Kittys Drawings

Hello All!!
This week’s work is finished and also I have my homework from the faces class. This is the profile view and Angie’s tips helped again, breaking the face down into easy proportions and points of reference.

This week we did hands – another tricky subject, one where practice counts above all! And “fashion” hands are not normal hands – noooo – they have to be stretched and thinned, stretched and thinned, until they’re pretty much alien looking. Because the longer you look at hands, the weirder they become. It’s true – its like the visual equivalent of saying a word so many times it stops sounding like a word at all.

Some practice ones to warm up – and a close up of the just the hands (super hard!).

Then a full figure…

I liked this exercise – how cool is the model’s pose? No one stands like THAT in real life!

Anyways, onto other things…
This week has been busy – I’ve not had a chance to sew since the weekend and probably won’t get a chance to again til Friday evening. I am seriously considering taking a week off work to just do HEAPS of sewing and drawing. A “working” holiday of sorts.
Till soon…

Hi Everyone!
I’m a bit late on updating this little here blog. Not to say I’ve been procrastinating either – there’s always lots happening at Chez Kitty!

This is the first drawing I’ve finished in a while. I’d left it too long again and couldn’t be bothered tidying it up. When I opened it today to see what needed fixing, it didn’t look like there was that much to do. So it’s not so bad…I guess. I hope I’ve done the subject justice. Probably not. Errrm. Sorry! It’s kinda crap actually. Waaaa! *sob*
NEED TO DRAW MORE.

It’s this uber-cute lass here – Elinkan – I love her photos and her style – as well as how often she changes her hair colour! Way cool

(detail)

(WIPs)

Other news: We’re gearing up for Fiji. I’ve done all the sewing I need to do but if I’ve got some time next week I might be able to make a top or two to go with my Tara Starlet sailor shorts. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a sewing post up on the weekend. I’m really far behind and this lack of light is really frustrating! The only thing I don’t like about winter (Yes, I love the cold so shoot me). The emerald green wool crepe 40′s dress (phew!) is finished. It was very time consuming but I’ve very happy with the result. I’ll blabber more about that when I post about it.

There’s also a completed 70′s dress which came together surprisingly fast. And I have a whole jumble of things I want to make next – including, but not limited to, a slinky, draped 40′s dress, a ROBE (that word needs caps haha), an apron, and a sheath dress for work.

More stuff, I’ve been baking like a madwoman. Why? Cos I can. I love making cakes. They’re usually not very elaborate but sure taste good (if I do say so myself).

My Vivienne Westwood for Melissa mary-janes finally packed it in, so there was much hunting for a new pair of black shoes. Buying shoes here in Australia was not much of an option – I don’t seem to fit any of the ‘normal’ brands like Tony Bianco and Wittner very well, even though I have narrow feet. They’re so BORING as well. Hideously hideously boring. So online I went and have purchased my third pair of Irregular Choice shoes. I will show you the beauties when they arrive. Fingers are crossed they are as comfy as they look. They meet my stringent criteria: thick heel with slight taper (not too boxy or too narrow),  almond/round toes, between 4cm and 7cm high and most importantly -  quirky.
So I’m fussy about shoes…shuddup!

I should stop yabbering on…Time to get back to my commission. Making significant progress on that! If my client lets me I will post that next week too as it will be finished this weekend.

Till soon,

‘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!

Just a quick post today to tell you all I’ll be away for the rest of this week.

It’s the boyfriend’s big Three Oh and we’re headin out West in a camper. Who knows where we’ll end up – I’m leavin the drivin’ and the decisions to him and enjoying the ride. He also instructed me to ditch the vintage in favour of cargo pants and tshirts…Ah well, who can say no to the birthday boy? It will be more practical anyway so I’m actually looking forward to not having to put on makeup every day and stressing too much about which dress to wear. There’s a certain freedom in such restrictions eh

A quirky feature of the trip is we have a list of challenges to complete. We haven’t finalised them as yet but all our good friends helped with suggestions via Facebook (thanks guys!!). I’ll do a post of everything when we get back, and best to show the intended list and completed list after the fact, no? In truth, I’m too lazy to write it all out now heheh.

So no drawings til then I’m afraid!! I should take the sketchbook huh? Or maybe the camera will be enough. Let’s see if the break releases some new creative thoughts.

And cos I always want to leave you with something – here’s the bf himself helping out with the reflector (on a cloudy day!) – this was the other week where I dressed up in my friend Sal’s Mum’s wedding dress and they all took photos of me. Yay (such a narcissist)! Thanks to Dave for the photo (hope you don’t mind me using it!!). Dumb faces all round

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….

Yaaay finally some work!
Okay so it’s utterly shit.
But that wasn’t my intention to create something great. Trying to pick up the Corel Painter skillz again…trying some new things. I drew this without any initial sketch – something I realised I should be doing after finding it so liberating dropping the linework at life drawing. I was getting all stressed about getting the perfect line all this time, and yet I feel more comfortable pushing blocks of colour around.
The only problem now (there’s always a problem), is that Corel Painter doesn’t behave the way I want it to. Or more so, I haven’t figured out how to make it behave the way I want it to. Hrrmph. *whinge whinge whinge*

ANYWAY….so I started off happy with this…and then when I got to the face it all went bad. And I pottered around….and then I thought “F*** it, just FINISH IT”….the more I do the better I will get huh.
Took about 3 hours all up….copying directly from a Gil Elvgren painting.

And I’m a bit obsessed with pinups right now – I like the skin tones and the shapely legs. Legs are fun to draw/paint. I can hear my ConceptArt readers (think I still have a few of those?) screaming “But the anatomy!!!!”. Hehee – I won’t argue against that – have you seen how small the feets are in these paintings? But oh well….it’s practice.

So here’s the drawing…

Also – not something I usually do, I’ve added some inspiration pics…and the original. So you can see just how much I failed

Til next time…

Sorry for the lack of arty posting lately. Been feeling in a bit of a slump. Still sketching daily but kinda not feelin it. However, I’ve got two client projects on the go which aren’t problematic at all which is excellent.
I think I have worked myself into a “MUST BUY NEW COMPUTER” mode and so trying to do anything on my clunky old laptop is getting me frustrated. I am entirely sure it’s just an excuse as I am known to do that. What for I know, it’s not like it’s benefiting me in any way to be always making excuses! TERRIBLE. But identifying the problem is only halfway (only a quarter even) there.
Soooo, even just writing this out is motivating me to get off my butt and back into it. Browsing the talent on ConceptArt always helps too.

But since I have nothing worth scanning at the moment, I shall show you some purchases instead. It was payday not long ago and of course I have a massive list of favourites on Etsy which I’m always itching to lay my hands on.
These are the items winging their way over to me from the US.

A stunning 50′s/60′s wool suit. Cos I don’t have a suit yet and this is so pretty and looks like a fabulous cut.

A navy vintage hat. I don’t wear hats generally and this is a good price and versatile colour so that I don’t feel too bad if it doesn’t look good on me. There are SO many beautiful hats on Etsy!

And finally, another dress….cos a girl can never have enough dresses. The colours are cute and summery and looks flattering. Thankfully I’ve gotten quite good at being able to judge what will fit me well without needing to try something on. There hasn’t been one online purchase I’ve made that doesn’t fit me.

I can’t wait til they all arrive! Cue postie stalking….NOW!

Ciao!