The Weekend from Awesome (part 1)

As the story goes, I "met" Kendall about 5 months ago, via deviantART. We started chatting on AIM, and it turns out we had a lot in common. He's a graphic designer residing in Jackson, MS, which is relatively close to me (about a 3 hour drive). So, he proposes coming to visit me during Labor Day weekend, and I'm like, "Sure I met you on the internet and you could be a complete psycho, but, I'm up for an adventure, and I haven't been out of the house in a while. . . So, what the hey."

Much awesomeness ensued. You can check out Ken's point of view over at his blog, Steam.



I had my older sister tag along for back-up, and we met Ken at the hotel which he was staying, La Quinta Inn. When I first walked up, I saw him from the lobby window. He was wearing his aviator shades and I figured he saw me. I entered the Inn, and approached him, but he was still looking out the window. "Kendall?", I said, tentatively. It was then that he acknowledged my presence. He was napping, as it turns out. Real smooth, Ken.

Ken was starving, so we headed over to Panera Bread for some brunch. My sandwich wasn't good at all, and for almost seven bucks, that wasn't a good thing. I finally took the bread off it, and it tasted a whole lot better.



Having acquired sustenance for the trip ahead, we proceed to travel to what a location that I had previously referred to simply as "blahblablah", in order to surprise Ken, and keep him from Googling info about the place.





Half an hour of driving, and we arrive in the beautiful city of Fairhope, AL, situated on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay. It has a reputation as an artist's haven, and it's a nice place to go just to get away.

As you can see, Ken wasted no time acquainting himself with the local wildlife.







This is my favorite shot of Ken.




Being big kids at heart, my sister and I got on the kiddie seesaw, and Ken stood in the middle.






After leaving Fairhope, we drove back to Mobile and chilled at Barnes & Noble Starbucks Cafe for a bit. Ken brought me a copy of Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 1, one of his favorite comics.

We made a brief pit stop at the Ken's hotel, so he could retrieve his laptop. While waiting in the lobby I snapped this pic of the fake flowers they had on the table.





Then, I took Ken up to my school to show him around. We went to the Student Center, which has some really cool architecture for photo opps. We proceeded to slam evil, as I conquered this architectural indulgence of a structure in front of the newly constructed Student Services Center. From below, it looked to be hollow inside, but I climbed up on the pedestal and found it to be flat. So, I just had to stand on top of it. What purpose did it serve otherwise?



Next, we tackled Ground Zero Comics. This was Ken's first time in a comic shop since February. It'd probably been that long for me as well, and the stores location had recently moved, so I was curious to see what it looked like.



Ken introduced me to Onitsuka Tigers, the official shoes of cloud-walking. We both rocked them that day.




After the comics store, we headed over to Langan Park, and chilled in front of the Lake. Ken got was a feast for the mosquitos thanks to his Axe effect. Strangely, the little buggers left me alone.



To top off a wonderful evening, I got my first ever traffic ticket for not having proof of insurance in the car. The officer wasn't at all nice about it. . .the word "jerk" could come to mind, but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Next up, The Weekend from Awesome (part 2).

tbc.

*Ken will have his version of the events up tomorrow morning.

Drawing the Female Nude

Yesterday I went to an open figure drawing session for the first time. Every Thursday, they're hosted at my school: one model one pose, no instruction. Just a 3 hour drawing session. I was so excited to finally being able to attend after about a year of schedule conflicts.


I drew this after the first 20 minutes. It's been a while since I've done figure drawing, so it was a nice little warm up.

There were only two other artists in the room at the time, significantly less crowded than the formal figure drawing classes. So, I was able to move and get another view. They had also bought drawing table for the class, and installed an more extensive lighting system in the ceiling. All these modifications to the drawing studio came as a pleasant surprise, because we had a pretty ghetto set-up before.




I was faced with much difficulty on the onset. First, when I was setting up, I found that i had left all of my drawing pencils at home. All I had was a ball point pen and a few permanent markers that I had used to draw the mural for my mother's classroom. So I'm really happy with how the second drawing came out. It took me about an hour to complete, with the model taking breaks in between. Hopefully I'll be able to make these sessions every week.

Run

The above drawing is for this week's theme at Illustration Friday. I cranked this out in about 20 minutes while waiting for my little sister to finish volleyball practice, using a ballpoint pen. Some minimal editing was done in Photoshop.

I drew the first thing that came to mind, which, not surprisingly, had a romantic theme, because well, I like romantic stuff. The guy has some anatomy issues, but it's just a sketch. It's good to practice drawing action once more.

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School started back last week. I'm only taking one class this semester—Alternative Processes Photography—so hopefully I'll be able to get more fine art done. I also need to start the job search in preparation for life after graduation. We'll see how it goes.

Mural Progress

Yesterday I started the mural on my mother's classroom wall. I started out with a sketch of a girl in uniform that I had drawn a few days earlier.


I drew an outline in pencil, referencing the drawing, but changing her stance a bit.


Then I traced over the pencil outline using a black Sharpie marker.






I borrowed one of the students ID badges to get this detail.



I have at least two more figures to draw, maybe three, then I'll add color. I'm going to work on the mural again tomorrow. When done with all the line work, I'll paint it with acrylics. I have no experience at this, so hopefully it will turn out okay.

Final Semester

I've got class in less than an hour for the first day of my last course that I need to take to complete my degree, then it's graduation (for real, this time). Alternative Processes Photography. Sounds like lots of work, but photography always is. We get to work with dangerous chemicals that require the wearing of a ventilator.

I'm supposed to be taking day-in-the-life photos for a project at 4x6, but I haven't done anything eventful today besides wake up. I washed me hair, got dressed, styled my hair, washed some dishes, ate some mashed potatoes, but I have pics of none of this. None of it seemed interesting enough to photograph. Plus, I'm using my dad's digicam until mine is repaired. I got the repair estimate for it today. It'll be $107, which isn't bad, I suppose, since I plan to keep it for a while. Anyway, I guess I'll take some shots later this evening, when I'm on my way to class, and when I go to the art supply store later tonight. I need to get supplies for the mural I'm working on in my mother's classroom. I'll update later with pictures.

. . . and it's storming outside and the lights are flickering. . .

Pictured above is what my digital camera has looked like for the past 3 months. I dropped in the school parking lot, and didn't realize the screen was damaged until I turned it on to take a pic at a restaurant. I was in a group of people, so I couldn't freak out as much as I wanted. I'd only bough the camera 3 months before. The good thing was it was still under warranty. The bad thing is, the warranty doesn't cover "impact damage". Still I finally mailed it in to Canon to get it repaired, because I really like the camera, and plan on having it for a while.

Until it's fixed, I guess I'll have to rely on taking pictures the old-fashioned way. I've got a few rolls of film to kill. But if I get desperate I'll use my dad's digital camera.

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I did another portrait for the freebies I'm giving away at deviantART.



Andrea has some really nice stock in her account, and she happens to be a great artist in secret.

This drawing was done in pencil on acid-free card stock. I scanned the drawing it into Photoshop, and then I added the soft colors and tinted the lines to a reddish color. This will be available as a print soon. Check out the other prints I have available: dA prints.

Kendall

. . . Also known as gkaiou. Spent about an hour on this, referenced from a photograph. Dread locks are a nightmare to draw.



Check out his blog. He did a caricature of me first. ^_^

Yes, it is 3:30 AM Thursday, and I've been up since 7 AM, Wednesday. To bed I go.

All about the process

At deviantART there's a tag going on where an artist gives away 10 free pieces of art to the first 10 people who comment on their journal entry. The catch is, once you sign up for your freebie, you must post the tag in your journal as well, and do 10 free pieces of art for the first 10 people who comment on your journal entry.

For whatever reason, I signed up for a piece from clickypenpixie, so I now have 10 9 pieces of art (I drew one already) that I owe people. I actually signed up to encourage Andrea, because she's a really talented traditional artist, but her account is filled with mostly photographs. Frank (~Lefthanded) signed up, so I decided to draw something for him that I'd already been planning to draw, and in the process, challenge myself as an artist.

It starts with this drawing I did of Frank's characters, Symon and Rose.

Before I finished the final inking of this drawing, I was inspired to draw a follow-up piece, depicting what happened after this picture was taken of them. I thought it'd be good practice at drawing more dynamic figures, since pretty much everything I draw is characters standing around. So I sketched it out.



Hmm. . .There's so much that went wrong with this sketch, and only a few things right. One of the "right" things was Symon. Rose, on the other hand, I wasn't happy with at all. She's too big, her anatomy isn't right and I didn't know how to fix it in a subtle way, and the interaction between the both of them just isn't right. After much deliberation, I resigned myself to completely redrawing Rose, though I put a lot of effort into saving the initial version. I had drawn her whole body, but I cropped it to minimize how horrible the original looked.

Here's where the benefits of technology come in. So I wouldn't have to draw over the outline of the erased figure, I scanned the sketch into Photoshop, then erased Rose's figure, then turned Symon's pencils cyan, and printed them out on a sheet of acid-free card stock paper (much cheaper than Bristol).

I proceeded to redraw Rose referencing from a drawing that Frank had done a few years ago of the two sparring. I had never seen this drawing before, but it really helped to inspire me.



The redraw came out a lot better. The blue is the original with Symon, and the red is the redraw with Rose.



Finally, I inked it using Sakura Pigma Mircon pens.



After I finished inking, I realized there were a few inconsistencies in Rose's attire, but I like the second version better. I simplified her shoes. The detail was pain to draw the first time, and I think it was a bit distracting.

Hair did

Today I drove my mom up to the high school were she works. School is starting soon and she has to prepare her room, making a bulletin boards and stuff. I've volunteered to design a mural for one of the classroom walls. It's just supposed to be high school students in the appropriate uniform being studious. So, I need to do some sketches for that. I've never done a mural before, so I figure this will be good practice, since I have been asked if I possessed that skill for commission purposes.

Anyway, I ended up having to stay with my mom longer than expected, but after leaving, I decided to stop by my hair stylist's (Sonyia) shop to see if I could either make an appointment or be squeezed in as a walk-in. Fortunately, she was able to make time to do my hair, and it turned out to be one of the shortest salon stays I've had in a while. She said there's a bit more breakage in the front, which is most likely my fault for not tying a scarf around my hair at night and sleeping on cotton pillow cases, so I'm gonna try to be better about my hair care habits. But I like how she styled my hair:



After that, I went to a popular restaurant, where I acquired a healthy and balanced meal.

Music for free ninety-nine

I thought I'd share this wonderful offer. I logged into my facebook account, just to see if anything new was going on. I had two new messages from the Apple Students club.

It turns out that Facebook is running a promotional offer with iTunes, making free music samplers (containing 25 songs each) available every Monday in the month of August. You must be a member of the Facebook Apple Students group in order to receive a message that includes the code which can be redeemed on iTunes to get your free music for the day.

So, now I'm presented with the task of listening to all these songs of the Electronic genre, to see if they're any good. It's pretty cool so far. I also downloaded (yes, I paid for it) the new album from Corinne Bailey Rae. It's good stuff.

the caboose

This has definitely been one of my most artistically prolific months in a while.

Yesterday I finished the pencils and inks of my commission from Arson. I especially like the last panel. There's still text to be inserted, so it's not finished, but getting this far definitely lifts a weight.



Next, I did the inks on the Vyper fan art of Symon and Rose.


Finally, I finished my piece for the draw-off at Penciljack.


+Detail

To to do the rest of the week:
_register for classes this Fall.
_get my financial aid worked out. Because I'll be 24 this year, I've been declared an independent, even though my parents still support me. So, I have to fill out more paperwork proving that I am, ligitimately, a bum.
_make an appointment to get my hair done.
_start doing the text on Tril's commission.
_get my parents gifts for their 26th wedding anniversary, which is tomorrow.

sketch dump

Looking through one of my sketchbooks I came across a few drawings I never scanned. Unfortunately, I didn't date any of these after I drew them, but I know they were drawn within the last 2-3 years.

1. 2.
3. 4.

1. Part of a sequential I drew with my character Neera. Over summer, she works at her father's company, and it gets boring a lot of the time. So, she's playing Tetris when a dear friend pays her a surprise visit.
2. I modeled this after my little sister. It's basically a stylized portrait I guess. She doesn't really have slippers like that, though, or that shirt, for that matter. However, the body type is accurate.
3. I was trying to come up with a character to be my Artgyrl comic character's female confidante. I wanted her to be really feminine and stylish, and I named her Mae.
4. Some character styles of my character Tara, and one of Miranda.

Symon & Rose

I started this drawing a few weeks ago, but I didn't like where it was going, so I put it away. I had scanned the initial sketch though. Last night, looking through files, I came across the sketch, and decided it wasn't that bad after all. While chatting with Frank (they're his characters), I finished the drawing.*



I've drawn Rose many times before, but never Symon. For that reason, the drawing was definitely a challenge for me, as I wanted to portray him appropriately. Also, I need more experience drawing males. I think that may have been one of the reasons I considered scrapping the drawing in the first place. But I'm glad I finished. Plus, Frank seemed to like it.

For more info on these characters, check out Arson Entertainment.

*After posing for this pic, Symon and Rose got into a fight, because Rose totally knew he was making bunny ears behind her head. After several minutes of combat, Rose came out victorious. ^_^