2012, April 6

I did this sometime in December of 2011; I remember doing it at work, during the down time while I waited for people to come in and rent rooms. It's pretty basic - just me experimenting with watercolors, both shapes and colors - nothing too impressive. I'm not sure why there's a yellow dash up in the left corner. I don't remember if I was trying to do something or if it was just a mistake.

I actually found again while putting some other paintings into my big old bible to flatten out. I suppose I should crack that one open more often?

2012, April 4

A fake duck, sitting on a wooden board, supported by glass coke cans - dated March 16th, 2011. Just before my motorcycle accident, and just after my birthday. This is another piece from my Drawing 101 art class.

2012, April 1

I think Emma Watson has a very strong face - a very humble kind of feminine beauty. A kind of woman that is at once incredibly attractive, but also clean and respectable - a Lady. If I end up marrying a woman who resembles her I'll count myself lucky.

Just doing some pencil practice here, shading and also experimenting with the computer. The scanner, even at it's highest detail cannot pick up on subtle shading, only strong colors or deep contrast of blacks and whites. I had to mess with the contrast levels and the white balance to get the shading to show up at all - but even now it's not quite as it looks on paper, more or less missing the shading of her left cheek and her forehead and chin.

2012, March 26

Doing some color study with water colors - I've never been too great with the color wheel - understanding complimentary colors, dissonance, and real shading with color has been a problem for me for a long time. This was just a little fun for me, to play with flow of water and the power of colors.

2012, March 22

The most damning evidence as to why I could never be a great artist can be found in this sketch, again from my first drawing class in college - drawing 101. Done with a mechanical pencil, in about 20 minutes. Though the start of the drawing, and the more complete portions of the skeleton show general good form, shading, and placement, I simply could not complete it.

In the majority of my art, the brunt of the work is done quickly, and then I tire - becoming bored and eventually completely uninterested. I can't explain why, and when prodded by the teacher I could only come up with the reasoning that I had completed what I found interesting in the subject - and felt that the addition of more elements, more particulars or more detail, would be a waste of time and effort. What I felt was important was done. He seemed to think that was fine.

2012, March 22

A figure drawing done in charcoal, again from my first art class in college last year (2011) - Drawing 101. This was a good lesson in lighting and shading (we were only supposed to draw the shadows of the objects in front of us, in my case a skull, a metal mask to the left, a mannequin head to the right, and a woman with an elongated neck smoking a pipe rear/center left), how different textures react to warm, soft light and how it effects their shadows. There are distinct errors in this piece, but also things that I feel very comfortable and proud of. I really like the job I did on the skulls teeth, nose and eyes, yet I have problems with how the jaw line and cheeks came out (both proportion wise, and shading).

I wish the woman smoking in the back had had more neck definition.