Kittys Drawings

Hi All!
Here is another portrait I did just this week. I thought I’d give the black and white thing a go. Interesting for sure but I think I still love colour more.

Fairly pleased with the result but once again I left it too long.  So the details are lacking in the flowers and stuff. I’m not sure if it’s important or not – should I fiddle with details when I’m really over the piece? Or should I still keep trying to knock things out fairly fast and the detail will come with practice? SO MANY QUESTIONS! Hah!

It’s Nancy Sinatra by the way. Inspiration found via someone else’s inspiration. Thanks go to Strawberry Koi (her blog is most gorgeous and she draws very well!).

I took some more WIPs of the very early stages. The first two are done within a few minutes. Then the rest takes increasingly longer as you tweak each bit. The nose was difficult again.

I think I’m getting the hang of hair a little better. Block in the major shapes like where it breaks from light to dark. Then go over it with lots of brush-strokes using a tiny brush.

Anyways….
The sewing is going swimmingly (heh I love that word!).  I’ve got a red button front pencil dress with a big collar on the go. I just need to buy some interfacing and wait for my buttonholer to arrive from Etsy (pics when I get it cos its KILLER) for all those squillion buttons. Well. 10 buttons. Still a lot. I can’t be bothered doing that many bound buttonholes.

Also – I’ve nearly finished a fantastic pencil skirt. Found a navy linen from the Salvos which was just the right size.  I shan’t babble too much about it yet as I’m only a zipper and a waistband away from finishing so I’ll do a post on it then. Can’t wait to wear it though!

I hope you all don’t mind my sewing rambles. It really is a new found passion which to be honest is really taking over from the drawing at the moment. But I seem to be managing both at a pace that is markedly better than where I was at with my “hobby time” last year.  So expect this to become a half and half blog now – half drawing half sewing!

The sewing thing really couldn’t have come at a better time. I’ve become increasingly disillusioned not only with modern fashion, but even vintage is becoming a more difficult search. I kind of blame Mad Men for bringing the 50′s and 60′s into the limelight again (even though I love the show to death!), thus making it trickier to find quality pieces from that era (without crazy costs).  It’s not like I can’t afford spending $150 on a dress but for that kind of money I could make more than three dresses and have the added satisfaction of creating something instead of just consuming. Not to mention I have full control of the quality of the finished product. Something that can’t be guaranteed when buying ready-to-wear – no matter how much you pay for it.
I am not sold on “luxury” brands.

Okay I’ll leave it for now. More fashion musings when I get that skirt finished.

Til then – seeya!

Hi

So like, Happy New Year and stuff. Hope you all had a good one! I spent it down at the Yarra River for the most of the evening chilling with friends and some cool new peeps. Then came back home before 11pm cos the Mr was knocking off work. We watched the fireworks from just around the corner while eating icecream. Then home to movies and beer. Heh. Not much of a big do but I never place high expectations on NYE – that way, its always guaranteed to be good. This plan has worked nicely for some years now

I had high hopes of wearing my new dress – that I made all by myself but alas, it was not to be – due to dodgy cheap zipper and me being a bit too generous sewing my French seams, thus reducing the waistline of my dress by a good inch…which made things a bit tight…so the zipper broke when I tried it on…
I went through the whole rigmarole of picking apart the bodice and letting out the seams. THEN fixing the stupid busted zipper. But of course, it was beyond repair…tried it on a couple more times and then it went up and then it didn’t and the teeth kept popping out of alignment. GRR.
So now – I just need to get a new zip and then it’s all ready to go.
I couldn’t babble on about this without actually showing you my handiwork…so here it is – not looking that good on a hanger…I blame the print. There’s those nice glass buttons I got from my Vogue KK on there too. And it does fit great now I let the seams out a fraction.
All for $20 worth of fabric and thread. They had a sale on at Lincraft….not the best quality but hey this is still a “test” dress – So I don’t fuck up my pretty Tanya Whelan cotton that’s still making it’s way from the States (hoping my postie isn’t being dodgy AGAIN and not leaving a parcel collection slip in my letterbox).

Also…before the Xmas holidays I managed to score a pack of 10 macarons by Duncan (via Syrup & Tang). I can’t remember all the flavours – I know the purple was a violet one. And there was an extreme passionfruit with poprocks in it. Killer
They were all awesome

Oh and I did some drawing. Heh.
Same chick, different pose. Better execution. Shitty dodgy flowers though *ahem*. Probably about 8 hours total. No WIPS because I did most of it in the first session of about 5 hours. I really should save more progress shots of the initial stages so you can see how I start. No lines. Seriously!

Well – I best be off. Only tomorrow left before I have to go back to work. Blah. Seeyas!

Hi!

I’ve been busy again. Drawing. And sewing. And baking. Took just a few days off work for the Xmas to NYE break…and I’m determined to spend my time being productive. Last year I got myself into a bit of a funk with drawing over the holidays. Not this time! I’ve got a heap of school work to do too.

So here’s the first of my portrait studies. Aiming to get better at drawing faces. This took me about 8 hours in three sessions. Looking at some painting vids online, it looks like I need to streamline my process a bit. Find a more economical way of laying down colour instead of the “blob and blend” method I’m using now.
Then again, I’m pretty happy with the results.

What do you think?

And my two WIP pics – the first one is pretty out there – she looks all alien. I had to leave it for a day and when I came back I could see all that was wrong with it – then it was just a matter of tidying up all those wonky angles to get rid of that underbite! Ha.

Hair is still a tricky one. I should experiment with some different brushes or something. I’m currently using two variations of a pastel brush – one is tapered and the other round extra-soft, with the tapered one used for hair.

Anyways – I’m off to go eat some cheesecake (dark choc & morello cherry) – hope it’s set already. Mmm

Bye!
Oh and Happy Xmas for those that get into that sorta thing

‘Sup!
Wow look I’m finished!

Once again I got a bit sick of it all towards the end. Really need to get better at drawing faces – however starting with the head is always hard. I find that proportions work easier if I draw the figure first and add the head later….but that means that I’ll leave the face til last and by then I’m usually well over the drawing.
Next time I’ll attempt to block in the majority of the figure first….do the face and THEN finish the rest of the drawing. Hope that works out better. Always something new learnt from doing one of these.

Some work in progress.

So yeh – not entirely happy with the face. Hmm. Thoughts?

Seeyas!

Hi Everyone!
This week I had all intentions of fixing up the drawing in the previous post. I also did a bunch of quick fashion sketches that I had plans on colouring.

But then I became aware of ConceptArt’s latest CHOW topic. Fantasy Pinup. Umm – could that have been any more perfect?? So of course I jumped on it. Actually fairly pleased with this one – It could have done with a bit more detail but overall, I think my CHOW entries have improved significantly
This took me about 6 hours – maybe more? I used a ref for the pose. By Sunday, I was hungover from the night before so I was glad I’d pretty much finished it on Saturday.

Work in progress. Look – no lines!

So this week, I will finish the drawings I had planned on.
Also – I might head back to life drawing next Monday.

Ciao!

Hi!

Woo! I think I’m getting the hang of Corel Painter for real this time. Just took a few digs around on the web for a tutorial (there aren’t many good ones out there) and some tweaking of my brush settings. Much better.

Another copy of a pinup from way back – George Petty this time. Of course it doesn’t look a lot like his work as he has much cleaner lines and lighter colours. Still had to do it how I like it huh. This took about 3 hours again.
Eyes are a bit of a problem…I’m not drawing these with too high a resolution as I think I would get lost in the finicky detail if I did that and right now it’s more about quantity than quality. The more I slave away at something the more I hate it. And then I get all stuck on the face…Raarr!!
Anyway – A little of the process…Usually I start with a fairly low res file – say 700px across by 1000px high – which is enough to get most of the drawing done. Then I take it into Photoshop (cos Painter I find is pretty terrible for up-scaling) and pretty much double the size which in this case, gave me just enough room for a sort of recognisable face. You don’t want to go over what you’ve done in the low res file too much as I reckon that makes things too smooth, where focus should only be on the parts that matter – face etc.

I’m probably not making much sense. Or I’ve already explained this before. Do I blabber on about too much technical jargon?? If you have any questions about how I do things then please ask

Onto the drawings then….

And some (sort of) detail:

No reference photos to compare with this time You can dig them up on Google yourself if you’re so inclined. Good luck!
Hmm – the more I look at it the more faults I pick…

What’s next….

Hi All,

The last life drawing class for quite some time – busy in the coming weeks and who knows when I’ll get to go next. We were learning about light this time so some of these were drawn in the dark!

This weekend was spent cleaning in preparation for my parents coming to visit soon. I scored some free tickets to the Taste of Melbourne and we’re going to go see the European Masters exhibtion at the NGV – It’s going to be a big weekend! In the meantime, the cleanup meant we rearranged our office area. Its always good when my desk gets a tidy as I feel that much more motivated to draw stuff  We put up some art we’ve had for a while but never displayed and my bf is in the process of getting some frames for a couple of his photo prints. I think I’ll print up some of my own drawings and get those framed too – believe it or not, I only have one of my paintings on display in our home!

And now that life drawing is finished for the time being, I’ve been pushing myself to get started on the digital again. I do have something in the works which is just a practice but I’m liking it. No previews until it’s finished as I have a terrible habit of never finishing those drawings that I show previews of.

Other exciting news -  I shall be taking part in a Melbourne Spring Fashion Week event as an assistant to a well known blogger. I won’t spill the secret just yet as I haven’t even had a fitting yet (!!) so I don’t want to babble too much. All I’ll say now is that it ties in very nicely to my insatiable obsession with vintage threads….

So in the next few weeks you’ll probably get some different posts that aren’t ALL about drawing. Til then, seeya!