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My Sketchbook Project-Finally!

After some hard work over the Christmas holidays, I finished my Sketchbook and sent it back to Art House Coop for it to take that fun trip around the world. I was going to link my page on that site here, but it appears that you need a membership to view artwork. So here is a slideshow of my drawings, they would have been uploaded sooner, but better late than never right? The theme of my book is “Unchartered Waters”:

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The gallery itself is a bit mixed up, but the slideshow is in order. (As you can tell, this is my first time uploading this kind of thing!)

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What does it mean to dream of frogs?..

A couple days ago I had a strange dream about frogs. I’m not sure why, I wasn’t watching a documentary on them or anything and it’s still too early to see them outside. But it provided more fodder for those watercolour postcards:

This is a Costa Rican frog, but I thought it would be funny to paint him intoxicated, so he’s a drunken Costa Rican frog. (Hey, it’s my blog, I’ll paint what I like! :) )

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St. Patrick’s Day Baby Dragons!

Belated Happy St. Pat’s everyone! To celebrate, I painted two watercolour postcards with baby Irish dragons:

I went a bit nuts with the masking fluid, so the backgrounds are a bit messy. Still I like ‘em and hope you do too!

(P.S.-I modified the brightness on the Batman and Catwoman inked drawing, because it was WAY too bright, so go take a peak!)

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Batman and Catwoman-Inked!

Here is the finished Batman and Catwoman drawing.  The shadows are pretty much just me fooling around because this drawing is based on a photograph where they are pretty much non-existent.  Many stock photos and ads make things as bright as possible, which is understandable but it can make using them for drawing sometimes difficult.

I’d love to spend more time messing around with lighting and real live models, and will probably drop in on the Shenkman Centre for some impromptu drawing sessions. I’d love to hire a model privately but that’s a bit out of my price range at the moment, perhaps some of my friends will volunteer?..*hint* *hint* ;) Anyways, here is the drawing! Enjoy!:

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Madness!

One of my all-time favorite movies is “In the Mouth of Madness“. I first saw it when I was young and it freaked me out and still does, it is creepy, fast paced, funny and the acting by Sam Neil is great! Anyways, there’s a part in the movie where he is locked up in an asylym and draws crosses all over his face and clothes. It’s a perfect image to render in pen and ink and here’s my first crack at it:

It’s not a perfect rendering, but practice makes perfect. Next up, is the promised Batman and Catwoman.

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I’m Still Here!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, things have been busy and my attention has been focused elsewhere.

Anyways, here is a drawing that I worked on at 5am this morning. 5am? Yes, after a night of bad sleep due to accidental neck strain (I need a new pillow ASAP) , I got up and decided to draw instead of zoning out in front of the TV:

Batman and Catwoman in wuv! (Or maybe a staring contest, not sure which)

My drawing isn’t done yet and was shaded first with pencils to see if it looked right. I’ll be going over some of the areas with an ink brush later to give it some more drama.

And next time insomnia hits, I may just draw the sheep I tried to count early this morning. ;)

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Red Dragon

Behold! The mighty red dragon! He was created last night while I was doodling in my wonderful Strathmore Wet Media paper pad. The only downside to using these types of pads is that the papers aren’t stretched, so they tend to buckle pretty easily. Buckling is what happened with the fire, I kept adding more and more colour, only to have it all pool together. But I think it came out pretty nifty despite that! Next time, though I’m going to paint a background to give it a bit more interest.

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Squirrel Girl-Inked

Here is the inked version of Illustration Friday “Hibernate” with Squirrel Girl and her cute squirrel companion. A few months ago, I had mocked the character Squirrel Girl on Ty Templeton’s blog, but her quirkiness is starting to grow on me.  As you can probably tell, I’m still getting the hang of inking, there is a bit of a learning curve. Ink drawing is delicate and the materials are really expensive, but you can say so much with those solid black lines and bold whites. (Speaking of Ty, I would love to have taken his inking class, but it’s in Toronto and I can’t afford it right now! Boo!)

I bought a really great book-Drawing in Pen and Ink-by Claudia Nice, who does marvelous things with pen and ink. She’s not a comic book inker, but is very skilled at rendering all sorts of subjects. I’m hoping to do many of the book’s exercises this weekend.