Kittys Drawings

Hi Everyone!
A new drawing post so soon after the other one. Wow!! Haha.

I wanted this one to be really quick and easy. Took me maybe 6-8 hours all up.

The ref is Solange by Daniel Gurton for Vs. Magazine July 2011 < – I didn’t read the mag but the pics are kicking round the interwebz….Can’t resist cool hair and flowers. Of course it looks nothing like her as usual but that’s never really my aim

(WIPs)

Now I’ve set myself a new project which is a biggie. Starting it tomorrow I hope.

I got an email from my webhost the other day that I’ve used 80% of my bandwidth – this is the first time I’ve got that notice so I guess it means my blog is growing! I don’t get tons of hits – a bit over 100 page views a day sometimes spiking higher and most of the time it’s lower than that. But there are much more frequent spikes than there used to be a year ago so averaged out over the last year, there’s definitely been an increase. SO – if you’ve had trouble viewing my blog it might mean I’ve killed my bandwidth. I’ll be buying more shortly but that’s going to increase the cost of the site quite a bit. Not that I’ll be taking it out on YOU guys hahaha! Ad free blog allll the way

That’s all for now!!

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 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….

Omg drawings!!!
FINALLY.

So….I made the effort to take pictures of these cos we have a new life drawing teacher. I finished the first term and after a bit of drama with the previous teacher, one of the models and the gallery owner, they hired someone new for the next term.

Now there was no problem with our previous teacher but Monday’s session was particularly awesome. It felt a bit more “free” in that we didn’t have to be anatomically correct with our drawings and we didn’t have to finish the initial 3 minute poses.  I guess you could argue for and against both styles of teaching but I definitely felt I got further just in those two hours.

Here’s some of the first few 3 minute poses. It was all about the gesture and trying to get the feeling of the pose out as quick as possible.

In the middle of the session we did some contour drawing, where the aim is to not lift your pencil/charcoal off the page for the entire 10 minutes. Most of us FAILED the first time including me. I thought eh, one line I can do one line – but attempted to add tone with scribbles and it just wasn’t how you were supposed to do it. Doh!
Since I used graphite, the drawings are too shiny to take pics of properly and they’re kind of crap so you won’t be seeing those! Nyer! ;-P

Finally we did the last pose which was a really long one. Two sittings of 20 minutes. Plenty of time to refine your drawing or start afresh. I chose to refine – maybe a little too much as it takes out some of the energy of the pose but eh – I’m kinda proud of this one.
Hard to take a pic of this one without some crazy warping.

A better angle – Don’t mind Puss getting in on the action again!

Sooo – hopefully getting my drawing mojo back slowly….Seeya’s round!

Hiiiiiii!!
Lightning fast posting tonight….Just a few sketches I did on the weekend from “The Figure in Motion”. Retro 70′s nudes FTW lol!!

Excuse the really dodgy heads and clumsy shading.

Should bring some colour back into this little blog huh?
ConceptArt is up to its 200th CHOW which involves a month long contest with the theme “Monarch of CHOW”. We have to a depict a king or queen of a particular music genre. TOO MUCH FREEDOM. Soooo many ideas! I should start sketching soon. Need to think about this one a lot.

You know I haven’t even done anything digital for a few weeks now? Feels strange.
Life drawing last night was fantastic too – if a little messy. Silly me to wear a white top on the day we’re meant to colour in our entire page with BLACK charcoal. Messy messy. Will attempt to somehow capture my drawings with the camera. Dreading the thought.
Okie then seeyas!!

Hiiii!

Not too much to say today. Been busy this week so not much time to draw. Spending too much time reading. Reading my crazy geeky physics book titled The Fabric of the Cosmos by physicist Brian Greene. Yep, I’m that geeky. Well, not geeky enough to know all the equations, but I like reading about quantum uncertainty and superstrings (though I’m not up to that part yet). Hehehehe

Onto the drawings…Just some more fashion-y things. Nothing spectacular.

Not sure I’m making a lot of progress but I’ll keep at it huh. Life drawing starts again Monday so I’m looking forward to that. Apparently we get a male model this time. Teehee.
Bya!