Digital Illustration 2: Song Illustration

For our final assignment in Digital Illustration 2 we were supposed to illustrate a song.  Not just any song, but one that we can listen to over and over and over again without getting tired of it.  There were several songs that came to mind, but I finally decided on Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin.  I have been listening to and loving this beautiful song for as long as I can remember.  It was interesting trying to create an illustration for it.  I not only tried to incorporate some of the wonderful imagery found in the lyrics, but I also really tried to covey the feeling/mood of the song.

Thanks Dad for instilling in me a great love for this song and many others like it!

Advanced Figure Drawing: Week Twelve

Yay more figure drawing! The semester is drawing to a close (pun intended) which is sad, but I feel like I have improved/learned a lot from this class.  Also I am going to be taking it again (it is repeatable for credit) next semester!  So expect these posts to continue. :)  Here are this past week's gestures and sustained poses!

I'm not sure why this picture turned out so blurry...

...Here have a close-up to make up for it

Advanced Figure Drawing: Weeks Ten and Eleven

This last week was a really good one! I felt like my gestures were back on track (finally!) and I felt pretty good about the sustained poses as well.  I tried to be a little more anatomy/structure-based than I have been in the past and I think it was really helpful.

I love leg anatomy!

Advanced Figure Drawing: Week Nine

This week we worked mostly on head studies! Which I love! We ended up not having any models (they were all sick-- it's that time of year) one class period so we drew people in our class. Which I LOVE! I'm sure any of you who have been following this blog have noticed that I often draw people in my class secretly, so it's great when I get assigned to do it. :) Since I was modeling for the class part of the time on one day and it was a 2.5 hour sustained pose the next, there isn't a whole lot to show.  But I hope you enjoy the few pieces I do have! :)

 

Digital Illustration 2: Beauty and the Beast Illustration

Our first illustration for Digital Illustration 2 was due yesterday and I am pretty relieved that it's done. I did enjoy this assignment quite a bit... ...at the very end. haha The assignment was "Beauty and the Beast" which was a way for my teacher to give us a little direction (at least two contrasting figures) while still pretty much giving us free-reign.  It took me until halfway through the allotted time to work on this before I even came up with an idea that a) met the requirement b) wasn't dumb c) I was actually interested/exited about.  So I was crunched for time, but it was alright because I finally felt good about the assignment. Hooray!

I decided to portray the Salem Witch Trials.  I think the history of that time period is pretty fascinating and disturbing. You could say that the witch is the beast, or that the accuser himself is the beast, or you could say that fear/superstition and hate are the beast.  It's up to you.  I feel like I learned a lot about composition and color during this assignment and, even though I know there are things I could improve, overall I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out! :)

Advanced Figure Drawing: Weeks Seven and Eight

This post has the last two weeks of art (although it may not look like much because we pretty much only had really long sustained poses) because last week I didn't want to carry my art pad home and, consequently, didn't take any pictures of my drawings.  I broke my toe two weeks ago and walking was a bit hard so that's my excuse. :) Anyway, here are some drawings!

The hand I drew in the sustained, full-body pose would not turn out right so I tried drawing it separately and I felt much better about it (pesky hands!)

Gesture!!!

This was an interesting pose because of the lighting.  I think it was a good exercise to try drawing someone where there was so much left in darkness.

But the problem with a pose like the one above is that I got to a point where I didn't know what else to do rather quickly. So, as always, I drew a boy in class!

This is my self-portrait assignment for the midterm for this class.  Teachers seem to really like assigning self-portraits.  Which are frustrating. But also helpful because, after having done so many, I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of it.

Advanced Figure Drawing: Week Six

So in case you are super observant and were wondering-- there wasn't a "Week Five" post.  I missed class on Tuesday (go to class kids-- don't be like me) and on Thursday we went to a lecture by illustrator Nathan Fowkes (who is awesome) instead of drawing.  So... it's on to week six!

It was a pretty good week for drawing.  That "break-through" I mentioned a little while ago seems to have stuck!  I don't know if it shows but I can feel it. :)  Lots of sustained poses this time around! Enjoy!

I used a reverse technique for this where I covered the canvas first and then focused on erasing rather than shading.

This was a 2 1/2 hour pose. I normally struggle with these, but I actually made it all the way to the end this time without giving up and moving on to something else!

Digital Illustration 2: Master Copy Assignment

So the assignment we just finished for my Digital Illustration class was more of an exercise rather than anything creative.  We were supposed to find a digital piece of art online that we really liked and then do our best to recreate it exactly.  Let me tell you-- if I wasn't already super impressed by all the amazing art out there I certainly am now!  This was hard.  And of course I picked a piece that had lots of figures (I just can't stay away from that) and a crazy color scheme.  The lighting and coloring is beautiful but made for some super wacky skin tones.  It was a really helpful lesson in color for me so I'm really glad we did it.  Overall I'm pretty pleased with the result!

My Copy

Original by the fabulous Shelly Wan (see more of her work here: http://www.eidolonfinearts.com/shelly_wan )

Advanced Figure Drawing: Week Four

I feel like I learned a lot this week.  Brother Barrett came over and spent a good 20 minutes just helping me with one of my drawings and I think after that something clicked for me.  I don't know how long it will take for me to be able to really and consistently transfer this idea onto paper, but I think it's only going to get better from here! :)

I was having a gesture-angst week, so I only have a couple of the sustained pieces to show you.  Enjoy!

This is the Brother Barrett-helped piece (the model asked if she could take a picture of it afterwards! Even though it wasn't just me who did it, still-- what a compliment!)

Digital Illustration 2: Head Studies final

These are all three steps of our head study assignment for my Digital Illustration class.  The first is the edited black and white study (I needed more defined shadows and a narrower range of values for the other two steps to work well).  The second is a saturation study.  This was a bit difficult but very interesting.  We talked about how just by altering the saturation of one hue you can make it appear as though you are using both warm and cool colors.  We did four saturation studies (from left to right): warm light/cool shadows on a warm background; cool light/warm shadows on a cool background; warm light/cool shadows on a cool background; and cool light/warm shadows on a warm background.  Phew!  :)  And then the final part of the assignment was building upon one of the saturation studies (I chose the first one) and doing a full hue rendering.  Hooray for being happy with my coloring!