Distorted Portrait Studies

I started taking weird snapshots a couple of years ago. I would take the pictures from above, letting foreshortening distort faces. Now I've started sketching from those photos.

For this first one, I selected out 3 colored pencils from my bag at random. Peach, orange and violet were an easy set to color with. I sketched in some of the fine, dark shadows with a Pigma Micron pen and I blocked in the background with a purple Tombow marker to make it pop.

Distorted portrait study, 5.5 by 8.5 inches (14 by 21.6 cm), mixed-media on paper

Later that evening, I turned the page and drew another in graphite while watching shows with my family. The marker shows through in places, making for an interesting contamination.

Distorted portrait study, 5.5 by 8.5 inches (14 by 21.6 cm), graphite on paper

The sketchbook I used was too tightly bound for me to get a good scan of the drawings, so I took photos and played with a perspective distortion to square-up the pages. This distorted the drawings even more than the odd photos did. Overall I was encouraged by these studies and I'm planning to explore these ideas further.

Catching-up With Salvaged Papercrafts

I could call this "catching up after not posting for months" or I could look on the bright side and say I have enough of a backlog of subjects to post about to last for quite some time to come.

In January and February of this year (2021) I participated in the ART.HAPPENS virtual art show 

My entry was a collection of projects using papers that were on their way to the recycle bin. I call it Salvaged Papercrafts

Adventures in 3D Modeling Cubes

I've been practicing UV mapping in Blender. I worked through some 3D animation tutorials about a decade ago, and then hardly touched the program since. I wanted to make 3D models to preview how boxes I'm designing will look when printed and assembled. It's been useful: I was surprised at how much worse the boxes look when I make the cube's net cross-shaped than when I made it T-shaped. (Note: I was very happy to learn the term "net" for when you unfold a polyhedron.)

Once I understood how to slice the model and arrange the nodes for the UV map, I wanted to get pretty pictures documenting the designs. That's where I hit a brick wall. I didn't understand how lighting works in Blender. After a lot of confusion, I found Wikibooks' Blender 3D: Noob to Pro, which has been a great help when other sources talk about what I can do, but skip a lot of steps in how to do it.

So, I had my textured model and my lights. I was ready to render, right? No, it turns out I didn't have the material set properly on my cubes, so they just rendered as a flat color. A sad, flat color.

I found out what I'd done wrong pretty easily (I was far from the first to make that mistake!), but fixing it proved vexing. I thought I had everything set up like the guides said, but it still didn't work. All I can figure is I must have been clicking around and toggled a setting that kept the other settings from working properly. Since I couldn't find where I'd gone wrong, I went back to square cube one: a new file. Redoing the UV mapping was quick and easy, now that I understand how it works. I carefully followed the instructions for setting up a new material and then roughed in the lighting to test it: BINGO! I had beautifully skinned boxes.

I've learned a lot today. Next I want to re-learn how to do simple animations.

Intergalactic Space Ferrets

I'm doing another #Botober drawing prompt for Artober. This prompt, "Intergalactic space ferrets," is from the Things list.

I made an effort to relax with this drawing and I enjoyed my quick ferret sketches. I made the background in GIMP and digitally collaged them together.

The Bot Said Y

Artober day 3: I turned to Janelle Shane's #Botober prompts for inspiration. Today's prompt from the Concepts list is Y. This is my drawing:

Personifying a Peroxisome

I love cell biology. I'm fond of lysosomes, ribosomes and the endoplasmic reticulum. Earlier this year, after reading an article about peroxisomes, I imagined a roguish character equipped with a large variety of vials containing powerful potions (representing the diverse array of enzymes peroxisomes can contain).

For my second Artober drawing of 2020, I present Peroxisome:

Foxy Start to Artober

For the first day of Artober 2020 I decided to draw a character for a multimedia project I'm dreaming up. This foxy fellow is holding a cue stick and looking fine.

Rain Deer 01

I have long had notes on a series of strange deer I want to draw. Here is one I created while experimenting with Rebelle 3. Please welcome Rain Deer 01 to the world:

Fruit Challenge Character 01

When I saw Sea Lemon's 30 Day Art Challenge: Fruit, I thought I might take inspiration from it and combine it with my desire to practice drawing characters. I drew a character and then did the coloring based on the fruit list. Here's my first drawing for this series:

And here is the drawing, digitally colored as per watermelons:

I'm not holding myself to finishing the challenge, since I started this drawing on May 2nd and only just colored it today!

Zinger and Hornet Illustration

Zinger (you know who you are!) challenged me to draw a hornet standing on a "zinger." I accepted the challenge, although I had to look up what a zinger was first! It's an in-joke, but I hope others will like it, too.

Inked with Sakura Pigma Micron pens, colored digitally

Wherever you are in the world and whoever you are, I hope you and your loved ones stay safe!

Athlete with Mattock 001

While I was riding in a car, I thought I saw a woman in athletic-wear holding a mattock. This is my interpretation of the sight, finished in different ways.

Digital Paintings 004 & 005

004 is another practice landscape. This one was inspired by Bob Ross - Ebony Sunset (Season 1 Episode 3)

Digitally painted landscape 005 is not based on a tutorial. For this one, I challenged myself to work from a random prompt. I generated this prompt from Random Landscape Generator

You stand in a hilly region smattered with broken dark stones. It's also replete with huge shrubs.  You can see a bog on the horizon and a monastery in the distance.  The temperature is warm and the sky is partially cloudy.

Digital Painting 003

Another practice piece, reinterpreting a Bob Ross tutorial digitally. Here is what I made inspired by Bob Ross - Mt. McKinley (Season 1 Episode 2)

Digital Painting 002

I decided to practice digital painting by interpreting another Bob Ross tutorial digitally. Here is what I made with Bob Ross - A Walk in the Woods (Season 1 Episode 1)

Digital Painting 001

I recently watched some videos of people following Bob Ross tutorials. Some of the artists in the videos tried to follow the oil painting tutorials digitally. I watched them struggle. Maybe it was all for show (having trouble makes for a more dramatic video), but I found myself thinking of ways to do it better.

I opened GIMP and plugged in the Wacom Bamboo tablet I'm borrowing from my mom. This is what I created following the video Bob Ross - Meadow Lake (Season 2 Episode 1)

This worked better than I hoped and makes me think I can do better. Now I want to practice more digital paintings of imaginary places.

Owl

31st Inktober prompt: Owl

Inspired by Janelle Shane's A.I.nktober: A neural net creates drawing prompts

Combo

30th Inktober prompt: Combo

Inspired by Janelle Shane's A.I.nktober: A neural net creates drawing prompts

Road turtle, Weeeee, It really ate him, Brokenly

29th Inktober prompts: Road turtle, Weeeee, It really ate him, Brokenly

I decided to incorporate all the 29th prompts Janelle Shane's A.I.nktober: A neural net creates drawing prompts, plus the bonus content.

Magician boat

28th Inktober drawing prompt: Magician boat

Inspired by Janelle Shane's A.I.nktober: A neural net creates drawing prompts

master plan

27th Inktober prompt: master plan

Inspired by Janelle Shane's A.I.nktober: A neural net creates drawing prompts