Kittys Drawings

Hi Again

Woo some new art!
And a guy this time. Wooowee. Haha. I found the ref for this via Flickr … HERE …thought the colours were awesome and Nathan takes really cool photos. I did this one fairly quickly……maybe four hours or so? Trying to imply detail instead of spending hours on fiddly stuff. In the hope that if I do a little bit more each time, I’ll somehow end up with more polished pieces further down the track. And learn how to get the essentials down without tweaking them and possibly ruining them. Like NOSES! Oh gee – this one was hard too – why is it so hard?

Also adding texture to skin is tricky. I’m sure there’s fancy Photoshop brushes I can use, but then I don’t like working in Photoshop for the actual painting part. Maybe I’ll experiment next time.
Overall though I’m quite pleased with this. The colours turned out good – and I love the light in the photo I referenced.

I think I need to start working bigger. This is only a fraction smaller than full size and it would print out at only 7cm across.

These are the WIPs. Not much difference between the last two  – just some smoothing of skin.

I need to start finding more good inspiration for my LittleSnapper folder….I’m running low on pretty pictures to reference.

Sewing news: Yes I will get photos of the latest dress soon. I know everyone wants to see!
All my patterns that I’ve been waiting on bar one have arrived as well as some awesome purple floral fabric. So I’m all set to start some new projects. I will exercise patience and make sure I do everything neatly.

• My sewing machine runs smooth enough to control so I can’t blame it for going too fast now
• I also have some neat new scissors which will help me cut out fabric tidily and not all ragged like the dodgy ones I have been using until now.
• I have a large quantity of soft flexible film to do all my tracing.
• My buttonholer has arrived and while it was missing a part, a replacement is already on it’s way to me.
• There is some sew-in interfacing on order which I’ll need for my half finished red dress project

SO – next step…trace the blouse pattern that came with the skirt I made last and make the blouse. Then, when my buttonholer (hehe such a funny word) part has arrived I can finish the red dress. After that I can start on a full skirt dress pattern. I’ll be making it out of the stripey cotton from my Insta-stash.

Another thing that needs doing is clearing out my closet. Eep! Ever since I’ve figured out exactly how I want to dress, I’ve got a whole heap of clothes from my “pre-vintage” life that need to go. So someday I’ll have to sit down and dig it all out and determine what goes on Ebay and what goes to the Salvos. I think I need a dress form before then to display my sales on Ebay nicely. Hmm

Well – enough rambling. Sorry if it’s all MUCH too boring, it’s as much for my own clarity as for everyone else heh.

Oh and HI to all my new followers!! I’m almost at 40 now which is awesome. If I get to 50 I should do a giveaway of some sort don’t you think? What would you be most interested in? A piece of my work or more sewing related goodies? Both? Ideas please!

Okay then seeyas!

Hiii!

More life drawing for everyone Colour this time! I had heaps of fun with this lesson and it was good to dig out the pastels – haven’t used them since my uni days! Did LOTS of drawings – the majority of them dreadful – but I have to put the really shit ones up so the half decent ones look a bit better ehehehee.

The quality of photos is absolutely terrible and I apologise in advance – I can’t nuke the levels out of them like I would with a B&W. They look a bit more vibrant in real life – winter sun and all that, crappy camera – hard to take a good pic. But enough of the EXCUSES, time for drawings

The worst first – 1 min and 2 min warm ups:

Contours – the first was meant to be 7 mins one colour and 7 mins the next but I finished early (always going too fast!) and did the next one quickly. Then 10 mins doing a drawing based on shading and using 3 colours. My third was the background colour heh.

Then the final pose – two lots of 20mins. I did the first sketch and realised it was way too big for the page so I scrapped it and started again. Really pleased with the end result – using blue really grounded the whole thing I think. Shame the pics are so craaaaaaaap argh sorry!!

Some close ups

K, that’s enough nekkid man-bum for a day Until next time!

Howdy!

Some life drawing for this week. New model – new techniques. Getting better at getting form out quicker but don’t think I did so well on the last pose this time.

This week we were learning about scale and space…how the size of your drawing on the page affects how the viewer reacts to it. We did an initial drawing of the figure, then “zoomed in” on a particular area. This area we drew small first, and then on the final 10 minute drawing, it was to be as big as we could fit on the page.

Small:

Then as big as we could do it. It doesn’t quite have the same impact on a screen

Then, the final pose…which is meh…We did this in two 20min blocks…but then model changed angle ever so slightly the second time round and I just couldn’t resolve the difference. Not the model’s fault either, it was his first time and he did a good job.

That’s all for this week folks!

Hi All

Slackie blogger is back. Been a bit of a hectic week here at home and also we’ve been SHAPED. How can that be when we’ve got a 70/70GB download limit??? Well I’m sure downloading 50 or so gigs of files won’t help *ahem*…so I’m posting in those rare few hours of awake-ness before 12pm on a weekend ehehe.

This week’s life drawing we were focusing on the head and how we shouldn’t treat it any differently to how we draw the rest of the body. It can be hard trying to draw a face quickly while disassociating yourself from the fact it’s a face and trying to get all the features accurate. We were told not to aim for a likeness, just DRAW.
And draw I did

So here’s the results…A bit blah but I like the last one. Usual mix of quick warm ups, contours and then the longer poses at the end.

And this time Boof wanted to check out what was going on. This photo is better of the drawing too – less blurry! I SUCK at photography ehehe.

Hi!
‘Tis about time I posted these. Friday and I’m showing you Monday’s work.
Terrible quality pics – I’m sorry I just cant get these right! I think next time I will have to go to the trouble of scanning them and stitching them together in PS.

Getting better! Things I need to work on:
* Finishing in time!!! Five minutes should be enough to get the basic form down. Work faster Esz!!
* PROPORTION. As the teach keeps telling us – take a step back and analyse!
* Detail. Knowing which bits to focus on and when.

(in chronological order from the beginning of the night to the final pose)
20mins warm up – 2mins each hands & feet

5mins poses

And these last two were 10mins a piece:

Last one is hard!!

(oh my god these photos are BAD!!! So sorry!)

The model was good – he knew what he was doing and brought along his own props like a bow which helps show muscle tone.
Drawing a man is tricky! Where there is usually curves and smooth lines on a woman it’s all boxes and no definition on a man (waist and hips argh!)

But – ze classes are seriously awesome and our teacher is great. The gallery plans to expand on things by offering intermediate lessons after this course is up, along with perspective and spacial drawing on Tuesdays. Now that’s another thing I haven’t even touched on! So depending on time and budget constraints, I wouldn’t mind doing some of Tuesday’s classes also.

Tomorrow I plan on making a start on a brochure for my parents’ winery – and doing some sketching. Melbourne has finally decided to let winter settle in and staying inside drawing is mighty appealing. That said, I may become desperate for a coffee and I have overdue library books that need returning.
Hope you all have a great weekend!!