Farewell, Spaceman

Definitely not my best but I had to get all the feelings out and this is what resulted. We have lost a legend, the world loves and misses you.

Portrait Sketch Dump

Nathan Fowkes' "Designing with Color and Light" Week 2

Week two is about believability. He gave us three black and white rough renderings of scenes and we are to paint over it using two sources of warm and cool lighting. I chose this scene from "How to Train Your Dragon."

He ripped me a new hole with the crits from the first week and took all of his advice and worked hard on this one and although I am not completely happy with it, I learned a lot. Meh, knowledge is power?

Here is the original to see what I had to work with:

Environment Concept

I hate painting rocks and mountains, so I painted some rocks and mountains.

Photoshop CS4

Space Man

Today is my friend's birthday and he is most likely going to end up in Space one day so this is for him! I don't know which version I like better, the sepia (wtf, it was in b/w in photoshop...), or color so here is both.

Happy Birthday, Chris!

Coffee Shop Sketching, Dad, and Hands

10 seconds eash with FAT marker

Iphone addiction spans across all generations!

Figure Drawing; Model: Vanna Mae

2-5 minute gestures in charcoal.

15 Minutes each color. In erasable Prismacolors. 

About 45 minutes in erasable Prismacolors. 

Weekend Sketching

Overcast days are the best to paint because the lighting doesn't really change. 

Hanging out at The Lab in Costa Mesa. What I like about painting on location is the interactions I get with passer-by's because I guess they don't see someone with a paint set everyday painting. I have realized that it was mostly older people who actually stopped by to talk to me, the younger ones were too cool for school and just tried to sneak glances haha. 

My favorite- creep sketching at coffee shops. I need to get better at speed and memory because people tend to move, if you didn't know that. 

Instagram Fridays: Sleeping Through The Noise

When I am stuck on what to draw I usually default to drawing my dog, hands, or figures. You know you are a crazy dog lady when your dog has her own instagram and facebook page. And when your dog's instagram has more followers than your own. Don't judge me!

Ink and watercolor in a Moleskine sketchbook. 

Gesture Drawings

I'm lucky to have started my figure drawing studies at the age of 16 and throughout college, its my favorite thing ever. Gesture drawings are quick 5-10 second sketches of the movement and dynamic of a pose. I used this sports photographer's awesome photos as reference. 

I have done all of these in pen (fountain and gel ball point) in about 5-10 seconds each. 

Bubbles and Lemons

Some recents. One sketch from imagination and a still life study. The lighting changed like 1934032 times ahhaah. Had it set up left of me on my desk. I will do more of these because I started hating glass but now I just want to paint more glass. 

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known"

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known" -Carl Sagan

Sketched this with two Pilot Hi-Tec-C Gell ink pens. I love these pens. I don't know why but I always feel my sketches look better whenever I draw in these. It might be because whenever I sketch in pen, I am forced to be a lot more confidant in my lines so I am a lot more mindful of things.

Anyway, I've always been inspired by the vastness of our universe and how insignificant our problems are in contrast to the big scope of things. Life goes on, and the most you can do is keep on bettering yourself while still retaining childlike wonder about the world. No use in stress and anger because in the end we are just one tiny speck on this "pale blue dot."

Trying New Things

Been working on this sketch the past few days for a weekly(or so we try) writer/artist collaboration that has been going on the last couple of months. 

I wanted to try a different approach and try doing a greyscale underpainting before adding colors so I can really concentrate on values and depth. I am still not sure what to put in the foreground, water? Tall grass? Gravel? In my friends story there is no distinguishable path to the cabin there so I'm going to have to think about it. I know I know, right now it looks like cold blooded murder has occured in this cabin to innocent people aside a huge fucking rock so I will make sure to provide a context story via my talented friend when it is finished. 

On a side note, I just saw Life of Pi with my mother and was blown away speechless. My mother was definitely glowing with pride because of Ang Lee and our Taiwanese blood. Now I am going to go off to watch one of my favorite movies, Brokeback Mountain again and cry. Thats right Heathy-and-Jakey-can't-quit-you in all its glory.