Title: 001
Size: 11 x 14″
Medium: Graphite on Bristol Smooth
Time: 4.45 hours
Status: WIP

I’ve done a few more hours on this baby. It’s been particularly challenging. The reference image is deliberately tight and close in on my face and as such, I can see every little pore and imperfection of my skin. While kind of distracting on a personal, self-conscious level, I am considering capturing the texture as much as I can. I know this will mean that the drawing will take even longer to complete, but I think it might be a rewarding challenge.

I’m also not as unhappy with the size of the eyes as I have been. Now that I am laying down the value, the eyes are starting to look a little less beady, and a little more accurate. So this pleases me.

What does not please me is that my work ethic has not yet improved. I am still only working on my lunch break, which is entirely too lame to talk about. I desperately need to start “scheduling time”. Things would go much faster if I actually worked on the drawing.

This past Saturday was Drawing Day. And to celebrate, I hosted a sketchcrawl through the art group. If you are interested, I uploaded a couple photos from the event here.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to pound Calgary with a crazy hail/snow/rain storm for much of the day. It was kind of depressing. Still, about eight of us showed up and we wandered the +15s for a good couple hours in a vain effort to find something to sketch (albeit mostly unsuccessfully). That said, we did manage about 20 minutes outside doing some actual sketching and despite the weather setback, I did receive enough positive feedback to try and plan sketchcrawls on a monthly basis. I’m just going to make the events weather dependent. There’s no point trying to run a sketchcrawl if the weather sucks. Our next one will be on July 12th. Maybe July will be much more forgiving than June.

Another thing to come out of Saturday’s event is that I think we are going to consider a group show towards the end of the year. Maybe as our last event of 2009. Just a one day show – some art, some snacks – nothing fancy. It will allow groups members to display their work (many for the first time, methinks). I think we’ll need to figure out logistics and a show theme (if any). I think I’m going to see about setting up a team for this event as it might be a little more ambitious than normal. But the thought of a group show is kind of exciting!

Speaking of group shows, apparently the Annual Visual Design Exhibition is going ahead again this year. Though, I only found out about it because I was on the website. Weird, that I didn’t receive an email. Hurm. Anyway, the deadline for submissions is June 30th. And to be honest, I’m not sure if I am really keen on submitting. Most of the art I have done of the last little while has essentially been fan-art and I’m not sure if I really wanna submit it; even if the drawings are of really good quality. Though, and here’s a funny idea, I have a few photos of W that might be interesting to submit. I think that would be hilarious to submit photos instead of drawings.

But really, I am on the fence. I’ll have to go through my portfolio and see if there is anything that could be deemed submittable. Och.