Digital Illustration: Self Portrait

I am taking Digital Illustration 1 during Spring term right now and so far I love it a lot! I thought I would. :) I have taken the basic Photoshop and Illustrator 2-day class through the library but besides that (and a brief introduction to Photoshop by from my friend when I got it) I'm pretty much self-taught. So having an official class is really great and I am excited to be able to improve my digital art skills!

The first assignment is supposed to be done entirely in Illustrator. Illustrator is much more difficult for me so far and I'm struggling a little bit with it. We are supposed to do a self-portrait that not only shows our physical characteristics, but shows something about us as well. I decided to represent that I always have songs in my head-- my mind is pretty much a jukebox. There are definitely pros and cons to that. haha So music is a big part of me-- because of that and just because I love it!

So here is what I have so far. I will turn this in on Tuesday, get feedback from my teacher, and have the final done on Thursday. (Spring term is so quick!) I will post what the final ends up looking like, but I am quite happy about this so far!

Figure Drawing: Final Week

Well, Intermediate Figure Drawing has officially ended. We wrapped up the class by continuing with costume/drapery and then we turned in our portfolio (best pieces from various categories from the semester) and our final project.

The project required us to find a nude (or mostly nude) master work figure painting/drawing/ sculpture. I chose a piece by Bouguereau (he has some lovely figure paintings!). We then had to duplicate it (I chose to do it in charcoal) and then do a vellum overlay of the underlying bone structure, and then an overlay of the muscles. It was quite difficult and it stressed me out! (note to future artists: don't put things like this off until the last minute) But it was a very interesting project and I found it to be a very good incorporation of all the anatomy lessons we've had over the course of the semester. It was pretty helpful to think about what is going on underneath the skin. And it helped me find lots of things that were wrong with my drawing proportionally. haha

Well, it's been a great class and I feel like I have improved quite a bit. :) Three cheers for art!

(I realized you can't see the face very well in the full picture so I added this semi-close up)

Also, while I was supposed to be studying for finals, I colored a sketch I did a while ago of Liesel and Rudy from one of my favorite books of all time: The Book Thief. I highly recommend it! :)

Some Old Photoshop Pictures

Here are two images that I realized I didn't upload on this blog. So I thought, better late than never, right? :)

The first is a picture I did of my family as members of a Blues Band. The idea came to me after finding this rather enjoyable site: http://www.outliermusic.com/jokes_bluesname.htm

The second picture is my interpretation of the Sphinx. We were in the middle of reading Oedipus the King in my Mythology class when I decided to try my hand at this awesome mythical creature.

Figure Drawing: Week Twelve

This week was all about costume! As usual, we had some gesture-time at the beginning of class and I actually had quite a few gestures that I liked. We then we had two really long poses focusing on costume. It was hard! Hopefully next week (the last day of class!) I can churn out some drawings that I think are really successful so I can end this semester on a high note! :)

We had one sustained pose for the whole class period (so like 2-2.5 hours). Those are always crazy! After about an hour or so I've completely run out of things to do with my drawing. Oh well-- it's a good learning tool I guess.

The last picture is blurry (sorry about that) so I included the closer-up version that came out more clearly.

This was the other really long sustained pose we did. This one was particularly difficult because the dress that the model was wearing was very heavy and didn't really have any distinct folds to draw. So it ended up looking pretty flat. I wasn't too happy with it so I decided to experiment with different mediums and styles for the rest of the pose.

I decided to move away from the realism I was attempting with the last one and decided to go for a more stylized approach with this quick charcoal version.

I reverted to graphite for this one. Graphite is just such a good, old friend.

This one was done in Conte (my preference for gestures and such) in the last two minutes before class got out.

Figure Drawing: Week Eleven

This week we worked on drapery. Drapery is quite fun and pretty difficult. SO MANY FOLDS!!! We did a couple drawings where we drew the model in the pose without drapery and then in the same pose with it. Those were pretty cool since we were able to see exactly how the form underneath affects the cloth. Anyway, here they are! :)

(perhaps you could tell that I was having a really weirdly bad day with heads/faces... haha)

In the last 2 minutes of class I whipped up this quick pencil gesture because I had spent the whole class period being really precise and tight with all the folds and I wanted to do something loose. And as usual, I liked it just about as much as the one I spent forever on. Haha

And... this is a boy in my class. I just love caricaturing my classmates! :D

Sketchbook: Hands and Feet

So here are a few of the hand and feet drawings that I did in my sketchbook (that I forgot to upload with the rest of those drawings)!