The Hobbit and Some Really Old Work

I was grateful to be able to spend the holidays with my family in Michigan this year, and though it was a quick (and rather cold) trip - we made the most of our time together.

One thing we were all hoping to get to was a showing of The Hobbit. I had already seen the movie once, but I was anxious to see it with others that shared my excitement for the previous 3 films. The day after Christmas (in the midst of a terrific snow storm) we all piled in the car and made our way (slowly, but surely) to the movie theatre.

While in the seats awaiting the start of the movie my sister and I regaled each other with our fond memories of experiencing The Lord of the Rings trilogy together. We share a deep mutual affection for the books and movies, and it was exciting to be on the verge of another multi-year fantastical event.

I started to think about how much influence the books and films have had on my life, when I was gobsmacked by a rather hefty realization. I've always loved drawing, Ever since my squishy little toddler fingers could grasp a crayon, but it was reading/watching The Hobbit, The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings that finally gave me the direction to pursue art. It wasn't exactly subtle either.

After seeing The Fellowship of the Ring, I found myself enamored with the work of Alan Lee and John Howe and spent nearly every day of my first semester at college trying to recreate their work. You might ask at this point, "how does a college kid have that much time on her hands?" Well, I didn't. I drew so much, that my grades suffered. I was enrolled in the Biology program, but was spending so much time with my art - that my Bio homework was taking a serious backseat.

It was then, in the middle of painting my interpretation of the lands of the elves in the Silmarillion that I felt lightening. It was so obvious that it was silly. I had no business being a Biology major. I was failing to see that the one thing I loved and could actually see myself doing for the rest of my life, was right there.

So I switched schools and enrolled in Studio Art. Suddenly, my hours spent making things was actually encouraged and rewarded. It was awesome. I'll always have a fondess for the films, specifically for providing me with the kick in the butt I needed to discover my path (also for their awesomeness in general).

While I was up north and contemplating all this, I scrounged around for my old sketchbooks and actually managed to find my old Tolkien-inspired book from 2002-2003.

Here are a few sketches from that book, 10 years ago... (yikes, has it really been that long?)

And then here's a quick mini-sketch I did after seeing The Hobbit.

In other news, the Art Studies Showcase is this week! I'll be showing 3 new pieces and will be there for the entire event. If you are in the area, stop by and say hello!

Gray Wolf in ink -- Step by Step

I was out and about this afternoon and felt a *real* cold breeze. Being in Miami, one can experience the occasional "ocean breeze" which is a refreshing degree or two cooler than the current temperature, but a true 'cold breeze' is rather hard to find.

WELL I found one today :)

And as soon as it washed over me and encouraged me to bunch up my sweatshirt against my neck, my head was swimming with thoughts of cinnamon, cider, snow drifts and wet crunchy ice. So, as soon as I got in the door - I lit my 'winter' candle (from bath and body works!), put cider on the stove and started to draw out something from a colder climate.

It had been awhile since I've done a purely ink painting, so I got my trusty pen out and ready to go.

From there, I taped down my canson bristol board,lightly made a pencil sketch and went over it with my pen.

Adding the water!! I am using a #14 watercolor brush and not really paying a lot of attention to where I spread the inky water, just making sure I leave the highlights white. Here is a good place to put down some masking fluid - if I was ever good about keeping masking fluid. The goal on this pass is to complete the majority of the middle tones so everything is basically a light wash. I'll add the darker values next time.

I've started to darken a few areas, namely the mouth/nose and the area around the eyes.

Even darker! Here I am actively trying to shape the puddles of color to emphasize the volume in the skull and fur.

Woo finished.

I scanned it and did a test run of the print and it works out very well, I am very happy with this final product. Which, at the end of a run of several failed paintings is a very nice feeling.

Prints of the Gray Wolf are available on from my store!
Also, make sure to check back in a few days -- I am hoping to have some coupon codes for the upcoming weekend of shopping posted :)

Progress on 2013 Sketchbook Project

I signed up for this project last year and really enjoyed the process but wished that I had blocked off more time to complete it. This year, I've made a promise to start AND finish well before the deadline. I am really hoping I can keep this promise to myself... last year was a race to finish.

Thus far I think I am making fairly decent headway, *knocks on wood* so I'm just hoping I can keep it up!

Progress thus far on my 2013 Sketchbook Project; BIRDS!!! I've been exploring birds a lot as a subject matter recently and really wanted to continue working with this as a theme.

I've got the majority of the book planned out, in terms of what birds I want to sketch - I just need to make sure I block out the time to complete it.

Woo time management skills :)

Swan Sketch

Had a free moment today after dinner (soy cabbage rolls - yay) and decided to sketch out a swan.

I did this particular quick painting on ancient, really cheap watercolor paper, and it shows. Sadly, the whole page is super warped which doesn't lend itself to being scanned too well. I haven't had much luck flattening it with any of my normal methods, perhaps I'll try ironing it? Running over it in my car? (I joke, I joke)

In other news, I'm about to get my first canvas print created! I was approached by an awesome guy who would like my Gotye and Kimbra painting printed on a giant, 20 x 25 canvas. After many days of research I settled on a local printer to produce the piece and I am finalizing everything with them tomorrow. I can't wait to see the final product!
Pictures will definitely follow :)

Flight without turbulence = sketches!

It's been a long time since I have been on a 100% smooth flight. As someone who claws at the arm rests each time the plane dips, a smooth flight is one of my most favorite things in the whole world.

Thankfully, the 5 hour flight back from Google IO was just that. Smooth, totally uneventful and perfect for a bit of sketching.

Google IO was a great time as usual. I adore San Francisco so any chance to head out there for a few days I will take. The cool breeze, the neato people, the seafood... it's all terrific.

Now that we're back and settled, I've been looking into purchasing a scanner. If I'm not incredibly concerned about the quality of picture (for instance, when I am photographing sketches) I usually just use my camera. Or, *gasp!* my phone. But if I'm making prints, I'll take my work to a print shop on the beach for scanning. This is expensive/time consuming.
So now I'm wondering if I can find a similar quality in a standalone machine that I can just set up in my studio.
If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Now I'm off to the internet to research :)

More Mass Effect Sketches...

So I'm pretty entrenched in Mass Effect 3.

I'm not incredibly far along, (as a healthy fear of the ending has kept me from trying to finish the game) so I have not yet run into Legion in Mass Effect 3. ME 2 however he was one of my favorites - - second only to Mordin.

I started this pen sketch of Legion last week and found myself throughly boggled by Geth anatomy. Or, Geth construction I suppose. Thanks to internet and many references I think I was able to figure out the weaving tubes and wires.

I also started a small digital painting dedicated to my favorite Salarian.

This is just a snippet from the larger image, very much a work-in-progress. Its an illustrated version of how I imagine my Shepard would have finished the Tuchanka mission... and that's all I'll say for fear of spoilery-spoilers.

Looking ahead to next week, I've a few more prints ready for Etsy and I'm kind of itching to do some sort of spring promotion. I've accumulated a lot of prints and paintings over the last few months and my art space could totally do with some spring cleaning. I always post promotion codes to my facebook page so be sure to 'like' page to see them :)

Hope you have a fantastic Sunday!

Sea Turtle

Earlier in the week I received a fantastic suggestion via a facebook for a sea turtle, or "Honu" if you are in Hawaii.

This particular suggestion came at the absolute perfect time so I jumped on it right away. I had just finished a project and needed something new to work on, and am still playing Mass Effect 3 so I really, really wanted something happy to think about during the day. Also, I love sea turtles. In fact it was the thought of seeing a sea turtle that originally drew me to pursue a scuba diving license.

Alas... 10 dives later and still no turtles.

I made a few pencil drawings last night before switching to the wacom for this starting sketch. I decided I was happy enough with the arrangement this morning and started the coloring early this afternoon.

I'm planning to finish up the shell and background tonight, hopefully to have it completed by sometime tomorrow.

Sketch from drawing session

I've been pretty busy this week.

I'm right in the middle of a huge, 2-3 month long project for work and have about 3 or 4 other project deadlines all falling within the month of April.

I've made lists, calendars, and to-do's; pulling out every organizational trick in my book to try and keep me ontop of the jumble of projects. Some days I feel like its working, other days I feel like I am still so far behind. Needless to say, I haven't had a lot of time to just sit and draw recently. This is one of the many reasons I am so grateful for the life drawing session that I stumbled on down at the beach.

3 hours of uninterrupted drawing with a model, in a group of 8 - 10 other artists. This block of time gives me no other options -- just draw.

This is one of the sketches from last night.

Sketching with the Wacom Inkling

I finally remembered to take the Inkling to my figure drawing session this week.

When I first started using the Inkling I was a bit disappointed with the troublesome accuracy of the sensor, as many reviewers have noted. However, as I continued to use it I found situations where the inkling excelled.

I had originally tested it with simple one or two line drawings where accuracy is everything, and found a lot of issues in the placement of the inkling-recorded lines. As I grew more accustomed to the pen, I realized that singular lines aren't really how I sketch anyway. I use shaky, searching marks to quickly define a shape. In the latter mode - the inkling is a really neat tool.

I've been meaning to test it out at my figure drawing session for awhile now and finally remembered to bring it along last Wednesday. Towards the end of the 3 hour mark, I usually need to take a break from the full figure, so for this portrait sketch I decided to give the inkling a whirl.

This was the resulting image on paper using the inkling pen.

And this is the inkling-recorded image.

There are some trouble areas for sure, but overall I kind of like the messier inkling version. It feels a bit more chaotic and less planned. My favorite part of the inkling system (especially when applied to a figure drawing) is the video playback of your sketch. I know I am easily impressed, but watching the desktop program actually play your sketching process back to you, is pretty neat. I was able to watch myself make mistakes that I didn't notice during the actual session. Overall, very fun tool :)

Mass Effect 3 Sketches

So I played the demo for Mass Effect 3 a few days ago.
I've been trying to ignore the building excitement and just focus on my work... but its getting increasingly difficult.

So I sketched a few characters over my lunchbreak :)

Starting something new...

Few things are as terrifying and exciting as a blank page.

I love (and occasionally despise) the moment before the pencil makes it's first mark, when it's poised above the paper ready to bring some idea into existence and the ability to translate imagery in my head to imagery on paper is directly challenged.

Most of the time I stare for a bit, soaking up the feeling but trying not to let it overwhelm me. It's so easy for me to be intimidated by the blankness of the paper - and I have to make a rather concentrated effort to push past it.

So I scribble.

I scribble all over my paper with light wavy strokes and the fear of the white empty page just floats away. I usually then take the resulting scribbles and work whatever image I had planned into the strokes (less erasing).

This sketch started out as a wavy mess of lines, which then became hair, feathers and birds. I liked the initial drawing, so I scanned it - mirrored it and started to build up some color. Right now I'm in love with peaches, teals, and jades so I'm going to try to work with that as my limited palette.

It starting in a pretty different direction from what I usually work on, but I'm excited to try to something new :)

Watercolor practice + Cintiq Update!

I just started work on a mini-project from a lovely friend and her wonderful family to create a series of watercolor animal illustrations for her children's playroom.
It's been a few months since I've picked up my watercolor set, so I started off today with some practice animals.

I love redtail hawks. Growing up in Michigan, hawks and falcons were a constant source of inspiration for my drawings as I was able to see them in the wild fairly often. Though their habitat does extend into Florida, I haven't yet had the opportunity to see one here -- besides the falconers' tent at the Renaissance Festival!

Florida does have a lot of other awesome birds however - so no complaints there.

I think the final project will include a raptor,(deciding between a peregrine falcon and a redtailed hawk) a toad, a squirrel and a fox. I'm going for a slight Beatrix Potter-ish feel, but that may change as the project continues.

In other news --- my cintiq returned home this week. The wacom tech people did a speedy and flawless job repairing my old friend and it feels so good to have it on my desk again. The fix for the broken backlight was very affordable, so I went ahead and had them switch out the glass as well, as it had a few small scratches in it. Feels like a whole new machine and I couldn't be happier.
I want to go back to work on my WIP Skyrim illustration right away - but I've got a few other projects to finish up before I can get lost in that image once again. It is a source of serious motivation however :)

Found an old sketchbook

Today felt like a good day to do some cleaning.

I was reorganizing our shelves, trying to make room for a new load of books when I decided to flip through the pile of old sketchbooks at the bottom of the shelf. I generally fill or swap books every 4 - 6 months...so I've accumulated quite a collection.

I soon found myself losing track of time, buried under pages and pages of memories and ideas that I had totally forgotten about. Most were laughably horrendous, but there were a few decent concepts that I'll probably resume work on.

The book I flipped through today was from spring of 2007, when I was back at Michigan State living in the dorms. I was having a ton of trouble with my masculine figures and remember spending quite a lot of time on my own trying to get my drawn men to appear a bit more manly.

This sketch in particular made me realize how long its been since I've spent time in a life-drawing setting, and how I sincerely doubt I could reproduce that form now. It's probably well-past time for me to find a life drawing class!

So I'll try to post something old each Sunday for a bit here (we'll see how long it lasts!) and I encourage all my creative friends to dig back into their stock of old work. It's humbling, humorous and a good way to spend a few hours :)

Jon Snow sketch... in the snow

I finished season 1 of Game of Thrones and had some time to sketch a bit before heading off to bed. I'm about halfway through A Clash of Kings and I am so hoping Jon makes it out of the series alive!

On a sidenote, will the whole show be called Game of Thrones? Or will they change the title to match the subsequent books?

Inking my sketches from Europe

We got back from our 2 week trip around Europe on Tuesday. Now that I have adjusted back to eastern time again (and not just falling asleep at my desk) I am starting to play with the sketches I collected.
I found myself pretty well enraptured with the buildings in the areas we stayed in and spent a lot of time sitting outside pen in hand drawing cityscapes. (Or in most cases, villagescapes!) I loved the closeness of Bruges, the colors of Munich and of course, the canals in Amsterdam. Each city had so many beautiful squares, streets and hidden corners that it would have been impossible to draw everything that struck me. For this reason, I brought 2 cameras :)

I am starting to ink a few of the sketches I made in Munich (might as well go in chronological order) and am hoping to throw a few washes over each one. This one in particular was created at Marienplatz, a medieval square in the middle of the city.

Saturday night sketching

I started reading Game of Thrones a few weeks ago. It's a beautiful story, but thus far - so very depressing. The story has gotten inside my head pretty well, so when I was looking for reference poses I found myself drawn (pun totally intended) to more medieval costumes.

This was done in about an hour, with mechanical pencil in my sketchbook. A reference was used for pose, but I tweaked the face/body structure a good bit.

Dragon Age Awakening Sketch

I finally broke down and purchased the expansion for BioWare's epic, DragonAge: Origins this weekend. I was holding off purchasing the game, as I love the original so much and really don't want to "finish" the game. Ever.

However I had this weekend free and was aching for something to play. It was a long week, and it would be nice to mash some darkspawn into oblivion for a bit.

I opened a bottle of wine and set off to Vigils' Keep, excited to wander about Ferelden again.

I didn't get very far before I decided to take a quick sketch break, moved by Alistair's decision to stay at court at Denerim while I (the freaking Queen!) had to go keep the new breed of darkspawn at bay. I had an inkling he wouldn't play a huge part in this expansion- but I am still a tad disappointed that I won't get to hear his hilarious side discussions whilst beheading baddies.

I drew this quick sketch, trying to capture my rogue's reaction when she hears Alistair's soldiers making their way to the keep. I would have imagined her to be excited but as Commander and Queen, cannot really show that vulnerability to her forces.

Regardless of the characters present (and not-present) in the expansion, I look forward to playing more of Awakening -- the soundtrack alone will keep me coming back. (Tavern song when Oghren enters? Perfect!)