New Stuff.

Just finished up Drawing for Illustration class at UVU taught by Don Seegmiller. Loved the class. Used markers on this piece.

Happy Early Easter!

I am now back in school at UVU here in Utah. I have joined the UVU Illustration Club, where I get to hang out with some amazing artists. Today we completed a service project, preparing Easter Prints for the Primary Children's Hospital, in SLC, UT. There were some great images completed, here is mine and if you want to check out the rest of the stuff go to the UVU Illustration Blog by clicking here:

                                     (99% done in Adobe Photoshop and 1% in Adobe Illustrator)

New Art!!

I know it's been awhile. I started school again at UVU. Hoping to get into the Illustration program. In the meantime. I joined the UVU Illustration Club. Get to hang out with some amazing artists. I'll have to put up links to their blogs and web sites, in the near future.

I am trying to do a full fledged digital painting. This is my first time working on something like this, also my first time working in Corel Painter 12.

Here is the original sketch:

Here is the WIP:

Haha, I still have a long way to go!!!

Love Mark Crilley How-to Videos!

Title says it all, I have really been enjoying going through his how-to videos. Here are the latest two I have done.

LINK!

LINK!

Some more stuff!

Crazy how fast the weeks fly by.  Here's some more stuff I have been practicing.

Manga and Anime.

This next post somewhat shows how much of a nerd I am....although I guess that depends on your point of view. I have always been a fan of the Japanese style of illustrating through the manga and anime styles. A couple of years ago I stumbled across the YouTube channel of Mark Crilley. I love his line work and the simplicity with which he makes some amazing art in my opinion. In trying to understand some basics I have started going through some of his how to videos on YouTube. I absolutely love his stuff. Here's what I have come up with.

Drawing Eyes

Chibis!!!

And one more.

I was really pleased with the way this one turned out, especially since my pencil lead kept breaking. =/

I like how Mark does his line work and shading. I like it so much I have tried to incorporate it in my practice of drawing some more Andrew Loomis heads. Here are the results:

So not bad, but not my favorites.

And this is what I was able to do today! I like these the best!!!

Anyway, let me know what you think, comments, suggestions, thoughts, criticisms, I'll take it all. Looking to get as good as I can. I start taking classes in the fall at UVU. I hope to get in to a class or two with Don Seegmiller, Can't wait!!!

Aaaaaaaand I am back!

Wow! Life and work have been crazy. Things are finally slowing down again though, I am so happy for that! The last couple of months I haven't been doing much drawing, however, that has also changed. Here are some of the things have I been doing the last couple of weeks. Hope you like it. 

      City Scene from Shutterstock.com 

 Random figure drawings

Some more Loomis studies.

Computer Problems

Well, I am finally back, a couple of weeks ago my computer crashed!!  Lost my hard drive and to make matters worse I hadn't done any backups....sooooo, I lost everything. I have since added a new and bigger hard drive to my computer, added some RAM, upgraded my operating software, and bought an external hard drive.  Hopefully, this thing will keep running smoothly for a few more years!

Anyway, here are some scans of my recent drawings. There are a few that are NSFW, or younger children for that matter (just practiced drawing some nudes), but I hope to have them posted on my portfolio, here, in the next couple of days. Let me know what you think!

This one is a Loomis drawing.

                                                    Just sketching out some ideas in my head.

                                                                  

More Practice

Here are some sketches done over the last few days.

                                                        Trees and flower all done with pen.

                         After messing around that scene started to form, no idea what any of it is.

                                                            Pencil drawing.

Things have become much busier at work, as a result the drawing time has diminished greatly. Anyway, with everything going on here are some sketches I have been able to do over the last week and a half. The flowers were another Dodson exercise the idea was to focus your energy on certain parts of the still life. Some of the areas were to be more developed than others. I am not pleased with my results, but hopefully I was able to learn some things through the exercise.

The next sketches were me just messing around. I received a really interesting book for Christmas, " The Art and Making of Star Wars the Old Republic." Based on the new MMO game that has come out. I tried drawing one of the lightsabers in the book....not sure it turned out so well, but it was fun!  The second was just another portrait photo taken from shutterstock.com.

More Exercises from "Keys to Drawing"

Well, first of all I hope that anyone is reading this had a Happy and Merry Christmas! I wish you a Happy New Year as well!  With the holidays in full swing and family visiting I haven't been able to draw every day, but I still been able to do some drawing. Here is a sample of some of the projects from my book I have been able to do. 

The first one is an attempt to use "masters" techniques. First to copy an original and then to emulate what a master has done in ones own art. I used a self portrait by Kathe Kollowitz done in charcoal. I think I chose this piece simply because it was done in charcoal. I have never really used this medium before and found it a quite enjoyable. Here is an image of the original followed by my copy:

The next image is the piece where I had to emulate this style in a piece of art done on my own. I did use a photo image from shutterstock.com for the model. Here is the outcome:

These last few pieces are just some of the additional projects from this same book. There are some short gesture drawings and then some studies in shading or tone. The last piece was a photo found in the book. The idea was to redraw it matching the tones found in the original photo with the recreated piece done in pencil. 

Original

                                                                       

                                                                  My Re-creation

BLAHHHHH!!!!

It's times like this I wish I could erase or better yet, tear out pages from my skecthbook....=/

Still Life

I attempted to work on some still life drawings last Friday. Trying to incorporate what I have been learning lately.

Peppers!

Worked on this exercise from my book today. The first pepper was drawn from memory, second I used a reference. Again, I did no erasing, used restating and some blind drawing. Let me know what you think.

Just some random sketches from earlier this month.

I have a new book!

I went and bought myself the book, "Keys to Drawing," by Bert Dodson, even after I said I would till after Christmas. However, I couldn't wait. I wanted to get started on these techniques ASAP! Things were a bit slower at work today and so I tried to draw my hands....didn't work out so well. Tonight I tried drawing my feet, things don't look so great.

In this book the author talks about restating your lines and drawing blind, both of which I tried to do in each of these sketches. All I have to say, is it's a lot harder that it would seem. I am definitely going to need some time to get use to these techniques and make sure I am asking myself the right questions as I draw. 

Here are the sketches, let me know what you think:

Digital Painting

Here is a WIP, something I started working on this weekend. Comments always appreciated. Again just trying to learn how to paint using my tablet. The original was taken from here.

Heading Back to School

I went and talked with an academic advisor at UVU last Friday. Exploring the possibility of going back to school to study Illustration! I have to admit I was about to cancel my appointment due to my lack of self confidence when it comes to art. However, I have to say I was sooooo glad I went. My questions were all answered and then in addition to meeting with an advisor I got to meet with Don Seegmiller (you can find a link to his website here on my blog, see below). Don is an amazing Illustrator and I have always been amazed by his work, my goal is to be that good one day.

I found out a couple of years ago he actually lives in Utah and he teaches at UVU! I ddin't think I would really ever take any classes with him, let alone meet him! Can't describe how excited and scared I was when I got to talk to him. That was quite the experience...especially when he asked to look at my most sketchbook. It was amazing. He gave me some compliments and some tips to get better.

First thing he told me to do was to never erase. Second thing never tear pages out of my sketchbook. Third keep drawing everyday. He even told me I should invest in this book and use it religiously, "Keys to Drawing." I think I will wait to buy it until after Christmas....maybe Santa will bring it to me, if I am good that is!

I will have to get some more images scanned and posted on the web site. Drawing at work is proving to be a challenge, things are getting really busy. I need to spend more time doing this at night while I am home anyway if I don't get another post about between now and the year end, Merry Christmas!

Textures...and another portrait.

Always wanted to be able to draw the cool little boxes full of different textures I have seen on other people's blogs...so this was my attempt. The portrait I did was started yesterday, finished it up today. I think I need to work on the shading some more. The scan doesn't quite do it justice and as always comments always appreciated!

Just some random stuff I tried drawing the other day....was having a hard time trying to figure out what to draw. Half way through the fish ( I was at work and didn't have my colored pencils) I decided to just do it all in graphite....well I didn't like the way that worked and then tried to go over it in colored pencils....yeah, made it look even worse. Oh well, just another thing to add to the list of things not to do!

Also tried working on my tree again, not looking any better in my opinion.