January 14, 2011 by Collin
What is it now?
Ah. A sumo polar bear. Of course. What else could it have possibly been? If I knew, it probably would have been something else. This just happened to be the first thing I thought of and I was running out of time.
I switched to using the built in image uploader instead of placing the images from my Smugmug account. It’s faster that way. If you want to see the image larger, just click on it.
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January 13, 2011 by Collin
Instead of messing with the dates of the posts, I’ve decided to post them in bursts. I may change my mind; I may not. We live in an uncertain world.
Sketch #9
For some reason I got it into my head to try drawing Mario. Originally I was going to draw it from memory, but remembering the dog faced gorilla from the other day I realized that my memory is at best suspect. So I pulled out my copy of the Wii game “NEW Super Mario Bros.Wii” and drew from the cover.
Here’s what I drew from:
And here’s how it turned out:
I notice that I’ve fallen back into an old drawing habit of mine… drawing stuff narrower/longer than it really is. This mainly happens when I don’t spend enough time looking at what I’m drawing before starting to draw. One of my instructors said that, when drawing from life, you should spend 80-90% of the time spent on the drawing just looking. It really helps. It would have helped here.
Sketch #10
Once again I found myself casting around for inspiration. My eyes fell on a pink stuffed animal that Heather bought. She bought this animal because her nephew has one, and it’s his favorite stuffed animal for ever and ever until it’s not any longer. His isn’t pink. He calls it “cweepy monkey”.
Here’s Pink Cweepy Monkey:
Again, I didn’t spend enough time looking before starting to draw. Still, it turned out truer to the original than Mario did.
Sketch #11
This is just something that was in my brain and had to get out.
It likes you. I can tell. Welcome it into your brain.
Sketch #12
I’d been thinking about doing this for a few days now. I decided to start numbering the sketches using the Julian calendar. It’s just easier to keep things organized when they go numerically all the way to the bitter end.
That said, here’s a sheep on stilts:
Lastly, sketch #7 is posted below. Enough time has passed that I’m not as fond of it as I was when I made it. Although I’m still thinking of doing a better version at some point.
Side note: I put together flash movies of all five of the Totem Game results. You can watch them here.
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January 8, 2011 by Collin
Tonight I thought, “How about seeing if I can draw a gorilla from memory.” I should be able to manage that. I’ve seen gorillas.
It started off well enough, and then I got to the face and made the discovery that apparently I think a gorilla looks like a dog.
The more lines I added, the worse it got.
At this point I could have broken out the trusty eraser, however right then I decided that I’m going to do the sketches without erasing. Mistakes happen and it will get me further out of my perfectionist mindset if I allow myself to make those mistakes and try not to worry about them. As long as it doesn’t paralyze me and keep me from starting a drawing altogether, it could be a good thing.
I’m also going to mark the time that I spend on each sketch from this point on. Unless I forget to check the time before starting.
I may also switch to a larger sketchbook. I seem to keep running out of room at the bottom of this one. It’s only 6.5″ x 6.5″. Luckily I don’t have a shortage of sketchbooks to choose from. As much as I don’t like to sketch, I sure do have a lot of sketchbooks.
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January 7, 2011 by Collin
This one is a sketch that has been worked a bit further into a “quasi-finished” drawing* for a game I take part in at the Very Serious forum. Since it’s part of the game, and I don’t want to spoil my portion of the big reveal at game’s end, I don’t have anything to show you right now. The game is located here (linked to my most recent – at this time – post where I say that I’ve sent my piece to the moderator).
All I had to work from was the itty bitty thing at the bottom left and the color blue. The itty bitty looked a bit to me like a Fisher Price person. One thought led to another and I made Fisher Price Rapture.
Once the game is over, I’ll update this post with the picture. I’ll also mention it in the most current post once it’s done so that you aren’t left guessing (unless I haven’t posted again before the reveal, in which case look downward; there should be a picture).
As a tease, I’ll tell you that the reply from the moderator was, and I quote:
“*dies laughing*
That’s amazing!”
Look at me, giving you something to look forward to.
—-
I say “quasi-finished” because, due to the nature of the game and the desire to be speedy with my piece, I spent a fraction of the time that I would normally spend on finishing up a drawing. So it’s still quite rough/raw.
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January 6, 2011 by Collin
Almost the same conversation as the one on the 5th happened tonight. Only it happened at bedtime, and I still hadn’t done a sketch. I wasn’t going to, either. But Jordyn showed me her drawing, and the fact that she’s so committed to us doing this project made me decide to hurry up and sketch *something*.
The theme she chose for herself was “breakfast” and I decided to stick that theme as well. This was done fast, so it’s a bit sloppy, but I think there’s actually a decent idea in there that I may revisit sometime in the future and actually turn into a finished drawing. If I do, I’ll be sure to let you know about it.
Here it is, the sketch that damned near wasn’t made…
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January 5, 2011 by Collin
The next night Heather asked, “What did you draw today?”
“Nothing.”
“What are you going to draw?”
“Nothing. I quit. This is stupid.”
To which Jordyn said, “You can’t quit! Come on! Let’s draw something!” (or words to that effect)
*sigh* “Fine… Let’s each draw a voodoo doll.” So we did.
I liked how the head came out, for the most part, but the body really went to shit. The moon was a last minute addition that was better off not added. I just didn’t feel like erasing it.
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January 4, 2011 by Collin
Ugh. I don’t know what was wrong with me. Other than, there are just some days that I don’t feel like drawing. This was one of those days.
Believe it or not, it looked better in my head. I mean, how could it not?
When I was finished, I looked at it. Looked some more. Decided that I actually don’t know a damned thing about drawing, suck at everything I try, was going to quit this stupid “challenge”, and went to bed.
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January 3, 2011 by Collin
Let’s just jump right in, shall we?
At first it was just the popsicle. But I felt it needed more… So I crammed in an alien bug-like… thing. I blame “A Christmas Story”.
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January 2, 2011 by Collin
One of the bigger downfalls I’ve had in recent years, as far as maintaining a blog goes and apart from not having much of a shit to say, is that I tend to spend a lot of time on my posts. I know it might not seem like it, but I usually read through each post sever times, changing a word here, correcting a misspelling there, etc. So each post actually sucks up a large chunk of time and that gets old. Especially when I’m busy.
So…. fuck that. If I’m going to stick with this, I’m going to have to let it be more free-form. Unless I see a word is underlined by the spell checker, I’m not changing a damned thing. If I didn’t get the words quite right, oh well.
On to sketch #2… or as I like to call it, “What the fuck?! It’s… ARRGH! Dammit! I quit!”
And I very nearly did. Earlier in the day we went to the King Tut exhibit up in Denver, the tickets for which were given to us as an excellent gift by Heather’s parents. So when we got home and Jordyn and I thought about what to draw, it was decided that we would draw this small, fake mummy that Heather has in a King Tut casket. As you can see, it did not go well.
As for the quality of the sketch, you might want to get used to it now while you can. So far I hate most of what I’ve drawn during this self inflicted “challenge”.
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January 1, 2011 by Collin
Okay, here comes some content…. unless it all becomes overwhelming and I wander away from it an a haze. Like usual. Place your bets.
For 2011, I’ve decided to do at least one sketch every day. Some days (most?) it’ll suck. Some days (already) I’ll want to quit. My daughter is also doing this with me, and I’ll do my best to get her sketches uploaded to her blog as well.
I’m writing this seven days in the fuuuuutuuuuurrrrrre! Or, more accurately, I’m posting this seven days in the past. Which means I’ve already stuck with the sketching for the past seven days. Not too shabby, if you have any idea how much of a procrastinator I am. Downright miraculous even.
Six of the seven sketches so far have been done the old fashioned way. On a sketchpad in pencil. The seventh was done in Sketchbook Pro on my computer, but I’ll talk about that in more detail later.
Sketches that I make digitally, I’ll (normally) be able to upload sooner – possibly even on time – but paper based sketches won’t be scanned and uploaded until the following weekend.
I may also try sketching on my iPad in the Brushes program. This is a hell of a nifty program that will record every stroke you make and allow you to convert it into a movie. If I do manage to make any, I’ll post the movie along with the sketch. The only downside to using Brushes is that, even though I have a pogo stylus, it still feels like trying to draw with a stick that isn’t a pencil or even pencil-like. It’s a bit frustrating. There is some fantastic art being made with it, and I used to hate trying to draw with my Wacom tablet, so the potential is there for me to not totally suck with a bit of practice. Sketch-a-Day is a bit of practice. Wheeee!
On to the first sketch:
When my daughter and I sat down to start sketching, we tried to think of something to draw. I saw this plush lizard that I bought years ago siting on my game rack. I figured it would be as good a subject as any. I took it down, and to give it a bit of motion, I posed it on top of my cordless mouse.
In all, I think it turned out pretty good.
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