Friday 12 November 2010

Exclusive Listen: Fifteen Bruce Springsteen Songs | Rolling Stone Music

Exclusive Listen: Fifteen Bruce Springsteen Songs | Rolling Stone Music

This sounds really promising, especially when you get past the first couple of tracks. I have been listening to it gradually for the past few day, and thought it could do with some spread of word... especially with the music press banging on about the stream of some posthumous material from a popular entertainer, hogging the stream music limelight.

Tuesday 19 October 2010

Life Drawings- Oxford Train Station-19th October 2010




I had some time to start doing some life drawing, whist waiting for another train. So I was able to do these quick sketches of others commuters.

Tuesday 12 October 2010

Warner Archive to release the Censored Eleven

Warner Archive to release the Censored Eleven

The shorts may raise eye-brows to a modern audience, but seeing some kind of consumer distribution for some of them comes as well-deserved news, particularly Clampett's much celebrated Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs.

Monday 4 October 2010

It's Time To Get Laid

This is just damn catchy... so I know what tune is going to be stuck in my head for today.

Friday 10 September 2010

Post a Drawing Every Day- 40- Expression Studies

I am now at the part of the book, in which Loomis goes into theories on applying expressions to our faces. So this was my attempt of a smile, using Loomis' theory. This might take a while for this to sink in.

Thursday 9 September 2010

Post a Drawing Every Day- 39- Loomis' 'Blook'

This is my studies on the signature character of Fun with a Pencil. I'm at the part in which 'Blook' pops up again, and encourages you to draw him. He's a pain to nail down, particularly with the overlapping nose over his moustache and mouth.

Wednesday 8 September 2010

Post a Drawing Every Day- 38- Another 'Blocky' Study

I'm not sure about the outcome on this one. I think I got lost in the detail of Loomis' original, then working out what the hell how the face was made in the first place.

Tuesday 7 September 2010

Post a Drawing Every Day- 37- More 'Blocky' Studies

I might have picked up what Loomis was on about adding angular shapes to your faces... or, more likely, I was very lucky when studying this face today.

Monday 6 September 2010

Post a Drawing Every Day- 36- 'Blocky' Studies (Loomis' Fun with a Pencil)

I am at the part of the book in which Loomis encourages the student to add 'blocky' shapes to the mix when making a face. And now studying these heads now have an angular approach to them, rather then an organically rounded approach. As long as Loomis doesn't encourage the 2D 'super-flat' approach, over the '3-D' drawing approach, I might learn to stop worrying and get my faces an achievement of "sense of bone and ruggedness of character."[Loomis]

Sunday 5 September 2010

Post a Drawing Every Day- 35- More Loomis Facial Studies

I decided to do my drawings in another part of the day, instead of the evenings, especially as next week's evenings are going to be busy. Although I only did these studies, I have developed a way to work out how to let the construction sink in.
Firstly, I draw as much as possibly I can in a big detailed drawing- the head on the right is the example I will be using. Then I try and draw some thumbnails, from memory, to see if anything has sunk in. Not that the second small head, from the left, shows what I was able to sketch out from memory.

Saturday 4 September 2010

Post a Drawing Every Day- 34- Back to Loomis (Facial Studies)

Did some time to study some Loomis, like a few days before. Sometimes it went well, like the the man with that moustache, and sometimes not too good.
I just couldn't get my head around the simple construction of the one with glasses, mainly because of trying to apply all the detail in the final construction. The head that is looking up looks like a challenge, but I'm a bit tired to tackle it now.

Friday 3 September 2010

Post a Drawing Every Day- Day 33- Still Life Drawing of Kitchen Appliances

This is what happens when you try and do a still life study whilst cooking- you don't have much time to focus on the drawings, as you're trying to make sure the food doesn't burn!

Thursday 2 September 2010

Post a Drawing Every Day- Day 32- Further Study into Loomis' Another Line to the Ball

I didn't have much time to draw today, so I only just managed to do this quick study of another head in Loomis' chapter, using the same theory from yesterday. These drawings are okay, although I didn't really focus into the detail of the finalised head. So I might revisit this head to make more of a better effort.

Wednesday 1 September 2010

Post a Drawing- Day 31- Studying Loomis with Another Line to the Ball

The title refers to Loomis' additional axis of lines to our face construction, which works out where the eyes and ears go on our head.
It seemed pretty straightforward, but I now want to apply to a tilted head well, rather then forcing my study to look more tilted up then it does in the book.

Tuesday 31 August 2010

Post a Drawing Every Day- Day 30- Trying out Loomis' "BEST WAY TO GO ABOUT IT"... Again

After a break from studying this book, because of an art jam I worked on yesterday, I ask myself this. Has anything from studying Loomis sunk in yet?
...Probably? Although one this I noticed is that I am squeezing the eyes over the nose on their faces, particularly on the above facial study. It might be something I need to be aware of that the eyes actually go over the cheek, rather then just the nose for future reference.
Hmm... I guess that this is not some future reference to overcome that problem, as I'm doing it here too. I might address this tomorrow- I can only hope!

Monday 30 August 2010

Post a Drawing Every Day- Day 29- Illustration of 'A Volcanic Mining Facility Run by a Race of Salamander People'

Illustration
The deadline for this art jam should be today... so here's what I could come up with. I revisited yesterday's piece to add textures to most of the blocks of colour, as well as an additional character. It seem to worked, but I think I would like to removed the pencilling, the bulky outlines, and maybe the characters, to show off the landscape I have made.

Sunday 29 August 2010

Post a Drawing Every Day- Day 28- Work in Progess Illustration of 'A Volcanic Mining Facility Run by a Race of Salamander People

I have been mostly working on an art jam to depict this description: "A Volcanic Mining Facility Run by a Race of Salamander People"
Initial Sketches
 So after some research, I had an idea of what I wanted to do, so I sketched these ideas out.
After doing these pencil sketches, I had an idea of what to do for the final piece.
Work in Progress Illustration
I decided to apply some block colouring, and also extract some pencil sketches to get some definition- this is kind of similar to what I was trying to do for an earlier piece, only without inking anything this time around. As I was also trying to extract certain drawings from certain sketches, I made myself into a conundrum about trying to achieve this for most characters, and objects, used in the piece. I also haven't had time to toy with texturing, or lighting, as I want to place down all the important elements in place. I should have some time tomorrow to do a more polished piece.

Saturday 28 August 2010

Post Drawing Every Day- Day 27- Studies from Loomis' Fun with a Penil... Again!

I really wanted to finish doing those 'blooks' on that one page. So here they are... tackled with varying degrees of success.
With them out of the way, I can tackled on what the next page had to offer... titled 'THE BEST WAY TO GO ABOUT IT'... oh bother!
So instead of tackling the previous 'blooks' in the way I did, I should have followed this approach. At least this page just shows how hard, or easy, it can be to nail down on Loomis' heads. There are two other heads on that page- so guess what I might be tackling the next time I go 'back to school' with that Loomis book?

Friday 27 August 2010

Post Drawing Every Day- Day 26- Life Drawings (Figure,Still, and Landscape)

I have been doing some life drawing; so pieces that feature figure, still, and landscape drawing, for those pigeon holing art critics- they're all life drawings as they were done in real life, okay?
Life Drawing
This was the most detailed drawing I did today, whilst waiting for my bus. The figure closest to the bin kept moving, so you can see a faint position drawn of that figure sitting.
Life Drawing
And here's what came into that bus stop- a bus! Can't you tell? I guess not, as that bus wasn't there for long.

Thursday 26 August 2010

Post a Drawing Every Day- Day 25- More 'Blook' Studies from Loomis' Book

It's still the same book I am trying to learn from the past few days, but this time I was focusing on some of these 'Blooks'- these were those cartoon head studies that I started on yesterday.
These I wasn't sure what the hell was I trying to study on, as they seem more animal then human to me. Probably has something to do with those elongated noses, or mouths, or whatever they are meant to be on their face.
Despite trying that guy with the moustache (Loomis does like to replace the mouths with these things!) three times, I feel that these were successful to look at. But that might be down to Loomis' appealing character design for that 'Blook'.
The head studies on the right seemed successful to understand what was going, as the construction used a rectangle, coming out the ball shape for the head, to form the head structure. It also felt familiar to do that, as I was taught by a graphic artist, at university, to keep the mouth shape separate from the rest of the head. But this was certainly not drawing deja vu, as I was applying what studying from that Loomis book, rather then from that actual professional tutor.

Wednesday 25 August 2010

Post a Drawing Every Day- Day 24- MORE Drawing Tutorials from Loomis' book

Same book as before... only a few exercises done today.

I thought things haven't gone too smoothly, as I couldn't get to grip on the author's cartooning approach over his further methodology to work on the head- but that's why I show all my drawings, and studies, like this to get an idea of what seems to be working.

I might notice some improvement over some of head construction that I was trying to start yesterday, as that was showing what I was trying to studying the basics of Loomis' head construction techniques. But when Loomis introduced his 'Blook' Ball approach to head construction, it seemed I couldn't get my head around over this approach, as this contradicted some of his earlier stuff about drawing cross-lines above your nose shape, which is used to place your eyes and mouth shape. This is because, from my view, it is now encouraging me to use the axis across your face construction to place your eyes and ears- if that made any sense, then I'm probably not alone in this conundrum. 

Tuesday 24 August 2010

Post a Drawing Every Day- Day 23- Drawing Tutorials from Loomis' book

One of the main text I was recommend to improve the basics in drawing was this Loomis book. So I got around to doing some of the first few exercises from the book.

I won't discuss the methodology going on here because it's self explanatory when you read the first batch of pages. It took me a while to get accustomed to Loomis' approaches, particularly those methods to drawing heads with further details attached to their cranium 'balls'. I took me a while to drawing just basic shapes, which gave me an impression of trying to draw the buildings in Noddy's Toy Town- made of building blocks, for those that aren't aware of Noddy.  But when it came to apply my own take on character faces, from the instructed method, it might stick with me. But that will have to wait for another day for this drawing lesson to really sink in, I guess.

Monday 23 August 2010

Post a Drawing Every Day- Day 22- Life/Figure Drawings

Life Drawing
I was doing the same trip, from a few days back, so this meant I was doing some life drawings- technically figure drawings... before I get shtick from life drawing purists over my last attempts!
Life Drawing
Same subject as the previous picture, but done at a quicker pace to sort out her pose.
Figure Drawing- Statues
Found some interesting statues that I thought would make a great subject.
Figure Drawing- Statues
But after this drawing I decided to focus on the statue on the left of the window.
Figure Drawing- Statue
This was one of my better drawings... shame about the gap between the pages of my A5 sketch book.