The Temper Trap

So, Saturday night i went to the house of blues with my sister and her new boyfriend to see these guys. It was a great concert! I'm really digging this band at the moment and it was really cool to get see them live.

I know this is a little off topic from the usual posts here, but i like to share this kind of stuff. Music really inspires my art, and i always have something playing while i draw. there are so many cool new bands out there that i'm hooked on right now, but The Temper Trap are definitely at the top of the pile.

Check em' out
http://www.thetempertrap.net/Home/

Back to the caricatures

Finally getting back to sketching some new caricature ideas. Here's one that's been about a year in the making. Ever since i had the idea to do a back the the future caricature, I've made numerous attempts at both Marty and doc. I don't know what it was; the lack of good reference, the surprising difficulty of caricaturing both of them, but i just couldn't do it.

Then, last week i sat down to try again on Marty and finally got something i was kinda happy with, even though it's a profile.Today i finally scanned it in and decided to add one of doc. I think it's strange how just all of a sudden i break through these blocks and am able to come up with something I'm pleased with. they're both pretty quick sketches, but i think it's got something, so i'll probably end up finishing it.

let me know what you think.

And another one.

So, it was the same story last night, draw yourself in a mirror, this time trying 3/4 view and including the shoulders as well. i thought it was funny, as i started, the instructor came up to me and said "It looks a little like a caricature."
I replied "Probably because I'm a caricature artist."
"Really?"
"Really."
It was interesting, i hadn't tried to add any exaggerations, and to my eyes there weren't any to be seen, but to her it looked like a caricature. i guess I'm so desensitized to the art form, the real subtle stuff doesn't even register. It's not necessarily a bad thing i guess. As was mentioned in the comments of my last post, a caricature usually gets a better response in terms of likeness than a portrait.

Anyway, after taking a closer look, i was able to catch a few things; such as my nose being a little too big, the space between my nose and mouth as well as my top lip being too big, and so on.

Eventually i ended up with this. sorry for the crappy photo, it's 18x24.(if anyone's got any suggestions on photographing pencil drawings, please share them). I cleaned it up in photoshop a little as well.

let me know what you think.

So you Don't want me to exaggerate?

here's a bit of a switch, just a regular old portrait. Done in Drawing class, i imagine this is what i'll look like if i ever get a mugshot taken. It was actually a nice break from drawing still-life's every week, and some good practice with non-caricature drawing.

Hey look, her shirt's falling off.

Just a warm up sketch, done in sketchbook pro.

"Always sunny", take one

have a few different ideas for this piece, here's the first one.

pretty simple, going for a similar look to their ad campaigns for the show.

Even more Drawing...

a couple more projects from drawing class. one, a subtractive charcoal drawing done with a combo of vine and compressed charcoal. the second, a homework assignment from a while ago, it's a continuous contour line drawing done with a fine point marker. Probably some of my better work, at least some that i can be proud of, that has come out of this class.

let me know what you think.

"The Gang Gets Caricatured"

a few sketches i did up this afternoon after watching some "It's always sunny in Philidelphia", one of the funniest shows on tv imo. i felt sooooo rusty when i started these i almost just gave up. there was a moment i thought i forgot how do draw a caricature they were coming out so bad. Fortunately, slowly but surely i got back into the groove. i haven't drawn a caricature since i finished that lucy liu, and these were good practice, a few were pretty tough.


anyway, hope you dig. let me know what you think. i may use these for a final piece.

Olivia Wilde quicky.

Some more Drawings

this here's most of what we've done to date in my drawing class. mostly technical drawings of still-lifes, just so everyone can get their bearings drawing in perspective. also, I've included the interior space drawing that i did of one of the halls at school.

these have been a good exercise for me, i haven't done any finished work in pencil for so long, i practically forgot how to move past doing just a sketch.

sorry for the crummy photos, about the only way i can get an image of a 18x24 pencil drawing.

Josh Homme Take Two

finished one of my alternative sketches from my first attempt at Homme.

Tom Petty Final

So, after weeks struggling to figure out what to do with this, i decided it was time to "Nut up or shut up". I actually ended up flipping it upside down to finish it just so i wouldn't get hung up on little details of the likeness. i went for a slightly more simplified look than my usual stuff, but certainly not as far as, say, the lucy Liu caricature.

let me know what you think.

My room

Another project from drawing class, this is from when we were learning perspective. This brings me back to the fact that i feel very silly in a class where we are just now getting to using value. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with practicing the fundamentals, it's something i should do more.

anyway, i'll hopefully have some more caricatures up soon.

Charcoal

Seems strange that this is the first time I've ever drawn with charcoal. Not too easy, but gives you some interesting organic mistakes that you wouldn't get with a more controllable medium. just an hour sketch from the last half of my drawing I class last night.

Space divisions project

So, finally got copies of these to post up here. these were one of the main projects for my design and layout class. Using the principles that we saw in Piet Mondrian's work we were to come up with our own space divisions using only line, rectangles and the words "Space divisions". one just black and white, one using color, and the third was our choice.

Personally, I'm not one for modern, or completely subjective art. However, i did enjoy these because using such simple strict rules helps to be able to think about the principals of design and to create a good layout.

hope ya dig.