Felting Adventures: Seasonal Comeback!

I guess I'm trying to post for myself as much as I can before I leave for vacation. On the 29th of Dec, I'll be flying out to China and Vietnam for two weeks. While I hate long plane flights and I start to go batshit crazy, I'm excited for the change of scenery. Maybe I'll get in some awful life drawings in eh? I promise to draw and post some when I get back.

Photo Courtesy of Aurora

In the meantime, I finally got around to felting again! It was a Christmas gift for my dear friend, Aurora Alcantar. She's been wanting a green Totoro for a really long time so I buckled down and stabbed this one to life! I ordered a new batch of core wool, so hopefully that will motivate me to make more felties over time.

Owls, Dogs, and a tree

Second post. Words escape me.

Guinea Pigs Galore

First SuperGus on left and Final SuperGus on right

One of my coworkers had this great of idea of a Secret Art Santa, so we had a sign up sheet for artists at Crowdstar who wanted to participate. They gave us small 3.5 by 2.5 in frame that we'd make a small drawing/sketch/ painting for our Secret Gift Getter. We pulled names out of a hat, and I got my coworker, Barlow Gilmore. It was definitely a tough process to come up with something to draw, even though it could be anything we wanted it to be.

I ended up doodling some guinea pigs and I finally settled on.... SUPERBATGUS. Barlow and his wife, Hallie, have two pet guinea pigs and they are ADORABLE. It struck me that guinea pigs were a good bet and make Gus a superhero was irresistible. I had a lot of fun drawing these :) More doodles below.

Drunk guineas

Moar guinea doodles

Rough n Tumble guinea pigs

mOAR!

I'm doing my darndest to keep posting on a regular basis! Even if it's just a sketch or two... right? I hope so.. ! Things have been pretty busy at work lately, but I've been making more time to sketch. Investing in a scanner is definitely something I need to do.

So one thing I've noticed, that helps me with sketching, is using a harder pencil. I normally prefer really soft and rough pencils, like a 2-3B pencil. The Kimberley General's layout pencil makes such a lovely black swatch on the page, but it smudges like no other.

I started to use a 2H pencil when drawing and forcing myself to not press down on the paper as hard forces me to think about my lines more, and less careless mistakes. I also really like drawing with a ballpoint pen, for some reason, I feel more carefree with pen than I do pencil. I wonder why that is? Anyways, on to the sketches!

Tree on rock

Mountain on a precarious point

Done during my Halloween phase

Favorite life drawing sketch

Drawing done for "Blitzen to 7"

Random Sketches

Harem hula girl, sexy!

So I'm doing pretty well on this updating business. Keep holding your breath! (whomever I may be addressing, if there is even a whomever) So here's some scans of sketches and doodles I've done. Really random stuff. Enjoy!

Seaweed dragon

"Giraffasaurus" with stick figure

Birthday Card

My coworkers surprised me (kind of, not really, since we do this for all the artists) with a birthday art card! I guess from the overall content of the card, I am a very tough zombie martial artist. :D I work with extremely talented people and I feel really lucky to have gotten an art card twice!! I'll post the one from my first year here, since I didn't get to last time.

2011

2010

Cake Magic

This was an old logo I did for myself when I was identifying as the Cake Maggician. It was a name bestowed upon me by my friend Asahina Yuzu during my time in Japan. We (the study abroad gang) had gone to a Japanese liquor store and found these cute little liquor bottles with bunnies on them. The only thing we could read was the flavor and the name of the brand "Kekki Majiku." There was white currant, strawberry, grape, etc. Tons of tasty flavors, and cheap too! It wasn't until later that we realized, it was actually cooking liquor. Yuzu would make fun us when he saw what we did and he started calling me the Cake Magician.

He even drew me this lovely parting gift, of an astronaut walking the horizon with sparkles and bubbles following in her wake. There was also a portrait of me, done with extreme precision. I have never seen someone stipple as well as Yuzu.

I will upload his drawing later. But this logo was done as a nod to my Japan days and the incredible experience I had with everyone. It was a Wonderful World of Golden Eggs.

Birthday Bunny!

Made this card for a coworkers birthday, Sarah. She's a huuugee bunny fan, so most of the artists in the office drew bunnies for her birthday card. I decided to go the same route with an food coma-ed bun napping off the vestiges of his nomming. Trying to use Photoshop painting wherever I can for the practice. I still need to work on cleaner lines, better color theory, lighting. Okay, the whole shebang really. Anyways, I also include the original sketch that I scanned in and painted on top of for reference.

Hm.

Wow. It's been a long time.... I was messing around with Photoshop tonight and did a really quick sketch of a landscape. Trying to practice laying down big swaths of color first and then layering on the rest. I know it's very rudimentary and amateur, but hey, that's what practice is for. I'm going to try and keep layering on top of this initial sketch and see where it takes me. I have this nasty habit of doing initial sketches and throwing them away because they're not good enough, but what I really should be doing, is to just keep improving upon the same sketch until I've exhausted the potential. Learning how to improvise is important.

So hopefully... I'll be back soon with another pass :)

Digital Painting

I'm ALIIVVEE! Weeeeeeeeeee. Anyways, updates! I've been practicing some digital painting to broaden my skillset. I've never digipainted before, but I've worked with traditional painting materials like acrylics, and gouache. Trying to practice everyday or so, but it's getting difficult with my schedule. I only have two pieces so far as practice pieces, and they're not that great. However, I wanted to post them so I could see signs of my progress in the future. Enjoy! (or not.)

Attempt #1

Attempt #2