sources in the room. I also played with blending pencils, and I’m pleased with the colors of the orange stones.

If you could see the drawing in person, the blues are really more green. The scanner blued them a bit.

About this drawing, my brother Anthony wrote, “That is an impressive drawing.” He’s careful with his compliments, and I’m especially flattered by his response.