Sunday, December 28, 2008

Something different


here's a little something i've been working on the last two days, for the latest Drawing jam over at Drawingboard.org. This month's subject is whatsherface from the Show "Heroes" it's unfortunate that this was not a caricature jam, because she makes for a very good caricature, a little of which i injected into this drawing.

as you may know, i am a fan of simplicity, and have been working to inject it, to use the same phrase as the last paragraph, into my art. For the most part i've been doing this with line , or in most cases the lack there of. As i said, this is something different, it's an attempt to achieve a certain simplicity with shapes and color. Something i hadn't tried yet.

i think this worked out pretty well, there are a few things that i could fix up, but overall i'm happy with this experiment in simplicity. I really want to use this in my caricatures, and finding a way to make it work with just faces should be a fun challenge.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Blog, what blog?!


Alright, maybe i haven't posted in a couple of weeks but at least i have an excuse, it's Christmas break!
i haven't been doing much drawing over the past couple of weeks seeing as though I'm spending all my time with my family. So i finally got around to whipping out a new caricature tonight as a Christmas present to all those who visit my blog out there and are kind enough to comment.
After seeing the classic western "The good, bad and the ugly" for the first time a couple of weeks ago, the same weekend i rented 2001, yeah i was bored, i decided to do a caricature of Mr. Eastwood, who portrays the man with no name in this and the two other movies in the "Dollars trilogy' of spaghetti westerns.

Eastwood's been caricatured just as much as anyone, so i know I'm not really breaking new ground with this image. it was more of a practice in lighting and combining linework and values in a cohesive, interesting piece. i think it works well, and I'm happy with the simplicity i achieved in both the lines and values. it's not quite where i want it though, he doesn't look as though he takes up any space and is still confined to the paper. anyways, here it is,hope you like it.

Happy Holidays.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

2001: A crazy Mind F@%K




So, I know this is my art blog, but i also want to share some thoughts about my second favorite thing, movies. i made up the rules, i guess i can break them.

For the first time this weekend i sat down and Watched Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a space odyssey. I'm fairly conflicted on how i feel about the movie though. It certainly shattered my expectations about it in many ways. I was, first of all, very surprised how little i knew of the plot, what plot there is anyway. All i really knew about the movie was pop culture references to HAL. i had really no clue that there was anything in the movie beyond the Jupiter mission, man was i mistaken.

In a way i'm deeply impressed with the film. For one i haven't stopped thinking about it since Friday night, when i watched it. It was stunning on many levels, especially the visual. For a movie made 40 years ago the special effects were amazing, and never distracted me from the movie itself.Not to mention i loved the realistic approach to space, something i can't recall any movie getting since. I think on an intellectual level it's fantastic, i deeply respect filmmakers that leave the story in total ambiguity, and don't give the viewer a road map to the plot.

However,i think these feelings are all in retrospect. On a different level, i could barely stand sitting through the whole thing, no wonder there's and intermission. Not many movies make me want to throw my laptop out the window, but i was considering it. I literally almost turned it off a minute in because all it was was music and a black screen, i was screaming "Get to the MOVIE". I'm getting frustrated just talking about it.

I just feel that this movie was painfully slow,and sequences like the little monolith acid trip Dave had at the end just went too long. It makes me think of music, i'm sure there's a term for it, but in a song when the band gets to a point where they repeat a section over and over until you're on the brink of skipping to the next song, but at the last second they hit the satisfying sound and pull the song back. i think this movie did the same thing, only those sections went over that edge. there's a point where you can show me only so many pretty colors where i won't get anything more out of it. i was yelling, you've made your point, GET ON WITH IT.

One problem, that i anticipated going into this movie is the time gap from when this movie was made, to now when I'm watching it. Although all the effects are still totally cool now, in the sixties that movie would have blown me away. I really take the ideas that are presented, at least the science fiction stuff, for granted. I mean, this came out in a world where we hadn't even walked on the moon. Despite the timelessness of the themes, that time gap has got to count for something. who knows maybe if i had watched it in the sixties, my awe would have outweighed my frustration.

I still haven't really figured out what i really think about this movie, in terms of what i think it's about, and whether it's in my good movies column. As an intellectual journey, it succeeds. As a beautiful work of film making craftsmanship, it succeeds. Whether it's an entertaining piece of cinema to sit down and watch, the jury's still out for me.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Red Hot Chili Peppers Caricature



Ok, here's the finished product on that RHCP caricature, well for now at least. I'm glad i got this out of the way, i've been struggling with these guys for a long time, and i feel i can build on this caricature and maybe even do a better one in the future. It also makes me want to do caricatures of my other favorite bands out there, maybe that will have to wait for another day, seeing as finals are coming up, off to go study

new stuff




here's a couple more caricaturist caricatures, and the new digital painting i'm working on, of my favorite band, "the Red Hot Chili Peppers".

I've actually wanted to do a caricature of these guys since i started drawing caricatures, but always stopped about half way because i never got a descent likeness.
I think that i finally got a piece that works, so i decided to finish it up. This is the first step, still just blocking in the blacks and whites.