Kittys Drawings

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!

I finally have a drawing for you. Which could be more polished but once again I left it too long and by the time I got round to working more on it, I was thoroughly over it. So patchy finish up in the end. It’s not too bad though. I used a photo reference for this instead of a painting reference like the last couple, making all the exaggerations on the figure mine

The purpose of doing all these pinups was to establish a solid working process and build up my confidence with Painter. Which means I need to do them quickly! I want to be able to do something like this in a few hours and be pleased with the result. Then work up to more complex pieces. I’m not sure if my methods will work. I fear having more than one drawing project on the go because I know one, if not more, will be abandoned and then I will never finish anything.
Any artists reading my blog – what do you do? Are you able to work on more than one thing at once and eventually finish everything?
It’s so hard to get over the “I hate it” stage for me. I always make roadblocks for myself – things to stop me from creating something “better”. I wonder if I’ll ever stop feeling like a fraud when it comes to my art. Hmm…It’s like I’m constantly waging war with myself and playing tricks on my own brain via a complicated system of activities which are deemed ‘worthy’ of spending time on and those that are not. And whether I should have any leisure time at all when instead of reading blogs I could(should) be drawing – and then, if what I am drawing is moving along satisfactorily or should I be putting more effort in. Waaa! Can get tiring sometimes – and then what happens, I bludge to put off the inevitable decision ….vicious cycle I tell you.
And that probably made little sense.

Anyways…On to the drawings.

(click to make larger)

WIPS and details:

Next time…I’ll be working on faces. I realise that I’m just not that great at them yet. My refs have been too low-res to really zoom in on the features and make out the specific tones needed. I mean, look at noses – there’s not much to them ‘cept a couple of well placed highlights and shadows. Get them wrong and it’s all off. Plus these eyes are lackluster – and the eyes will make a painting. Eerrrrm so much to learn!
SO – I’ve got tons of portrait refs to choose from in my LittleSnapper. I’ll use one of those.

AND….I’ve finished my first sewing project. If I can con the bf into taking some nice photos, then I’ll do a post. It’s a mint green cotton wrap skirt with big, dark green buttons. I finished it in a weekend – maybe 6 hours total. Even managed to make some nice bound buttonholes – I tell you what they are easier to do than regular buttonholes (using a zigzag stitch). They look really nice too. Yay!
I’ve got some fantastic fabric, buttons and a wonderful pattern all coming in the mail soon – That will be my next project.

Til soon!

Heeeeya!

ConceptArt buddy Ed lent me some time ago, a book on fashion illustration. It’s an absolutely MASSIVE book with heaps of wicked tips and a really good resource. I only had the chance to start going through it yesterday (slackie) but I can already see the benefit it can have on my drawing. It’s a very technical book going into detail about composition, colour, proportion etc and stressing the importance of practice, practice practice!

So these are the first few sketches I have done from it. Nothing groundbreaking – they are rough copies of sketches in the book but I really need to get that croquis down. I realise I am very very terrible at drawing the hips/pelvis. Always had iss-ues with it.

See…..iss-ues

And some clothes – another tough area. Folds and what-not. Yipes!

So there you have it. I’ll get back to it then!
Ciao!

Hi!

All done for this week’s CHOW. I can’t believe I managed to go out Saturday, bum around Sunday, do life drawing today and STILL get this done. Awesome. Oh and I don’t hate it so much either. Omg.

Okay so it’s not fantastic but it’s better than most (all?) my other CHOW entries so I gotta be makin’ some progress. Plus this week’s theme was mega mega awesome.
So onto the drawings…

If you can’t tell – I decided to go with a whacked out junkie as my Dorothy. Tehehehehee. WHY? Cos I can. And you gotta think that whoever came up with the whole OZ thing had to be on something. I know it’s not the original but have you SEEN Return to Oz?? Cray-zee. The first one was bad enough.
Some progress pics (Click it to make it big if you so wish)….

And how was life drawing I hear you ask?? FAB. Loved it!! Much better than what I was expecting. I shall show you my results tomorrow and talk about it in more detail.
Until then – BYE!

Hi!!
Small post today. Some sketches for this week’s CHOW – The theme is Wizard of Oz. AWESOME! Seriously!!

I’m doing a junkie Dorothy whacked out on smack, floating down the yellow brick road. Teehehe. I’ve already done the majority of the linework at home so these are just a few doodles done at work while I was waiting for a (massive) file to save. Obviously working on Toto too – I don’t like those fluffy Terrier things – Boxers are much cuter. So I did a mini one. Not a Pug either mind you! Plus some other random animals heh

Woof!
Awwww so cute. ;-P

Bya!
(blogging at work….shhhhhh!!)

Hi Everyone!
Hope you’ve all been having a fantastic easter and not gorging on TOO many eggs! Hahahaa kidding, eat away – I can’t deny anyone the right to eat chocolate.
Things in our household have been typically non-traditional. No easter eggs here. I think I’m over chocolate in chocolate form. Unless it’s Koko Black of course. Everything else is too sweet. I am becoming more partial to things like icecream and cakes oh yeh. Yum!

We went to see Clash of the Titans in 3D – which was good. Well….No worse than I was expecting. Which wasn’t much. It wasn’t groundbreaking cinema….but nice for the Sam Worthington factor teehee. I think Avatar kind of ruined 3D movies for me at this point. Set the bar too high. There wasn’t much added to Clash of the Titans by wearing 3D glasses – Alice was the same. It would be more worth it for movies that are made entirely in 3D like that How to Train Your Dragon which is out now – or which use the same technology which Avatar did. So until everyone is making movies like they did with Avatar, I wouldn’t bother paying extra for the 3D screen.
I do like booking online though – No waiting in line with the plebs at Melbourne Central hahahaa.

Been watching a few other films at home. Most notable was The Wrestler – quite depressing but very very well made. Perfect role for Mickey Rourke. Also another surprising one called Pandorum. No idea where I found it but it’s great. A sci-fi flick set on a spaceship heading to a new planet found to possibly contain life, where things go wrong of course – their hyper-sleep schedule is messed up and they wake to a ship overrun by weird creatures. That want to kill them of course. Great tension and quite a few plot twists and a fantastic ending. I was very pleasantly surprised – as much as I love reading sci-fi, the movies can often suck pretty hard.

Well onto the drawing….This is what has been taking up my time – in the same style as the last one….Kind of don’t like it as much. Meh. But it’s okay I suppose

Okay then well I better start thinking of what to draw next. And get some food. Hungry.
Seeyas!