Bitter & Sweet

So I made these little dudes for a Valentines Day gift. The idea/theme is Bitter/Sweet and I thought it would be fun to embody that theme in the form of two little monsters. A Bitter one and a Sweet one... but both should be cute. So they are. Watercolor on Cold Press 8x8

Bitter

Sweet

What I've been up to Lately

So here are a bunch of the drawings I did last week, Most of them were in development for my valentine monsters. and most of them ended up being too pug-like. but I thought they were cute.

And here is an unrelated sketch of what I hope will be my next vector piece, a mermaid sitting on a rock. simple enough hopefully I would be able to do this one quickly too. I have a pretty good idea of how I want it to look.

Head & Heart

So! The show opening has come and gone. What a night! I had my first appearance in a San Francisco Gallery show and sold my piece on the opening night to boot. It was great to see such a wonderful turnout too, Mission Comics & Art was packed probably beyond capacity. I offer a sincere thank you to everyone who made it out to see the show. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to meet the individual who purchased my work. I was on my way back from a quick bite, but alas, I was too late. I would have loved to have thanked you and just spoken to you a little bit. But nevertheless, whoever you are, thank you for supporting my art! I hope you love this piece. To those of you who couldn't make it out, here's Head & Heart. Ironically, this piece was artistically, very difficult to make. It's been a particularly long time since I have done anything featuring a figure, let alone one a nude. It has also been ages since I have worked with Photoshop. At times working on this piece was exciting, uncertain and fun, while at other times, it tested me more than any of my illustrations in recent memory. But nonetheless, a great deal of care went into this one. I re-worked the lines of the body alone perhaps 4 times before I achieved a quality I liked. I even mapped out much of the cardiovascular system leading from the heart to the head with researched anatomical accuracy before later discarding most of it for clarity. But guess the work paid off because everyone out there seems to love it. Thank you to all my friends out there who were so encouraging to me when I was absolutely sure that I was making rubbish.

So the idea behind this piece is to represent (perhaps a bit too literally): The frustration that arises in us all when we suffer the inner conflict between our passionate and analytical selves. When we want something for the possibilities it contains but know that it could hurt us. It was, of course, originally inspired by love experienced by the weary. Yet, as I continued to work on the illustration, contemplation led me to add that such an angst could be produced by so much more in the human condition. The pursuit of art itself was, for me, a particularly salient example of such. I love to create things that stir me deeply, finding something within myself and thrusting it into the open, into some form everyone can see. And I simultaneously dread the potential for failure. Failure to succinctly, or even fully capture that which I want to convey, and failure to evoke the same sentiments in others. Exposing intimate sides of my mind to the world is difficult, things that may be profound to me can be trite or vapid to others. even if I portray it perfectly, which never happens. That constant friction between love and fear within me is aptly echoed in the subject matter of this piece. I guess that's all I have to say about this one for now. Thank you again to everyone who helped me make it to the versus show, and thank you again to the wonderful people who bought it on opening night! You've made me incredibly happy.

Versus Sketches

 So, exciting news! Come February 4th, I will be participating in my first Gallery Show! Random I know. I was invited by my amazing friend and the curator: The lovely Daisy Church. The theme of the show is Versus. and while I don't want to spoil anything, my piece will be Of Head and Heart Depicting a figure torn between the pull of her heart and the force of her will. I'll write more of what I'm talking about for the final piece but for now that's it. In the final illustration her heart and brain will emanate through her skin, radiantly glowing in contrasting colors. To emphasize the conflict, blood vessels shall ensnare the brain while nerves fetter the heart. I am trying to convey more subtle queues to echo the conflict to. As she is fighting the feelings of love internally so she is externally; one hand weakly veils one breast while the other is exposed. As the one hand holds the blanket feebly, the other forms a fist: palm pressed against the head in frustration.
 Because of the heavy anatomy in this piece, I spent some time this past week, doing studies of both brains and hearts for my sketching assignments. It was honestly a lot of fun, and also honestly, I hadn't planned on doing studies until I drew my first brain sans reference and realized how off it was. doing the reference studies actually helped a lot in my final drawing. Anyhow, Here are all of my sketches, and a life drawing from Bvrlingame to boot.
I feel a little better about the quality of this week's post. But I still feel like it is mostly sub-par stuff. I've been reading Mastery and The Perfect Bait simultaneously. they're good books so far and I know through a sort of osmosis that most of what they're positing is the best way to become a stronger artist. I am trying to embrace the advice as best I can, but by its very nature it will take time. I'm in this for the long haul. I really want to be the best artist I can be. Mastery, advises one to stop seeking the 'level-ups' in his quest for mastery; to learn to enjoy the plateaus, I am having the hardest time with that part. I want so dearly to see my work improve by just a modicum. But nevertheless I remain on my plateau. I'm starting to imagine that succeeding in loving the plateau will actually be my next "level-up" as it were. Regardless, I must continue. This piece will be certainly be a challenge for me, I must complete it by February first. I relish the challenge and I am eager to begin vectoring it. wish me luck!

Possibly final sketch before vector? I may still play with it

One of the process sketches, refining the pose

Brain studies

More Heart Studies

Heart Studies

A 20 min life drawing in Burlingame

This is your brain on no reference

Cross-section of a heart study

This Week in Derpings

Another weak week... I didn't even have any good ideas... yeesh. Hopefully next week will be better u___u

This week in Drawings

Sorry guys, this week is kind of weak, but practice makes perfect... Hopefully this year my drawings will improve, my New Year's resolution is to be more productive and especially to draw every day. So far I have drawn every day, there's just nothing good yet. -___- Stay tuned dear readers.

Fear

A new painting for a new year! This is "Fear" in my stone faces series. Though I'm toying with the idea of capping it at five and making this Denial or Depression. I kind of want to do a happy one though... Look forward to more blog posts now that the holidays are over and my family has gone back home. Here's to a new year and a drawing every day!

This week in Drawings

 Hello again dear comrades, I'm sorry I missed last week, I'll try to post something extra this week to make up for it. I was doing pretty good with my goal of posting some good drawings each week and drawing everyday, but combine a week of poor inspiration and with bad habit-keeping and you get the perfect storm for no posts. Hopefully it won't happen again. So for this week, here are some drawings!

Here is a little piece I did for the Crowd Star Art Department's Secret Santa Event. My Friend, Jose Fuentes found this on his desk last Friday Morning. I hope he liked it. It's watercolor on coldpress. I am mostly okay with how it came out, though if I could do it again I would have spent more time planning the color. still it made a fun exercise and I enjoyed making it.

Here is another random drawing loosely inspired by ancient American architecture and sculpture. I spent a long time shading this one with the weird swirly hatching, It was really fun but I should spend more time on composition and structure before I get all squirrely on stylistic details... cause the end result is this... wobbly thing that wasn't really well-planned enough to justify the care spent in rendering it. I'm sensing a theme here #fucking planning.

Here are some other random drawings, just for fun.
I spend a lot of time worrying that I'm doing a lot of the same thing over and over again, exempli gratia: faces fucking carved into stone. They appeal to me as a subject matter because they are fun to stylize and place in environments. There is ample room for symbolism in the shapes that constitute their designs and also in the decorative motifs that adorn them. But also because they are commonly the crowning megalithic markings of ruined civilizations. The reasons megalithic ruins and civilizations-lost inspire me are many and sufficiently so to form another blog post entirely... But that's for another time. As for the worrying, I am trying to do less of it. I figure that even if I draw the same subject matter over and over again, at the very least, I am making more art.

 More art than I would if I were sweating over a blank sketchbook thinking of the "Stuff I Have Already Drawn and Everyone is Going to Think I'm a Hack if I Keep Drawing this Shit" list. So onward I go. That's all for this post, until next time.

Sketches

 My awesome co-worker, Daisy Church, recently returned from China and gave me this little souvenir! So I decided to go ahead and use it for my daily life drawing exercises. Thanks Daisy!  

Ashley Boyd: A friend who goes on daily drawings with me

A view from the outdoor patio of the Mojo Cafe on Divis

Downtown Burlingame

More Burlingame

One can't always have good compositions I suppose.

The wobbly Crowdstar building... I think it's been drinking again.

The next stone face piece... I haven't had much time to work on it but I look forward to it!

 This is a spin-off of one of the ideas from my Calm Her album project... Not quite what I'm trying to get to, but I liked this drawing despite that.

I've been watching a lot of Ancient Astronauts at work, that show is like crack. I watch it because it is fucking hilarious and chock full of crazy, but mostly because it's also chock full of fantastic shots of ruined ancient civilizations... the aesthetics of the Inca, Mayan, and Aztec civilizations are stuck in my head now.
Expect to see more next week, but that's all for this week, thanks for coming by.

A Sketch Update