Doomful Diaries

Sketchy Saturday: Watercolor Pencil

2012-02-18T22:08:00.000-08:00

Due to my wrist pains, I've been using a watercolor pencil to draw with and use a brush pen that has a capsule for water on it to darken my lines when I need to. It's training me to not draw so dark thus reliving tension in my wrist.
I also got a new sketchbook that I plan on doing looser drawings in. Moleskines are difficult sometimes because I'm scared to ruin the nice paper with bad drawings, but I plan on getting on to do more refined drawings once my wrist is better.

And today's life drawing session, I didn't get a chance to continue reading Michael Hampton's book but it's interesting to see last week's lesson merge into my current habits.

Scculent and Cactus Trolls

2012-02-13T18:58:00.000-08:00

I made some trolls last month based off some plants I saw when hanging out with friends.

I've always meant to do some more, and the inspiration hit me when Daniel and I purchased new plants this past weekend at IKEA. We are now proud owners of a little cactus and a succulent plant!

I started off with some sketches to get an idea of what they would look like.

Instantly I knew I wanted the succulent trolls to be bothering the cactus.

Sketchy Saturday: Breakthroughs

2012-02-11T21:13:00.000-08:00

I somehow slipped into an impromptu hiatus, quite possibly to mentally recharge for some upcoming challenges. Regardless of the reason or excuse, I am back to drawing!

I finally cracked open Michael Hampton's Figure Drawing: Design and Invention last night to read the first chapter on gestures. How can something so simple such as only using curved lines instead of straight never occur to me, I do not know. Today ended up being the happiest with life drawing I have been in a while because of something so simple!

I'm quite excited to see what other aspects from his book I will pick up. What's great about drawing is that regardless of who you study with or what books you read, the mixture of the multiple sources combine along with your own individual taste to create something fantastic - something yours.

FDD: 3 & 4

2012-02-05T02:20:00.000-08:00

Gah, I forget how busy weekends can be. It's a nice change of pace but I then usually get really anxious to get back to art!

I forgot to post up my piece from yesterday for the daily draw challenge. And today, I really had to rest my wrist so I spent most of it in bed, watching Parks and Recreation. It's feeling better so I did complete a still life study and started a new little piece for my tough girls series.

So, big art post, yay! :D

My still life was a sandwich! Such a challenging thing to paint but I learned a lot doing it. Unfortunately, it looks better in the picture than it did at the end of this still life... Food tends to go bad. And stink.

Process pics:

Grabbed some boba at the artwalk yesterday, and proceeded to draw people in the area. I love doing this, especially in pen!

My next gal, going to attempt to do photoshop this time around. It'll be a fun experience!

FFD: Day 2

2012-02-03T00:23:00.000-08:00

Welp, my Thursday nights just got a hell of a lot more lame now. My good friend Paul Richard's is moving up to Seattle this week, thus tonight was the last of the Sketch Squats. I don't want to write a farewell to Paul as I'll be seeing him tomorrow, but don't be surprised if tomorrow's post ends up being a kiss ass post to Paul, hah.

Regardless, here's the sketch I completed tonight! More of my tough women. I grew up with a lot of women in my family outliving their husbands, so I have such a high respect for elderly women. Not so much of the smoking variety but I based the design of the older woman from a gal I saw at work.

The little girl was a challenge to draw! I haven't drawn children as much before, so thank you to Daniel and Mathias coaching me along the way! :D

FDD: Day One

2012-02-02T16:30:00.000-08:00

The return of my wrist pain struck yesterday before my personal art hour. I decided to take it easy with some gouache. Another one of my weird, abstract galaxy paintings!

30 Day Challenge: Day 7

2012-02-01T00:21:00.000-08:00

My apologies for missing yesterday. It seems my mental health likes to go down the drain on Mondays and all I want to do is read art blogs, hehe.

Well, it looks like all that reading paid off! I did some character sketches tonight and I'm still in utter disbelief that I created these...
One of my favorite subjects to draw are "tough barbarian girls" and I'm going to start trying to incorporate some contrast between them. Here I tried "Poor vs Rich" and instead I feel like I crossed time periods. Oh well, so long as I'm having fun, that's all that matters.

I hope you guys don't mind all the blog posting, because there will be more! I just learned of SatelliteSoda's Daily Draw February. I'll adjust the name of the subjects from here on out, just to be sure I'm being honest about what day I am drawing. :)

30 Day Challenge: Day 6

2012-01-29T23:16:00.000-08:00

Somewhat lazy day, I hope you don't mind if I post the studies I did this past week. :D

I have a small notebook that I call my "studybook" so I don't clog my sketchbook too much. The paper is nice for water color as well! Here are some entries:

Top left: "Precision" drawings from life (pencil)
Top right: Gestures from photos (ballpoint)
Bottom left: Value gestures from photos (pencil)
Bottom right: Color face studies (watercolor)

Row 1: Perspective study from life
Row 2: Perspective study from life and value study from life
Row 3: Perspective practice from imagination

30 Day Challenge: Day 5

2012-01-29T00:57:00.000-08:00

Dear reader, you will have to forgive me on two accounts. The first is the fact that I've been hiding my life drawing sketches because I've just been unsatisfied with them this month. The second is the lull of the next couple posts, as I have to rest my wrist for the time being.

Life drawing has always been a favorite of mine, as some of my drawings reveal. There was a two week break for the holidays and ever since returning, I feel as though I haven't been up to par to what I've been drawing before. Especially when having a male model in what feels like months, I could just feel myself struggle and slow down greatly when at life drawing. I could feel my frustration but have not been able to target the source.

After today's session, I discussed my predicament with Daniel and the only reasonable (and optimistic) solution is the fact that now that I study regularly, I'm starting to see more and more of my mistakes and bad habits. Plus, anytime an art block or anytime life gets difficult overall, it just means I'm leveling up.

So for Day 5, I present this month's life drawing sketches. There are some small victories, but still a long way to go to being pleased with them like before.

1/7/12

1/14/12

1/28/12

30 Day Challenge: Day 4

2012-01-27T21:04:00.000-08:00

I'm super pleased with how this one turned out! It was a lot of fun to paint and I absolutely love the colors. Gouache is becoming my best friend.

I didn't really get a chance to explain the characters, as the previous entry was made very late in the night. I've always had this love story about the sun and moon, and always had an idea of what the moon character looks like. It wasn't until very recently that I sat down and actually thought about how I wanted the sun to look like. I wanted them to be opposites: she's practically naked, he's fully clothed, her face is easily seen while his is constantly in shadow, etc. I think that's what make these illustrations some of my favorites.

"While he watches her from afar: Sun" - 6" x 9"
Gouache and acrylic on Arches Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

Here they are side by side. I wanted to do another with both of them, but alas - I ran out of time and my wrist has been acting up.

They will be on display and for sell at the Weavver Gallery in Downtown Fullerton for the "Pairings" show. I'll be there for the opening on First Friday!

30 Day Challenge: Day 3

2012-01-26T01:56:00.000-08:00

First of three paintings for an upcoming art show. I love gouache despite how temperamental it can be. A lot of things I wish I could go back and fix, but overall, very happy with the result.

"And so she slept in the stars: Moon" - 6" x 9"
Gouache and acrylic on Arches Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

30 Day Challenge: Day 2

2012-01-25T02:20:00.000-08:00

When I was in school I would often doodle in class, just on a plain sheet of paper with a ballpoint pen. There's something therapeutic about not being able to fix mistakes and to draw my brains out. At least 90% of the drawings were crap, but there are always a few that turn out better than I expect it.

I did have an off day today, just could not get into the grove of things no matter how hard I pushed. I reminded myself that the first rule of art is to relax and have fun. So I picked up a sheet of paper, a ballpoint pen and my neglected brush pen, then just went at it for the next hour to explore some ideas for an upcoming painting.

30 Day Challenge: Day 1

2012-01-23T22:11:00.000-08:00

Hello and happy new year!

A few friends of mine have been doing a 30 Day posting challenge, and I thought I would join the fun! I need to get the ball rolling for this year. I'm aiming to complete a mini-piece each day, with or without a time limit.

Today's piece is a bit dark, as I've been under the weather lately. I had the idea of "vicious cycle" in my head and decided to draw it out. I did some thumbnails first, playing around with composition.

Originally I was aiming to complete this piece in an hour, but only got this far into the hour. I kept going to my closet door mirror to model for myself, wanting to get the hands just right.

I decided to take a second hour to finish up the piece.

"Vicious Cycle" - 4.5" x 6.5"
pencil on bristol board

Sketchy Saturday: Last of '11

2011-12-31T21:26:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe this year has already come and gone! What started off as a year of struggle and strife turned into a year of reward and art. I'm completely passionate about art again and cannot wait to see what I come up with the next year. I already have some projects planned, but it's the unexpected that keeps me going.

My next year resolutions are short, simple, and sweet:
1) Less thinking, more doing.
2) Create more.
3) Take more pictures.

Otherwise, here are some sketches and experimental paintings - the last of the year!

Happy new year! :) Onward to 2012!

Sketchy Saturday: Marathon

2011-12-10T23:36:00.001-08:00

I once heard an interview where Anthony Jones compared drawing to running. One could run daily and be considered a runner, but to be an Olympian - one must train and run for hours on end. He applied that same concept to drawing - one could draw all day and be considered a drawer, but to be a master artist, one must train and study for hours on end.

If this concept were to be applied to Paul Richards, I'm sure he would have ran to and from the moon at least eight times now. For those who don't know Paul, 87.67% of his time is spent drawing. I tried my best to keep up with him today. Even after I was tuckered out and exhausted, Paul was still drawing. What an Olympian.

Today's life drawing session went great. The model was beautiful but had a super skinny waist yet thick thighs. I'm trying my best to draw accurately, but sometimes I could see myself slipping in some extra fat for her. Also below are some sketchbook pages from today.

Workshop SF Review

2011-11-25T17:33:00.001-08:00

This past weekend, I attended the Massive Black Workshop SF up in San Francisco. This was my first art related workshop I have been to, and boy, was it a doozy! Four days of high quality art, artists, and lectures, including one day strictly for portfolio reviews. At least 250 people attended, and there was always something interesting going on. Never has there been a prime time that human cloning should be allowed... I wish I could have been at everything at once!

One rule I made myself do is at the workshop to not draw. It seems odd, attending an art workshop and not drawing. In reality, I am grateful that I spent my time writing down as many notes as I can instead of getting lost in my own world, then realizing how much I've missed out on the present demo or lecture. In total, I have taken 30 pages of notes, but I won't be posting up every single note. Instead, allow me (along with the use of photos) post up a summary of the workshop. This is where I'll highlight on some key points that have stuck with me.

Full entry can be viewed after the jump.

Day One:

The instructors at the workshop are bearers of the kindest hearts I have ever met. Not one of them ever put anyone or their artwork down, as each of them had their own humble beginnings. The opening ceremony of the workshop showcased an old art piece by each instructor. Some of them were shocking including this one by Coro:

Soon after - the workshop kicked off with lectures, demonstrations, and a live model to draw or paint from. The first event I attended was the presentation put on by SIXMOREVODKA.

Marko Djurdjevic and two members of his team (Jana Schirmer and the newest attention, Ville Kinnunen) talked about the work that their team does, which currently specializes in characters. The only way his company could create such great character art is by having good teamwork. Each member of the team is highly skilled in either rendering, research, or even sketching. Marko emphasizes that "the passion to create such high quality art comes from the need to do art," a theme that will be repeated throughout this workshop.

The next feature I sured to attend was Wesley Burt's demo. To his right, Noxismad was also painting and on the opposite wall was HPX (and I didn't get a photo of either of them, sigh). It's one thing to watch someone talk about their work and painting process, and it's another to actually sit down and watch them do it.

Photo by Carmen Cianelli

Day one came to a close too soon, as I sat in the demo screens with Ville, Jana and Kekai Kotaki. Ville gave a great lecture on including cultural references into work 0as his previous work at Bioware focused mainly on medieval characters. Jana painted a still life (pictured above), despite how dark the demo room was. Kekai's lecture interfered with Ville's lecture, so I did not get to listen in as much as I would have liked to. I did look back occasionally to see what he was up to, and he did nothing short of amazing.

Day two started off with wandering the premises, including the life drawing area. Here is a photo of the most brilliant use of binoculars I have ever seen:

He stated that having accurate shadows and highlights require accurate viewing. I was blown away.

I settled down to view DanielC, Wes and an impromptu Dave Rapoza demo. Once again, it was truly interesting to see the work flow of each artist.

Next up, I sat through Mathias Verhasselt's presentation on Lighting in Digital Painting.

Mathias had a way of breaking down how light works without having to dive too deep into physic terms. Included in his lecture was how materials reflected light, as each material has a different microsophic make-up to affect the way the lighting appears on it. He also did a walk through on how he works, which includes the accuracy of light that he lectures upon.

The last part of my day was spent viewing Jana doing a demo. I remember there were no chairs because everyone was viewing the Steambot storytelling demo, so I sat on the floor somewhat close to Jana herself. A gentlemen behind me, also viewing Jana's demo, commented on how he wished that she would talk about her process. I turned to him and told him to simply ask her any questions, to which soon afterwards I went up to sit right (or rather, left) by her. Soon after, many of the other instructors came up to keep her company, and being that close to her made it easier to talk to her about any questions I had. She was super friendly and nice, regardless of how dumb my questions were.

Day Three was my birthday! And what a better way than to spend it by learning more about the art field I want to get into. First off was perspective with Carl Dobsky.

Carl went into deep detail about perspective. He whole-heartedly covered the theoretical aspects of perspective. Never have in my life have I heard of a ground plane, anchor point, or even the cone of vision. Watching him draw up a basic perspective scene really helped putting those terms to use, and his demo alone made me realize how much more I have to learn about perspective.

I have never in my life been able to draw mecha designs, but after sitting through Sam Brown's demo, it's very plausible in my future! He empathizes the purpose of the design in his quick sketches. To the side, I was able to view Kemp Remillard's demo as he used Google Sketchup to create a mech then bring it to photoshop to paint. It's not considered cheating, just simple working more effectively.

The last demo of the day featured Jana painting over a part of Kemp's picture. The two of them have a lot of fun with their art and it truly showed at the end... When the theme of Baywatch was played on loop and made a makeshift video by parading their collaboration across the screen.

Photo by Carmen Cianelli, featuring Aleksi Briclot and J.S. Rossbach

Day Four consisted of portfolio reviews and feedback. Like I've said before, all the instructors were genuinely amicable and gave feedback to help out to those who seek improvement. At the end of the workshop, most of the instructors were brought up on stage and asked to talk about what got them started on art, and what their career has been like. It was nice to once again be reminded, that no matter how far any of the instructors are in their career, they all had humble beginnings. Every one of them has a beginning, and decided to work hard at becoming a professional artist.

The most important lessons I can take away from this workshop is:

1. Art comes from the need to do it, not the client or anyone else. Every chance you can, make art for yourself and inject yourself into client work. Do the work you want and like to do.

2. Time is the most valuable resource. Art is about using time efficiently to communicate a thought, a feeling, whatever.

3. Surround yourself with artists, and it will push you do to more art.

4. Never say you can't.

I cannot thank Massive Black enough for putting an event like this together. I'm in utter disbelief that it went by as fast as it did. I spoke to the instructors any chance I got, and they are easier to approach once I remembered that they're also human like me. My inspiration and motivation has been through the roof ever since returning home, and it's all because of those damn four days. I cannot wait to attend the next one!

Slumber

2011-11-15T19:45:00.001-08:00

You guys may have noticed bits and pieces of this work in the latest post. I'm happy to finally be able to show the full and complete version. I've been working on and off on it for way too long, just glad that I'll be able to include it in my portfolio.

He's one of my oldest characters, a dream guardian, sleeping in the vast snowy land of dreams. You'll be seeing more of him (not like you're already seeing all of him, haha).

View on: CGHub or Deviantart as well

Some process images.

Sketchy Saturday: Relearning

2011-11-12T12:42:00.001-08:00

One thing I am starting to do when studying from life is having something to focus on, it helps me from feeling too overwhelmed (especially since the last time I went to life drawing was over a month ago). My focuses today was line and proportion, something I continually struggle with in my own works. Both can only be accomplished with a lot of patience and understanding.

While in pursuit of these goals, I've started to uncover some of the things I've already learned, yet forgotten. The torso is a key foundation and once that's drawn perfectly, everything else should be compared to it. Note where overlapping happens, don't just guess. Compare the torso to the legs and arms (I have a bad habit of drawing both of them too long). And always, always, always block in the head.

Other notes I've made are in regards to the model herself. Most figure models have either a slender look to them or some extra weight. This model had a little bit of both: her back, arms, and legs were slender, but her abdomen was quite round. Plus, she did something I haven't seen a model do before, she would do the same pose but just change the direction she was facing. I've always wanted this and was excited when she started to do this. But after a while, it just became rather redundant.

Overall, I felt it was a somewhat successful session today.

As a bonus, here's one of my favorite sketchbook pages as of late.

Self Portrait 2011

2011-11-01T17:43:00.000-07:00

Holy carp, it's November, WHOA!

Anyways, I've always wanted to participate in self portrait day, so... here I am! Looking like a serious frumpy grump without my glasses, hah.

I have quite a few pieces in WIP limbo... Keep an eye out for them. :)

Sketchy Saturday: Two in a Row

2011-10-16T00:05:00.000-07:00

We only have challenges in life so we may overcome them. At least, according to very tired and optimistic me.

Sketchy Saturday: Better Late Than Never

2011-10-10T17:33:00.000-07:00

Keep missing my Saturday updates... But as the proverb goes: Better late than never!

I'm enjoying doing still lives with pencil lately. Mostly to build up my patience but learning how to work the pencil again has been lovely.

Sketchbook liter, characters characters characters...

Fiddling around with sketches in Photoshop.

Thanks for your time. :)

ROSEY

2011-09-19T14:22:00.000-07:00

Here we go, something more along the lines of what I see myself doing for the rest of my life - writing and drawing comics!

Luckily, my friend Paul Richards had put together a comic jam where the attendees had to create a three page comic. Definitely was a learning experience, both on how to tackle something I've been wanting to take seriously for quite some time and also the best way to communicate a story with strictly images!

Here are all three pages for your viewing pleasure:

More to come, that's for sure! Thanks for your time.

Sketchy Sunday: Spectrum

2011-09-11T22:45:00.000-07:00

This one is for you, Matt!

It's been nice to have some old characters filling up my pages again.

Attempting to rebuild my relationship with gouache. It's getting there...

Life drawing from two weeks ago. I will never grow tired of drawing women!

Sketchy Saturday: Return to Figure Drawing

2011-08-27T17:18:00.000-07:00

Today, I had the chance to attend a figure drawing session, where I learned that I am extremely rusty with my charcoal handling and model drawing. I could feel myself being pulled in different directions, but regardless, I had a great time. Towards the end, more of my knowledge started to return.

The session started off with two minute poses and time was increased to 5, 10, and a single 15 minute pose.

Sketchy Saturday 5

2011-08-20T13:25:00.000-07:00

Whenever I ask Daniel about how to improve my art, he always answers that I should just draw from life. That's what I've been doing and it's been rather helpful with my imaginative works. Also, I could never grow tired of drawing people.

Pirates vs. Ninjas

2011-08-15T12:32:00.000-07:00

I had the wonderful opportunity to be in a group show at the Weavver Art Gallery in Fullerton, CA back in July. The theme was "Pirates vs Ninjas" to which I instantly thought of sky pirates. I was stumped for a long time about what the equivalent ninja class would be. Eventually, my research led me to the idea of cloud ninjas.

I focused mainly on the characters during my exploration and brain storming phase, which I always have fun with.

It was easier with the pirates to express their personalities, as later most of them were influenced by my friends. With the ninjas, on the other had, I played mostly with shape and how the clouds could be used as clothing.

What originally made me be bias towards sky pirates was the fact that I loved the idea of a boat sailing across the clouds. Later I had a difficult decision on whether or not I wanted to include more of the boat or more of the characters for my final piece.

The final pieces focused more on the atmosphere of the battle than it did on the characters. I tried to include more of the characters in the ninja piece at least because I could not figure out a vessel for them to travel in. Where as with the pirates, I figure the appropriate sub-vessel for fights was planes (a la Tailspin). I completed these pieces in oil pastel.

(Note: The yellow shapes in the bottom left of the pirates piece is supposed to be the gunner hiding out in the clouds. A last minute, sloppy detail.)

I've always had an idea to write a story about sky pirates, and participating in this show has kindled that flame of inspiration to pursue it. I will say it's a possibility, but there are other stories I would like to share first before I touch up on this one. It will be easier when I do revisit my sky pirates again to have more characters to play with, instead of just the captain.

Sketchy Saturday 4

2011-07-23T22:51:00.000-07:00

Started a new sketchbook recently. Here are the first seven pages!

Sketchy Saturday

2011-04-30T22:31:00.000-07:00

Here are some scribbles from my sketchbooks as of late!

Tune in next week for seven more!

Jabberwocky Redesign

2011-04-16T17:59:00.000-07:00

This was for a challenge over at CGHub, and I had a lot of fun with it. It's been quite some time that I've put forth the effort to finish a personal piece, and damn - it feels awesome! Here are some process shots of the piece coming to life.

Commission: Superheroes

2011-02-21T21:28:00.000-08:00

Whoa, I didn't mean to leave this blog in the dark with the turn of the new year. Eep!

Here's a project I did recently for a friend of mine for his birthday party invitation. Captain Spank, School Girl, and Miss Undecided are my friends.

And he also wanted a few miscellaneous superheroes to be included.

Commission: A Little Girl's Fantasy Land

2010-12-28T10:08:00.000-08:00

I have done a few murals for the family who commissioned this piece. After the second mural I did for their youngest daughter, the oldest asked me if I could paint her imaginary world. At first, she wanted a mural, but I suggested a painting - to which the mom agreed. Later in the day, I was delivered a drawing from the girl, and felt completely inspired to use the drawing as the foundation of the painting. I was also inspired by the trend of turning toddlers' drawings into art pieces or photography.

For Avalon: A Little Girl's Fantasy Land

Acrylic on canvas, 16"x20"

Avalon's original drawing

Sketchy Saturday

2010-12-18T20:41:00.000-08:00

I've been having fun using excess paint and other mediums for my sketches.

Here's also a WIP for a challenge on CGHub:

When Being Chased By Lions, Let the Hummingbird Guide You

2010-11-21T00:00:00.000-08:00

When Being Chased By Lions, Let the Hummingbird Guide You

Acrylic on canvas board, 9"x12"

Had a dream a while back, where I was being chased by lions in a forest. A black hummingbird, whose red skeleton I could see, guided me to safety.

I've been working on this concept for a couple of weeks, mainly because there aren't too many hummingbird skeleton references out on the internet. Decided to break out the acrylics for this, and it felt nice to try out some new techniques.

Also included a horrible photo of the gouache study I did and the sketchbook page exploring the idea:

Sketchy Saturday

2010-11-20T00:59:00.000-08:00

Seven sketches for Sketchy Saturday (just play along, I hope to do this at least every Saturday)! Featuring pages from my most recent sketchbook.

DMV

2010-11-15T17:17:00.000-08:00

Spent an hour and a half waiting for the results of my license test today. Thank goodness for my handy, dandy ~~notebook~~ small sketchbook and the long line of people in front of me.

Dreams in Gray

2010-11-12T18:41:00.000-08:00

I have strayed too far from myself and my art. It's time to change that.