First of all, let me say this, if you are an artist and you need reference images, run - do not walk - your butt over to morgueFile.com. They have amazing royalty-free images that artists (or anyone really) can use without cost and, in most cases, without credit. Though, let’s face it, it would be kind of tactless to not provide credit. I’m all over giving credit for anything I use.

The photos are even available for commercial pursuits.

I posted a question on their forum (again, a fantastic resource!) regarding their terms and conditions and whether or not I could utilize photos in their archive for my portrait work (I really need to find some models, dudes). I found some really fantastic photos that I’d like to draw for a new portrait series I have been kicking around*.

Anyway, after mentioning in my post that I’d like to learn a bit more about photography so I can take my own reference images, one of the members pointed me in the direction of this online class. Dudes, this is completely perfect for me! It’s very basic and looks completely manageable from a time perspective. I could do it at my own pace - probably (if I do it right) squeezing in each lesson once a week.

I am particularly interested in the two studio lighting lessons. I really kinda love the DIY nature of it. Sister, loves a good DIY!

I guess the actual class is long since over, but many people still post their assignments for discussion in the forums. I think it would be kinda awesome. And not to mention helpful. Especially since I have been incredibly lame with my photographic pursuits as of late. Though, my lameness is kinda awesome because it just means that I have been drawing more, so I won’t complain too much. Still, I am consistently bemoaning my lack o’ mad skillz, so maybe this little bitty course can help with that.

It can’t hurt right?

Oh, I should have a really-real update tonight. I just started a new piece - I took a couple days off after finishing my previous piece. Hopefully, the first in the aforementioned portrait series.

*The steampunk thing and the circus freak thing have been put on hold indefinitely. See? I am fucking flighty! And no, I do not want to talk about it. Blah.

Ugh. So exhausted. I don’t feel like blogging. I’m feeling kind of overwhelmed at the moment. So instead, you get gallery links to a whole whack of photos I have added to my domain.

• Calgary Expo, Day 1
• Calgary Expo, Day 2
• Vegas 2008 (Such a good trip! I will elaborate more later!)
• W (a new artistic photography gallery with W as my subject matter )

I promise to post a nice long update tomorrow. Hopefully.

I managed to slap down graphite for S’s mouth and her teeth. So far, so good. In fact, I’m much more pleased with her teeth/mouth this time than the version I did last time. Improvement, yay!

Still, that said, I think I might need to tweak her teeth slightly. There’s something that’s still bugging me about them. I just can’t put my finger on it quite yet.

Also? I don’t mind saying that I think her labret is awesomesauce. It looks like a labret and not a mole as sometimes happens. Hee. Yay.
I’m still working on this photography thing. I keep trying the tips I learned on the weekend, but they don’t seem to be working out for me. Or rather, I just don’t know what I am doing. The latter is probably more accurate. Heh. I brought my camera manual to work to flip through. Maybe reading the manual will help?! Though, I am finding that a lot of the websites on the internets are geared more towards photographing paintings rather than graphite drawings, which is kind of frustrating because I think paintings are probably easier to photograph. Graphite is pretty nuanced so capturing it accurately is a pretty big freaking challenge.

Maybe someone needs to buy me a large format scanner. Yup, I think that’s a lazy reasonable solution.

ETA: I think I might have a solution to my photography woes - well, aside from the obvious. Lights! I’m looking at some really inexpensive continuous light kits on eBay. Get a couple of light stands and stuff. Something portable. Something easy. Something inexpensive. I’m not going to drop a shitload of coin on something that will only be used as a tool for capturing my artwork. It would be really great if I could have professional looking photographs of my work and I am getting sick of my quasi-setup in the kitchen. The lighting is bad and I just keep getting pissed off. I realize it might be overkill and I should just try and get comfortable with my camera first. But I want! Ok, I want later after we get back from Vegas. But still. Want. And if any of you photographer types are reading this and have any suggestions, please feel free to send ‘em my way!

Happy Earth Day!

The majority of last night was spent working on the shadows on S’s face. Previously, they were much, much too dark and the contrast between the highlighted portions and the shadows was too stark. Didn’t like it. At all. I think I blame the reference image I was working on. The contrast was turned up a little too much. It was a bit harsh. Now, I think she looks more natural. More S like.

I think the thing that helped me the most was that I switched my pencil. Initially, I had been using a 2B - which is freaking awesome for going to those dark places. But with the light nuances of skin, I tend to be a little heavy handed. I need a pencil that doesn’t go that dark. It’s kind of a preventative thing. Last night I switched to a 2H. If you look at her nose and the right corner (the viewer’s right) of her mouth, you can see that its much more nuanced than previous update photos. At least I think so.

The plan is to try and have her mouth finished tonight. Or at least have a layer of graphite laid down. I’d like to be able to start her hair this weekend since I know it’s going to take… for-ever.

But, I think if I keep being as productive as I have been over the last couple days that I should have the piece finished by the middle of May, which completely works because the show submission deadline is June 15th. I’ll have plenty of time to frame and photograph it.

I really need to work on my update photos. I’m having a rough time photographing my stuff. My lighting is bad, my shutter speed is too slow, or, I just don’t get an accurate representative of the line work/shading. I usually end up doing a lot of post when I take these pesky photos and the post isn’t even that accurate. Really, I’m talking about the fact that I can’t get the paper the right colour of white. In my head, I seem to think that if I get the white right then everything else will fall into place. Heh. I tried some of S†’s suggestions regarding white balance, but I think I just need to practice some more.  Practice my white balance and finding the right f-stop. Shutter speeds kick my ass. Just saying.

I should probably do some research about photographing art because I’m a firm believer that its a much different process than taking your average photo. And maybe, ya know, learn how to really use Lightroom. 

There was almost camera drama yesterday. After taking the above update photos, I tried to transfer them to my laptop. But no matter what I did, the USB cable/camera was not recognized by my laptop. I switched cables and nothing. I switched computers and nothing. I did a system restore and nothing. I figure the problem is with the camera itself. Although it seems to be transferring images, it just isn’t. So I was in a bit of a panic - especially with our trip to Vegas coming up. But I figured I should probably go to bed - it was starting to becoming exceedingly late.

I woke up this morning and buggered with it some more. Nothing. Then I used W’s camera to see if maybe it was my USB ports. And his camera worked. So needless to say, I was one crabby bitch this morning. So frustrated. Until it dawned on me, my laptop has a built-in card reader. Uhm, duh.

I slapped the card into the card reader and success! I know it doesn’t fix the problem with my camera and I should probably take it in to get looked at. But at least now, I don’t have to be in such a rush. Yay.

In other news, I made some pretty decent headway with my latest piece. S’s face is starting to come together quite nicely. Though, the photos above are probably a bit darker than the original. I’m still figuring out my white balance settings. I think I have decided that if this piece turns out, I am going to submit it to the show. I’m pretty happy with it thus far. I mean, there are a few things that need to be tweaked - namely the rigidity and texture of S’s face. But some decent blending can help to alleviate that.

Saturday was awesome. A bunch of us headed to S† and P’s place for some birthday celebration fun. There was snacks, cake, pizza, Wii, Guitar Hero and more importantly, Lego Star Wars*.

The evening also afforded S† to give me a few dSLR pointers, which was pretty swell. He also re-introduced me to HDR. So pretty. Not sure if its something I’d do - I tend to be so lazy when it comes to post. But still, very pretty! And let’s face it, I still have no idea what I am doing with my new camera. Really, I think I need a long vacation to help me use my camera better. That’s what happened the last time. When you use it all the time, you get to know it better. I need to get to know my camera. Although, next weekend is the Calgary Expo, so maybe I’ll have some time then.

And yay, W only has one more week of school! Yay!

†Different S, this is the boy S. This is my clever alternative so I can still be sneaky with the capital letters. Uhm, or something.
*We are totally getting it for PS2. Just saying.

No real update. I felt (feel) like crap. I didn’t do much of anything last night - save laundry and grocery shopping. I did get my new camera, but I haven’t really had time (or any inclination) to play with it. It’s neato though (and all of my lens filters and lens adapters fit it!)

And its really kinda sad about Brad Renfro.

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.

I took today off from work. I woke up this morning feeling like loads of ass and elected to stay home. We’re still very quiet on the work front and now was just as good a time as any to rest my body up. So I slept most of the morning and now I am working on the re-design of this site. So the main part of the site and gallery will be offline for a bit.

ETA: I’ve thrown up a temporary layout for the blog as I am working on the code.

In other news, I will soon be a new-to-me owner of this! Shan was gifted* with a swanky, brand-new digital SLR over the holidays and was cool enough to let me co-erce her into selling me her old one. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I can wax poetics about how much I love my film SLR and I really truly do. And I will likely continue to use it on occasion. Especially for slides. But let’s face it, kids, digital is just plain easier. And with our upcoming trip to China, I had been kicking around the idea of getting a digital SLR anyway. I like Will’s digicam well enough, but sometimes it just doesn’t cut the proverbial mustard.

Now, I don’t have to fork over copious amounts of cash. Just a little bit of cash. Sufficed to say, she’s giving me an awesome deal cuz Shan rocks my bobby socks, ya know? Hopefully, I’ll have it in my eager little hands by the end of the month. Shan’s checking shipping costs because unfortunately, I suffer from the I-want-what-I-want-when-I-want-it disease and really can’t wait until I see her in May.

Speaking of Shan, we gabbed on Skype last night for like hours. I sure do miss that girl. She’s swell.

*I still haven’t received the notice of my adoption by Shan’s parents. I am eagerly waiting.

My fun has officially arrived! The Holga was picked up on Friday after some silly “Where exactly do I pick this up? Oh wait, you mean across the city?!” drama. But now it is mine, mine, mine! Woop! It is all very exciting and I can’t wait to start playing. I mean, because I think I am finally accepting that Lomography is probably the perfect photography for me. I hate thinking about the perfect exposure and all that bullshit. The tech always messes my brain up - which underlines the fact that I don’t really need a digital SLR, like at all.

Don’t get me wrong, I love, love, love my 35mm SLR, but something about just winging it is very appealing. I mean, photos that are kinda wrong are just right, ya know?

Now, I just have to get used to the fact that I am in complete control of when I get to advance my film. I think that will probably be the biggest thing I need to get used to. Still. Funs!

Unfortunately, however, I won’t be able to play with it much today. My ass bum needs to organize some DVDs before Will gets home from working overtime. I am horribly anal and I want all the DVDs organized alphabetically. Plus? I think I might move them all around too.

Heh.

Oh, last night there was peking duck, geeks, and evol nerd plots being hatched. Good times.

[I never get tired of that subject line, just saying. :D]

Henderson, Colorado.

That’s where all my fun currently resides.

You see, for my birthday, a part of my best friend duo, Shan, and her boyish sidekick, Josh*, decided to get me this. Yes, my friends, that is a Jack White holga! You can not understand the level of my excitement! I can’t wait to get my grubby little piglet fingers it! It’s just about as exciting as my polaroid! I mean, I have become a huge, biggie fan of lomography and since I am trying to re-embrace the analog photography, ya know? I don’t shoot as much as I could. But I think I am re-evaluating that. Especially from an artistic perspective. I mean, I used Will’s digital when I am just snapping things - its just a matter of convenience. But if I wanna get arty, I think its all about analog, baby!

Speaking of which, Will is not going enjoy my new camera. Heh.

It’s also a bit exciting because, after I let everyone know about the lomos (I was a bit .. errhm.. excited!), a few of people I know bought some. Its kinda swell. I mean, yeah, they probably bought ‘em because fun, lomos! But I am giddy because they are White Stripes lomos and well, our bid for world domination is not yet complete. This is just one more step!

*Who I have decided is having a torrid affair with Reilly. Hee. Sorry, Shan, you and Miranda have been usurped by boys. But they do make a super cute couple! Doncha think?