I’m back in love with my latest portrait. The affection was waning for a little while, but after a very productive session last night, I think she is coming together nicely. I think I’m going to love drawing her scarf.

I also did a quick hand study. Not bad, I suppose. Probably one of my better drawn hands. It showed me that if I keep at it, I can actually draw a hand and not a fleshy mound with sausage fingers. So I suppose that is what they call hope?

Still, I’m looking into finding some art reference books that are devoted to hands and feet. If for nothing else than reference images. I checked out the library yesterday, but it seems everyone has a hand/foot affliction as none of the books were in. I might have to reserve one or something. Crazy.

I swiped a few poses from PoseManiacs (PoseManiacs FTW! It really is one of the best artistic resources on the internets!) and just sketched for about an hour or so last night. Nothing fancy, just a nude. Overall, I’m pleased. I mean, proportionally, there are some problems - namely her hands, her arms, the size of her head (I think it might too small), and the details of her face*. But it captures the pose (though slightly more turned than the default) quite nicely.

And, I found this line tutorial by Amy Hadley. I think it has some pretty interesting stuff. Especially to an inking newbie such as myself. I’m going to take a more detailed read through it tonight. I think it might help my inking/line skills a lot. Well, here’s hoping anyway.

Lookit! An actual photo update! Please try not to fall over.

It doesn’t actually look like I did that much work, but I did. No, really. Just some fine tuning and shading.

His mouth is still wrong, but it’s getting better. I think the right (artist right) hand side is just.. wrong. It might be curving upward too much. It’s hard to tell because he’s actually pursing his lips in the photo. Hm. I might have to double-check it in a mirror to be sure. That always seems to help. His forehead has been troublesome as well. He has a forehead crease that is going to be interesting. I’m not used to drawing wrinkles (ha!). But it’s good practice, I suppose.

With any luck, I’ll have this done by my soft deadline of June 1st - especially with my upcoming two days off. That would be swell. Then I should probably work on my show submissions. I hate photographing my work. Loathe it. My light is always shit. I really need to get those lights I was yammering on about a while ago. But I’ll make do. The photos just need to show them the piece and potentially what it would look like hanging in a gallery. Easy, breezy.

Still, I’m taking tonight off. W and I are going to see Indiana Jones . Archaeologist fun always comes first, I’m afraid. And yes, I’m pretty excited!

W, it was a fluke that you waltzed back into my life. But it was kismet that you stayed this time.
I love you. Happy Anniversary.

Started work on a new portrait last night. Yup, it’s supposed to be J and S. But I realize I am not quite there yet. They both have chin issues and S’ eyes are wonky. Plus, I need to re-examine my reference photo because J has no lips in it. But as a preliminary sketch? None too shabby, methinks. I mean, I can identify who they are supposed to be at least.

The primary reason I am doing this one is because I have never ever done a portrait that consisted of two people before. Ok, thats a lie, I’ve done two previous but they completely sucked ass - so we don’t talk about it. I wanted to challenge myself a bit on this one. And I haven’t done any type of real project in a couple months. Besides, its a pretty awesome photo of J and S, I must say.

Speaking of S, she was in town this weekend. A bunch of us got together for some buffet goodness. There were much joviality and Vegas discussion (everyone at breakfast are going to Vegas in a couple weeks). Very much good times. Vegas is gonna be rad. Can’t wait.

After breakfast, S dropped W and I off and then we set to task eliminating a small mouse problem we have been experiencing the last couple of weeks. We have cats, sure. But these little pesky critters were smart enough to stay underneath the kitchen sink, or scurry up on the kitchen counter (yeah, that was very thrilling). Places that Odin and Loki just do not go. But, we think we tracked down all the of points of entry that they could possibly be using and filled them with Great Stuff. And when I say fill, it’s kind of an understatement. W was having much too much fun with it.     He just needs to trim it up a bit now because it looks like the Stuff is insidiously invading our apartment. I also set a few live capture* traps just in case.

I gotta say though, if the filler and the traps don’t work, then that’s it. We are totally dealing with Pinky and the Brain. ‘Nuff said.

*Yes, yes, they might be pests, but they probably have as much right to be there as we do. No way am I going to be karmically responsible for snapping some mouse’s back or busting up a leg or something. No, thank you.

I got back to basics last night and finally picked up a pencil. It was the first time in a week! Sad, I know. But I suppose I just needed to decompress a bit after finishing my last class. Normally, I go months without getting back into my routine.  So when you look at it, a week is nothing. 

I started sketching some hands last night. I used some reference images that I found on WetCanvas.  So far, so good. I mean, I only managed to squeeze in about fifteen minutes worth of sketching (sad, sad, sad!)  They are very basic. But I think I am off to a good start.  I’m pleased with how these sketches turned out.  And my thumb isn’t bad either.  ;)  They aren’t 100% accurate, but they are pretty good - better than I figured they would be.  I just have to keep at it, I guess - practice makes perfect and all that.

And, ya know, maybe I should stop playing FFXII so much. 

S sent me this yesterday. It really truly is brilliant!

And if you are wondering (oh and I know you are!), I think I end with Web-Designer. Heh. I’ve never attended a Renaissance Faire, otherwise, that might have been my route too! Very funny.

I took it easy last night - a small personal celebration of finishing my Certificate, if you will. There was hopes of playing some FFXII (Fran! Fran!), but W came home early and he won’t let me play it when he’s around because he’s worried about spoilers. Yeesh. So instead I opted to watch the special features on the Planet Terror and Death Proof DVDs.

Tonight, the plan is hands. My hope is to become waaaay more proficient at drawing hands (and feet). I think I’d like to devote a couple days a week to working on them - sketching them. Right now, they are certainly my weakest link. And they aren’t going to improve if I keep avoiding them (as I have been). So I figured I should just throw myself in.

ETA: Oh and I managed to clean my camera and get rid of that yucky spot.  It always pays to read your manual. Just saying. But yay for no spendy camera cleaning business!

Dudes, it’s February. How did that happen? Crazy.

I went back to the bones last night. I finished off my first ribcage. I’m pleased with it. Though, in retrospect, I think it’s probably too narrow, but still, it let me analyze rib bone structure and organization, so I’m not going to complain too much. And ya know, I’m not entirely sure the book I am working from is beneficial or not because it’s a collection of sketches that someone else already did. So really, I’m just copying someone else’s anatomy studies. It has its benefits - especially since I don’t have a corpse to work from handy. But I think maybe I should be working from photographs? I’m not sure.

I think I’ll take a trip to the library today and see what kind anatomy references they have. Maybe pick up a copy of Gray’s.

I still haven’t determined how I am going to time manage my anatomy studies. It might end up being an ongoing project rather than a 2008 one. I think I’m ok with that. And I still need to squeeze in the other project that I’d like to start too. Ugh. My time management sucks.

But, tonight, eggs. Definitely. I finished mapping out my composition last night. I think I am drawing several hundred eggs!?! Our minimum was uhm, three. I’m nothing if not ambitious.

Just a sketch. I’ve started working on the ribcage, which I must say I am enjoying more than the spine - even if that pesky thing managed to make a guest spot in this study as well.

I have also decided to cut my anatomy time back somewhat. Instead of trying to do anatomy studies every day, I think I am going to do it every other day or at the very least three times a week. This will leave room for EDM as well as some other pieces that I’d like to get a jump on. Sooner or later this whole time management thing will work itself out. I hope.

Going to see Juno tomorrow with Carrie. Not really Carrie’s kinda movie, but she’s indulging me. Can’t wait. Canada represent!

In addition to the EDM challenge, I also (thankfully) managed to finish my last remaining spine study. ‘m not sure why, but I was having so much trouble maintaining any type of reasonable interest in these studies. I just did not care. I mean, that’s not altogether true, I cared in the sense that it was one step in my anatomy project and its important to the overall scope. But specifically? Didn’t care.

That being said, I did manage to learn something about the human spine and that was the point. So mission accomplished, right?

Yesterday was a bit busy, so I only managed to add shadow to one of my remaining spines. Not sure how I feel about this one. It was probably too rushed. I think my indecisiveness is underlined by my disinterest in this part of human anatomy. I can’t wait to move onto the ribs - hopefully this week.

I’ve also figured out my next two projects - one is kinda top sekrit, so I probably won’t be posting my progress here. But I should be posting updates of the other project. We’ll see. I have to actually start the projects first.

I picked up some more mechanical pencils yesterday, so I can have a variety. And I grabbed some new pens too. I’m going to use only pens in my new moleskine book methinks. I might even give watercolour a go. Exciting!

Aside from that Will and I saw Cloverfield yesterday. While it wasn’t anything new in the genre of disaster/monster flicks, the execution was interesting. Yes, very Blair Witch, definitely. I loved the fact that you never know what the monster is - where it comes from - why its there - or what happened to it? Awesome. I enjoyed it more than Will, but then again, I have a bizarre love of disaster/monster flicks that he doesn’t share.

And we also picked up Dragonlance from Best Buy on our way home. I’ve put my long and exhaustive review up at my livejournal because I think only one person will even be interested and its not even remotely art-related. Hee. So I’ll save the masses.

Needless to say, I was disappointed though.

Just a couple spine sketches for this evening. I’m back at my anatomy studies and while I adored the human skull, the human spine is so…tedious. Now as a functioning thing, I very much appreciate my spine, but to draw? Not so much. I can’t wait to get pass this bit. But I have learned a lot, I will say that. And thats the whole point of this project, so maybe I should stop whining.

And a big thank you to everyone from EDM that might have stopped by - especially those lovely individuals who have left me some comments and feedback. I appreciate it so very much and certainly makes a girl feel welcome in your space part of cyberspace. I can’t wait to participate more actively. So, thank you!

Moved a little bit away from skulls last night and headed towards the spinal column. And let me tell you this, spines are difficult. Now drawing the actual spine-ie bits are ok. Like most things, they are pretty repetitive. No, no, its making sure you don’t give your subject scoliosis that is tricky! I think I reworked the curve of the spine about six times last night. Though, to be fair, I didn’t spend nearly as much time on this sketch as I have previous ones because I was a complete lazy ass last night.

First, I lollygagged practicing guitar. Then I hummed and hawwed about whether or not I even wanted to sketch last night. But guilt is a marvelous thing and I rolled out my sketchbook around 8:30. Which was probably the best thing for me especially since I didn’t have a particularly productive guitar practice.

I’m learning a new string and trying to get my fingers (and brain) around it. I found a website that shows you how to do scales (on all the strings) and gives you practice songs to try. And the best thing is that the music is all in tablature form rather than written music. Now, I know I need to learn how to read music, but honestly, it is probably the thing that is hanging me up the most. So far I have learned how to read six notes on a staff and I keep confusing them. And I get frustrated. Blah. Its never good. Someone ought to offer a How to Read Music Effectively course, or something.

In less aggravating news, my camera is at the post office! Yay! I asked Shan to send it to work so I wouldn’t have to go and get it. I’m lazy that way. But it seems that the post person decided to be an asshat and just leave the notice rather than buzzing up to our office. Then again, my office is in a condo complex so mebbe they figured I wouldn’t be “home”. Either way, I’ll have that baby in my hot little hands by lunchtime. Yay.

And when did Calgary become Canada’s Windiest City? Ok, maybe not. But I swear that each day it seems to be windier and windier. And ya know, a girl likes warm wind (which explains why Wellington’s wind wasn’t THAT bad), but bone-chilling Arctic wind is not fun. No, thanks.

I blame the butterflies.

Ugh, I kinda hate when I have busy weekends. It makes me feel like I didn’t get anything done. But I did, that’s the weird part. There were a lot of errands done as well as tackling a bit of a spring winter cleaning of our closet to create a bit more room. I think I kinda love purging old crap. It’s kinda liberating. I don’t think I could ever be one of those people who hangs onto everything. I just couldn’t do it.

Still, there was some room for socializing. We had sushi with some friends on Saturday which included a lot of Guitar Hero on Wii. And, I even tried a little bit of sushi! Nothing fancy, just a bit of salmon, snapper and tuna (the latter being my least favourite). I don’t know if I would eat it all the time - especially since I’m not a huge fan of seafood. But still, yay for having the guts to try something new! Especially something as scary as sushi!

I also managed to squeezed in some sketching. More skulls or parts of skulls. I think I’m getting better at them. Maybe? Though, admittedly, the jaw bone is a bit off. Ah well. Tonight I move onto the spinal column.

I also made the decision yesterday to put the art card project I kept raving about on hold. I realize that this makes me a huge slacker, but the reason is that I am just not in a mixed media headspace. My brain is pretty much focused on drawing and with the exception of my ink painting class, I really have no desire to deviate from that. And really, I don’t want to put in half an effort and that is precisely what would happen. So I’m going to file it away and try to pull out the idea of the project when I am less focused. I’m enjoying drawing so much that I guess I just don’t wanna rock the proverbial boat.

Oh, I also framed my beauteous White Stripes print that Shan and Josh gave me. Crap, its gorgeous. The original plan was to put it near my desk, but it’s so gorgeous that it required itself be placed in the living room. The only problem is that I had no room in the living room. So I had to do the unseeming task of removing my other White Stripes poster (coincidentally Shan gave me that one too, heh) to make room for it. Unfortunately, this meant that the older one is now in storage until we get a bigger place. But still, there is much pretty in my living room so I guess that makes up for it?

Speaking of Shan, she’ll be in town on April 13th. Yay.

I didn’t work on my self-portrait tonight. I was too distracted by the awfulness of Hannibal Rising. I never thought I would watch a film about a serial killer that was so boring. Holy. So I did almost no work. Except I did work on another skull. The human skull is pretty much rad, ya know.

And our tub is fixed! Yay! The plumber was working on it when I got home. I guess he has to come back for one small thing tomorrow, but I got to have a shower tonight so that’s really all I care about.

Now that I am finished the bug tweaking, I was able to start getting into my regular schedule last night. It was, well, nice. I did another sketch for the anatomy studies (rearview of a skull) and did a bit more work on the self-portrait (see above). I’m extremely pleased with the mouth on my self-portrait. Extremely. And frankly, the above scan doesn’t do it justice. The new scanner I have is awesome, but it doesn’t like the awkwardness of my sketchbook’s bindings. [grumble] Still, you get the idea.

On a completely different note, I started working with Will’s my guitar. I learned three notes! I know, its not spectacular or awe-inspiring, but you have to understand that I am coming at this thing as a complete n00b, so I am starting slow. Totally slow. I mean, I worked with it for an hour. Hee. Last night was three notes on one string and I hope to do that same tonight. Will has a couple of books that I am working from. I think once I have a solid base - which primarily consists of understanding my finger placement (which is hard) as well as correctly reading music - I might investigate a really-real instructor type. Right now, I am just getting myself used to the instrument and the new language I am learning.

And our tub is still outta commission. No one came yesterday. No one called me. [insert my annoyance here] I left a message with my landlord asking them to call me. I’m guess I’ll give them until noon to return my call. If they don’t, I suppose I’ll call again. I detest chasing after people. I loathe it, in fact. I mean, I know that this is my emergency, but as my landlord, my emergency should become his, no? It really just seems like as landlords, they are slipping. They used to be so good. I mean, for 10 years they have been great. Lately? Not so much.

But really, I just wanna be able to take a shower, man. These sink-size sponge baths are doing nothing for me. I’m a girl! We like to bathe!

ETA: [10:26 am] Just got off the phone with my landlord. Apparently the plumber will be at the house in about a half an hour. Yes, I said I would call at noon, but I am impatient. I am just glad its being taken care of today. I didn’t enjoy the idea of crashing my parents house just so I can take a shower. It just seems wrong.

Gah. This website really just wants to kick my ass. Everytime I think I have the code figured out, something else happens and I have to rework it. So yeah, there might be some bugs here and there until I figure it out. Blah. Fuck this stupid code up its stupid ass. Grrrrrrr.

It’s shit like this that makes a girl very very cranky, then add in a completely plugged bathtub (which requires a visit from my landlord’s plumber tomorrow) and well, I didn’t get much accomplished tonight.

Still, above is an update of my self-portrait and my first anatomy study/sketch.

I love skulls, just saying.

Now, I’m going to go and hurt my brain reading some guitar books.

As I suspected, I think I might have to push my 365 days project until January. With all of the upcoming Solstice/Yule projects, I don’t know if I will be able to devote as much time to the project as I would like. I mean, the drawing of my Mom is going slowly. Like very slowly. Which probably isn’t good in itself, but I’ll worry about that later.

So my thought is to start anew in January. That way I won’t be overdoing it and burning myself out. In the meantime, I’m still technically working on figure elements, so its not a complete loss. Plus, it will allow me to prepare better. I’d like to try and find volunteers that would be open to posing for me - not necessarily nude either.

In my short tenure in the project, I realize that I need really-real models. My pinup images are fine for what they are and I love them beyond rhyme or reason. But real people just don’t pose like that. And really, how many male pinup images have you seen lately?

I think if I am a bit more prepared - perhaps even loosing mapping out what I would like to accomplish with the project then it might be a lot better all around. Goals are often good motivators. So I think that’s what I will be doing for the next couple of months when I am not working on the Solstice/Yule projects. Preparation is key!

Speaking of which, here’s the list of what I think I need to do before December 25th.

Solstice/Yule Projects:

• Mom/Dad: Mom/Dad graphite drawings (2)
• Will: Ok, technically, we aren’t exchanging presents. But I’m a masochist and I want him to open something. I just really don’t know what I’d like to do for him.
• Serenna: Dolphin/Horse graphite drawing
• Greg: ?? Ugh, my brother is the worst person to try and figure out. I had thought about some sort of dj thing - since he’s all about the house music. But I might just cop out and get him a gift certificate. It would make shipping a lot easier. Hee. This one is definitely a time permitting one.
• Linda/Danny: Will says that Danny likes western themes (someone hates me!) so I might see about a horse drawing. Mebbe a landscape (someone really hates me!) If time permits, I might even do a painting.

So if my pace keeps up like it is, it’s going to be a busy couple of months. And I don’t even want to think about the matting and framing portion of this gong show. Meh.

The fact that I haven’t posted here in a couple days does not allude me. Honestly, I haven’t really even put pencil to paper in a few days. Sad, I know. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been productive. I’ve been reading a lot of Loomis as of late. He explains proportion very well. I really appreciate his techniques and explanations. He’s pretty meticulous, which is nice - meticulous is good in these types of circumstances. As I am brushing up on the reading, I guess its not all bad. Its not like I have been spending copious amounts of time on some dumb online rpg. ahem. ok, haven’t been spending all my time on said rpg.

I’ve also updated my online portfolio I’ve added a shitload of old work that has been waiting to be uploaded. A lot of it isn’t very good, but I like the reminder of what I used to do. And ya know, in looking at my old work, it’s really a big mish-mash of stuff. I think the only real theme that runs throughout is people. Well, for the most part. Most of my studies aren’t people.

I’ve also been considering putting a link to this blog on my main website. I’m debating because truthfully, there is really only one person who knows anything about this blog and that’s kinda refreshing. I mean, even though its only an art blog - it still allows me to be pretty candid. My fear is that if I open it up to the masses (well, the masses being family and friends) then I’ll feel like I have to censor myself somewhat, which is something I’m not particularly interested in.

Still, even if I don’t link the blog on the main page, I am going to join some sort of directory listing, to test the waters if you will. I mean, I have no qualms about strangers reading my blog. Though, I can’t for the life of me understand why they would wanna.

At any rate, I hope to be back doing the same old, same old and posting drawings tomorrow maybe.