IF: Freeze

New IF! This weeks topic was freeze so I decided to make an illustration based on Hans Christian Anderson's story The Snow Queen. This actually turned out better than I expected, but I want more water color practice, so I may make some more illustrations for this story in the future. 

"Artcation"

I went out of town to attend a couple of workshops last weekend, the first was a water color and gouache class being taught at Fort Mason in San Francisco by artist Erik Tiemens  http://www.watersketch.com/#home. It was really incredible to watch him paint, unfortunately my efforts don't measure up to his work just yet, but take a look at it anyway! : P

Modern art! (No, not really, these are pages of brush practices, to see how many variations of brush strokes we could create )

We started out with just playing with the materials first, just to see what gouache can do and the effect it had when mixed with the water color: 

We then made a mess thumbnails for inspiration while painting : 

And finally we made some "sketchy" practice paintings which were more like working out ideas for compositions rather than a complete painting: 

This one reminds me of a Fauvist painting (not what I was originally going for, but it's interesting)

 Strangely enough I like the simplest one the best ...

I then went down to Los Angeles for an animal drawing workshop taught by character designer/story artist David Colman (you can see his work here: http://davidcolman.blogspot.com/)

We started off by drawing skeletons of Ice age creatures at the La Brea Tar Pits: 

Bison skeleton

A mastodon skeleton if I remember correctly...?

Giant sloth skeleton

Camel skeleton

Some type of bird skeleton (They're all raptors! : P)

We then continued the class at the LA zoo, where we studied live animals (mainly giraffe's and eagles, as they were the most active during the time of day in which  we were visiting):

 Some corrections he helped me to see

 Really loose and sketchy eagles (Soooo many feathers!!!!Almost too many to draw!) 

And here is our final task, which was to draw a giraffe from memory, I still need to work on putting more 3D shapes into my figures, both human and animal. 

Both workshops were great! And make me want to keep drawing more than ever! More to come later! 

IF:Swamp

The theme for this weeks IF is swamp and I interpreted the topic pretty literally and decided to make an old shack in the middle of a swamp. I wish I could of spent more time on his because looking at it now some things appear a little "wonky" (for lack of a better word ), but for the most part, I am satisfied. :) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIKmSwJkNJs 00:54-1:56 was my inspiration :P )

IF: Shades

I actually started this before I knew what this weeks topic was, but I think it works because of the various shades of color used to make the reflections on the ground. I only realized after I scanned it that the umbrella looks a little too large but oh well, maybe it's a golf umbrella :P

IF: Fluid

The word fluid makes me think of water and motion, so I created a composition that combined those two ideas, and naturally I felt that watercolor would be the perfect medium for this weeks topic. I haven't painted anything in a while so I was getting a little frustrated, and at one point was going to throw it away! But after working with it for a while, I managed to pull through and make something that I'm happy with :) . Also Happy late year of the dragon!

Painting and Perspective

This is a first! Lately I have only been getting around to posting once a month, however this month I managed to get in two blog posts!!! Yay! But anyway Fall semester starts tomorrow, so that is going to disrupt my art life a little, (or at least how often I get around to a new post), but I am making it my goal to post as much as possible! There it has been said! And so it shall be done!!!

Anyway getting down to business now, this is what I have been up to lately!

Street in Japan

Here is some more perspective practice, I'm trying to get better at creating scenery and background images, because I'm in the process of making a Graphic Novel (Which is a fancy way of saying Comic Book, except a little more sophisticated, and artistic). I'll post more on that later.

Tea House Interior

This scene turned out a little better than I expected except I find that when I get frustrated I tend to "make up" the perspective, which is a bed habit of mine. I believe that the room is mapped out pretty accurately but the table legs and the screen on the wall kind of bother me...

UC Davis Arboretum

This was yet another attempt at watercolor, which I must say was easier the second time around now that I actually have the right paper to paint on (It made blending a whole lot easier!). I still haven't mastered it, as I find that this turned out a little flat (even though I wasn't really going for realism) and it turned out darker than I expected, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. 

Inari Shrine Foxes

This is another water color illustration that I was trying out just for fun. Personally I feel that this was more successful because i was able to create the kind of mood that I wanted with the lighting. Plus it has cute foxes! And who doesn't love cute foxes!!!???

IF: Cultivate

"Cultivating a Friendship"
I decided to make it my mission over spring break to try out some new mediums and techniques, so for this weeks submission I chose to play around with water color. This was challenging as I feel that I have only just become comfortable with using a pencil, and now I'm trying to learn how to deal with the unpredictability of a paint brush! However even though my first try turned out to be a messy experiment, I'm determined to master this new medium!
Also there is an exhibit at the Legion of Honor featuring the work of Arthur Szyk, which further inspired me to improve :)