I’ve been mostly preoccupied with settling down into my new home, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing some kind of art. I’ve been doing a lot of playing with techniques as well as doing a lot of promotional works — working on my second portfolio book, promotional postcards, some client work — so I’ve managed to keep myself busy when I’m not running around getting things for my new apartment or applying for jobs.

Anyway, here’s some fun stuff I thought I’d share. First, just a collection of lighting tests I did. The subject matter is very boring — random girl’s faces OMG — but the purpose of the exercise was to play with mediums and lighting, not have some brilliant concept. These are very quick studies, about 30 each.

The next is a little treat — a preview of the cover of my new portfolio. It’ll be done by the end of this month, so check back later!

Here’s my contribution — so far. I apologize for the poor quality photo! I took it with my iPhone in the poor lighting conditions of my room. I couldn’t find my casual camera and didn’t want to drag out my SLR just to throw this online. If you have any input or suggestions, now is the time to tell me, while I’m still in the pencil stage. It’s based off of a previous sketch in my sketchbook (which you can see a few posts down), and is also called Infinity. I’ll post more process as I go!

Here’s something I do while I work at the front desk on weekends with nothing to do; drawing memes! I used the Deity Generator to generate (duh) random descriptions of a deity (duh). Then I would draw them. It was a fun experiment, trying to cram all the details into one character, but sometimes you get things that don’t really work. Whatever, its better than staring at Facebook for 4 hours. The first one scanned really poorly, but I’m not choked as it is just a sketch.

I also spent the last 40 minutes doing a speed paint of a sketch from my previous post; Blacknose Boy. It was fun, I guess? I do so love to draw horrible things right before I go to bed. I also added a semi-process for it, which I’ve added below. Actually, after putting it together, I prefer the 3rd step to the final 4th, but the final 4th looks more “dead”. What do you think?

That’s all for now, kids!

I meant to post these on Friday because one was a submission for Illustration Friday but Telus decided that i didn’t reeeeally need to use the Internet, so I didn’t get to blog it until today.

The theme was “Infinity”. It was a pretty random sketch that kind of fit. I am also adapting it as a small painting for the local gallery’s annual Pick-a-Painting fundraiser.

This actually comes from an episode of Ghost Hunters (some people watch Big Brother… I watch paranormal reality TV); they were visiting a house were the children had claimed to see a boy with “black hair, black eyes, a black mouth and a black nose.” It was the visual of the black nose and mouth that creeped me out the most, so I was compelled to draw it. I’ll paint it once I have more of a drive to paint.

This is one of my favourite observational sketches from the summer; accompaning my close friend to watch a soccer game, we mostly watched the crowd instead of the game. They were much more entertaining, as you can see.

Seeing as this is quite a tedious task from my iPhone, I may save the rest of my sketches and comments for when my Internet connection is restored. You can view them here if you are impaitent, but you’ll have to wait for my insights. Soon!

This week is one of those weeks.

When I sat down to do the Illustration Friday, things didn’t work out as planned! Yet another reminder to do things early, as was my school routine. Anyway, after a long day¹, a battery drain² and a Photoshop options preset-reset³, I can’t bring myself to work on it. I am tired and irritated, and this isn’t a JOB. I’m supposed to enjoy this; its my time, my unwinding thing. I don’t want to take it so seriously, and to be honest… right now, I’d rather sleep.

Anyway, regarding my sketch and concept. Whenever I think of “hierarchy” I think of type. And when I think of my first type class, two years ago, and learning about hierarchy in typography, I remember the famous snippet from our textbook: “If you can’t make it good, make it big. And if you can’t make it big, make it red.” So I did a literal characterization of that.

I like it, so far, and once I kick Photoshop’s ass to go back to doing what it needs to do and how I like it done, I’ll finish it.

PS: Isn’t it funny how you can still be remembered as “the one who drew” amongst former classmates for years and years?

1. Errands, errands, hauling, cleaning, errands, errands, errands.
2. My computer came disconnected from its power source, didn’t tell me and shut itself off. When I hadn’t saved. Need a new battery.
3. After the restart, and re-opening of Photoshop, I discovered all my presets were reset to default. Raaaaaaage. So, to avoid killing everything, I threw in the towel.