Kittys Drawings

Hellooooooo!!!
Lately I’ve had the opportunity to do some illustrations for work. It’s not often that I get to crack out the Wacom but it is getting more frequent as our clients realise we CAN do the fancy pants design and photography without having to pay two lots of people to get their work done. Yay for the customer!!
And Yay for me cos I like being able to potter about drawing while at work.

Today we had a customer that wanted a revamp of their old designs with some illustrations thrown in. I wasn’t sure if they were happy to pay the extra for full colour process plates (cyan, magenta, yellow and black – which in our kind of business costs a lot more than the printers that make magazines etc) so I kept the colours to a minimum. Just one spot colour (Pantone), black, our standard double white (for opacity on the clear bags) and varnish.

First, the illustrations. I found some stock images and redrew them into a pleasing composition. I wanted a sketchy kind of look – all done in Photoshop. Corel Painter 9 packed it in on my work computer too. I think it may have something to do with updating the Wacom tablet drivers for the new operating system so I had to use PS.

Red wine and garlic:

Garlic and herb:

And this is the final result. This is only the first concept for the customer so I’m sure they will change it.

The stripes and colour block reach to the top and bottom of the bag so they will form a band across the meat.

Annnnyways it’s almost dinner time. Hope you have a good weekend peeps and I endeavor to finish this week’s CHOW so I will have that ready on Monday.
Ciao!!

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!!)

This Sunday I finally caught up with the Melbourne Gra-Fight Club (cool name) – the weekly sketch meet with the peeps from ConceptArt.org (from here-on in referred to as CA cos I can’t be bothered typing it).  The usual routine, an arvo of sketching people passing by and practicing your speed and accuracy. We meet on the steps of the GPO and weather permitting, hang about there or move on to other locations.

I managed to spot Harbour-Master as she waited for a tram and because she’s always dressed impeccably, I had to draw her. Its always the clothes that attracts me to sketch a person – you’ll see that trend in the other drawings I did that day Its a bit of a dodgy sketch cos I was still warming up. Eerrrggh. The one next to it is some more warm ups just of faces.

Gettin the hang of things…

This chick had the weirdest outfit….Shiny black leather/vinyl jacket – biker style….with a long, pale blue tie-dye skirt and weird sandal type things that were like sandals from the ankle down and boots from the ankle up. ODD.

The fat dude at the bottom – well he wasn’t fat. He was just wearing an enormous all weather jacket with equally enormous cargo shorts and then these tiny skinny legs sticking out the bottom.

Some more:

Now to the final drawings which are quite a bit better. Shows how much you can improve just by warming up. Just like a sports star! Hahahaa.
First…A hipster. Wearing faded double denim that looked vintage. White flappy shirt and t-shirt hanging out…..skinny skinny pants on skinny skinny legs and scuffed boots with white ankle socks (and ankles) showing. Hunched over suitably as befitting a hipster of his pedigree
And a very sharp looking old gentleman leaning against a pole listening to the folk band that was playing in front of us. He had a cool shape for drawing and was standing very still hehe. I completely FAILed on his face though ha. The chick is a woman that dashed by and I liked her hair but only had seconds to memorise her profile.

These are: a dude in a huge blue chambray shirt with skinny legs poking out from underneath. People with weird proportions are interesting – particularly when those proportions are entirely a result of the clothes they’re wearing.
There was also a little Aboriginal boy who was watching the band. He was holding a football and had his jumper draped and tied over his shoulder like one of those across body bags.
The girl was really pretty and had dyed orange hair and a side ponytail. I wish she had stayed longer because I liked her face – would have been good to get it down more accurately. The others are just more odd proportions.

That was it for the sketching that day. We headed down to see the Ron Mueck exhibition when it started to rain. Fantastic exhibition – if you’re in Melbourne I urge you to get to the NGV before the 18th of April and see it. Only $15 entry. If you don’t know who Ron Mueck is, here is a sample of what we saw:

Phew!! Such a massive post!
Seeya all again soon – oh and my life drawing starts on the 12th of April not the 21st so it’s sooner than I thought! YAY!
Bya!

Yesterday’s train drawings….Lots of people wearing sunnies – annoying to draw…Lots of phones to ears and trying not to stare too hard. Sort of developing a technique of memorising as much as possible in a quick glance. I wonder how many people twig to the fact I’m drawing them.

Today I was thrown off my mood by some random guy in the seats on the other side of the aisle saying to me “The red suits you” (meaning my hair)….and that was it…..He didn’t even say hi or attempt to make eye contact first. Just said what he had to say without me even looking at him first. Just assumed I would know he was talking to me. W.E.I.R.D.

Not much else for you today!
Will attempt to do something nicer soon

Hullo!

After yesterday’s little wine-induced whinge and all your subsequent supportive comments I have decided to do something about it. Not one to sit around moping for too long, I’ve enrolled myself in a 9 week life drawing course at Guildford Lane Gallery. I had plans to sign up to a drawing course offered by the Centre for Adult Education (CAE) but then I saw this one on a link posted on Facebook which is cheaper, goes for longer and you get to participate in an exhibition at the end of it. Not to mention, they ply you with WINE too! Fantastic!
That said, I am very keen to try out the CAE options also, so as funding allows I will be joining on those too. They have a larger range of courses available and we shall see about the quality of teaching at both venues.
But I have always liked doing classes of any sort (kickboxing and yoga are in my repertoire hehe) and the Guildford Lane one is on Mondays and starts next month. What a great start to the week they will be – sure fire way to beat chronic Mondayitis.
YAY I am so stoked!

Now on to a couple of sketches from the last two days. Nothing spectacular, just the usual scribbles from the train. I struggle drawing faces quickly but postures and figures are much easier. Wonder why that is.
Scuse the huge-o-mungo pictures but you should all be used to that by now

Seeya later then

Hello!

This week’s Character of the Week topic was “Atlantian anarchist”. Picture the idyllic Utopia that Atlantis is – Surely such perfection cannot last that long and there would be rebellion??

I started this with a much more basic pose as you can see in the work in progress pics…but the anatomy was all over the shop as I hadn’t used reference. So I quickly found some and created a more dynamic pose. However, as usual time constraints became the biggest issue. With a weekend full of high tea and seeing Alice in Wonderland, it didn’t leave all that much time for drawing. And I am mighty slack sometimes. I think the weekly format allows me to just get to that point of a piece where I’m sick of it – but not enough time to push through that phase. In all honesty I should try and work on it every night. Though I am learning a lot I think – getting used to not relying on line-work and getting the majority of the piece down in a short amount of time.
The next step is more forethought and planning. What to do when I get to the point where I hate it. Right now my solution is to get stuck into details – yet when you’ve not planned for just the right amount of detail then you’re left frustrated. Heh.
I should make more (mental) lists when it comes to art.
Anyway, enough jibber-jabber..on to the drawing.

And work in progress

Ta ta for now

I got my new diary today. The very pretty Moleskine 2010 Daily 12 Colours Diary from Notemaker. Yay!

I *could* get a free diary from work but they’re those boring officey type diaries. Yawn! Nothing beats a Moleskine!

So here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure:

These are a fraction smaller pics. My Flickr Uploader wasn’t working very well today. Boo.

Each month is a separate coloured little book. Small and neat to fit in your bag but looks pretty all together as a display also.
I’m glad February is red (my birthday month)

Pretty!

And here’s some recent sketches.

I might colour these…

That’s all for today. Now I really gotta get crackin with my commission drawing. Eeeeep.
Ciao!