Double A

Here's my current pastel painting. I'm trying to work a bit looser than normal.

I have this idea to do a series of pastels showing how people gather together, and how often, it's not the actual event that draws them together. But, rather just the companionship.

This is from Canal Park in Akron (thus the "Double A" name). I went to a game when my father was in town, and I got bored. So, I started to snap photos of the crowd. I found this pretty interesting. I've taken some elements out that I thought weren't working compositionally, or when I rendered them loose, they didn't make much sense.

I hope to have this done in the next week.

Happy Ornament

I have the tree up, lights in the window, and presents wrapped. But, I don't really feel into it this year. In fact, on Sunday, I had an inner debate for hours before I actually put up the tree.


I always hate putting the tree up, because I usually put those loose snowflakes on it. So, when I pull it out, I get flakes everywhere.

Oh, what's that? A LEMUR!!

Lemurs Everywhere

More lemur practice. I'm really trying to catch some personality in their faces. But, I want to know generally if these are looking like illustrations in childrens' books. It's hard to tell when I look at them myself. These are a little rough, but I want to know if the general style seems right to you.

Overworked

Tried to draw John Mellencamp since he was put into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Thursday, but this didn't work out all that well. I overworked it to the point where I almost went through the paper.

More Lemurs

Here are more lemurs. I like how the one with the blue background looks very evil. He just looks like he's up to convincing someone to do something really bad.

Fire Truck

This is a commission piece that I just shipped off. I hope they like it.

Lemur

I'm going to be doing a lot of lemur practice over the next few weeks for a project that I have in mind.

I love how this lemur has an expression where he looks like he thinks very highly of himself.

Final Class Tonight

Tonight is my last class. This is the project we're turning in tonight. I'm curious to see what everyone came up with, because I didn't go to class last Wednesday.

I was worried about painting the smoky part, but I think it turned out okay. It isn't exactly like how I'd pictured it in my head, but I kind of figured that I wouldn't be able to get acrylic paint to duplicate what I'd had in mind. But, I got the feel and idea that I'd thought of.

My next project is this idea I came up with right before I fell asleep last night. I had to get up and write myself a note so that I wouldn't forget. Every have ideas like that? A great idea, and you think, "I wont forget that by morning." And, 3 days later, you think, "Wasn't there something I wanted to do that that I'd had an idea for?"

So, today I'm going to print up a bunch of reference photos. Then, get started on some quick sketches for it. But, before I get into that too much, I have to polish off a car picture by Thursday.

It felt like I had way too much to do a few days ago, but it's getting done. I did get sick yesterday and lost a lot of time to just lying around, but I feel better today.

Fee Fi Fo Fum

Update of School Project

Here is an update on the project with the shapes cut out from magazines. It has to be done in complimentary colors, and I'm going to use blue and orange.

Now, I just have to paint it to look like this.

It's going to be a long week, because I have a lot to get done for class. And, I didn't think about it, but I scheduled myself on Sunday at the store to do a mat cutting event.

It's snowing today, but it's probably not going to do a whole lot around here. Maybe by morning.

Eastman Reading Garden part 2

Here's another little character from the Eastman Reading Garden. This little lady is holding up a post for the bronze gate. Her little companion was pants-less, but I didn't get a good picture of him. I'll draw him when the weather is nice in the spring.

Soldiers & Sailors

For this month's sketchcrawl, we were supposed to spend the morning at Tower City, but we took a sidetrip to the Soldiers & Sailors monument before going over. There was a guide inside who gave a lot of information. He believes that this is the largest monument dedicated to solely the Civil War.

He told the story about how they set off the canon once for a ceremony, and they had no idea how many pigeons were around until that scared them.

Also, the figure at the very top of the monument was modeled after the artist's wife. And, either she's up there immortailized forever, or he knew how many pigeons would perch on her over the years.

This is a sketch of one of the windows in the monument. It's not a Tiffany window, but the guide told us that Tiffany had trained a lot of people in this area, so it's possible that the person who made the windows had studied with him.

Eastman Reading Garden

This was from a photo that I took yesterday. It was way too cold to sit outside and draw at the reading garden next to the library. While in the garden, there was a squirrel that went right up to this woman who was sitting outside and almost climbed into her backpack.

I tried to find information on the artist who made these little creatures, but all I could find was his name. I was curious about what his other work looked like. His name is Tom O'tterness.

The Last Candy Bar

You know, if you're following my sketch blog, you probably figure that I'm preoccupied with two things. . . . Candy and Christmas. Well, perhaps. . . . Anyhow, here is a shot of a drawing of the last candy bar from the ones that my friend, Ally, sent me from Singapore.

I used my new Inktense pencils for this. Wanted to break them in before the sketchcrawl.