There is beauty everywhere.

I walk through Gastown on my way to the studio here in downtown Vancouver twice a day, Monday to Friday. Many of those days, I see people who are just wandering through the streets, wearing the same worn outfit every day. They all tug at my heart, as I become more and more painfully aware that I am fortunate enough to wear a clean, dry and almost new outfit every day, under a warm jacket, carrying a backpack with a lunch, on my way to a job which pays me quite well in the scheme of things.

There is one man in particular who has captured my heart. I usually see him either sitting in Starbucks to warm up as I walk by the window, or slowly making his way up the street, just to keep moving. I believe God is opening my eyes to see true and simple beauty, in that there is such beauty in all of these wandering souls that we so easily pass by and try not to make eye contact.

This morning I walked by him once again, always attempting to look him right in the eyes so I can at least give him a smile. At least acknowledge that he is a beautiful soul, perfectly made by God, and not forgotten like he may feel. I couldn't get him out of my head, so I drew him when I got to work.

I am thankful for him, for walking by him everyday to remind me of my own humanity, and to redefine my definition of beauty.

I will be drawing more often.

Yield a Krop.

So many online portfolios to create, so little time!

Here's one more I just did, it was easy and rather snazzy!

Gesture paintin'

I'm a-still animatin' away on my film, so I thought I'd post some gesture studies I did from life drawing last semester.

Lookin' back at these, I do actually kinda miss it this term!

I'll definitely try to keep taking life drawing on the side, wherever I end up; it's such great practice for sharpening your drawing technique, and it's also a great way to experiment with styles. Unlike caffe drawing, the models don't move, so it's a great opportunity to take more time to study details.

Back to rough animating I go!

Clownin' around

More watercolour action in life drawing class today....but I'm just gonna post one up. The last pose I did in class, I decided to have more fun with it and here it is! Still workin' on the blending, colours, lighting, etc....but I got a lifetime to perfect it!

It's a watercolour life!

I've been forcing myself to do the last couple weeks of life drawings classes with just my watercolours...it's a challenge, especially with the shorter poses! But it definitely is a very rewarding challenge, I love how painting forces you to slow down more than conte or pencil does...and you have to be constantly thinking about colours, lighting, blending, etc.

Me loves to paint!





Only 2 more life drawing classes....ever! I can't believe that. CrazyNESS!!

To Kill a Mockingbird

Moving forward on tackling the AFI's Top 100 films....I screened To Kill a Mockingbird and did a bit of a longer watercolour study...prob 30 mins-ish. I was focusing more on tones again, but this time I blocked out the structures. I think because of the structure, this turned out better than the Singin in the Rain studies.

I fundamentally enjoyed this film...great acting, surprisingly captivating...definito enjoy-ito.


Gotta love those sweater vests. They never really go out of style, do they?

Set the Tone

This week in Life Drawing, Bobby had us purely focus on tone and shadow - so much so that we had to draw all of our poses ONLY using shapes of the shadows, no linework. Sound easy.....it wasn't! Without blocking in your drawing, things can get out of proportion SO easily unless you concentrate like a crazy monkey. [Don't ask.]

So, call me a crazy monkey, but although it was reeealllllllly challenging, I loved trying to see things more as abstract shapes of tone and shadow and not, 'Oh that's a leg, or an arm, or a shoe,'....I can see how this will definitely help the strength of my drawing skillz if I keep on practicin'!

I tried out what I learned by putting one of my fav films in, Singin in the Rain, and doing a couple quick watercolours by painting tone only. [see below!]




How can you NOT love Gene Kelly??

Drawrings o' life

Here's some more life drawings / caffe sketches from the last couple weeks of life drawing class. We are working on drapery, tone and lighting....and did I mention drawing 2 models is tough!

Once again, I feel the more I learn, the more I need to learn.......the more I want to learn!

I hope that feeling never goes away, 'cause isn't that what life is all about??

Stylin'

A life drawring from last week's class; trying to emulate a given style of an existing artist whilst doing life drawing.

Oh, it's all about style these days! I am studying up a storm of the style I want to achieve with my film....as well we are focusing on a style for our life drawing portfolio.

Now, I thought MAYbe I would attempt [ATTEMPT!] to marry the style of my life drawing portfolio with my film style so I would kill 2 birds with one stone. Hmm. I don't like killing birds. So I'd get more stuff done in less time, how's that??

But, anyway, that didn't work. The style for my film is more simplified than I like to do for life drawing. So I looked to Peter deSeve for his masterful inspiration on my life drawings!

Back to drawring life....year 4!

OH golly, talk about jumping back into the deep end! First week of school, and already we have to present our story concept, homework for 2 electives and 3 hours of intense life drawing.

Hmm, perhaps I thought it was intense because I never picked up a piece of conte the entire summer. Or MAYbe I thought it was intense 'cause I was still in summer mode...

Who knows. Regardless, I thought I was gonna completely bomb and draw pure stick figures. Couple that with the pressure of handing something in at the end of class - well, I wasn't exactly looking forward to the results. But I tried to just, phew, let go, just see what happens.

Here's the highlights....not TOO bad for first week back! These are all 1 minute or 5 minute gestures. Ed was wearing a hippie costume - if ya couldn't tell from the fro wig!

Wowza, 4th year. Insane in the membrane.










Part of our sketchbook assignment this week: a page of realistic drawings from life. Fortunately I spent the weekend at Pipe Creek Farm, a beautiful B&B in Western NY, and they had many animals to draw! Although I have to say....it was reeeeeeaaaallllllly hard to draw realisticallllly. MUCH more fun to stylize!

Final Life Drawing portfolio

I can't believe it's already time for our final life drawing portfolio of the year... but alas, the time has come! Well, I have learned heaps, and feel like I am just beginning to understand how colour works and this whole world of caricature and costume...

This last portfolio has felt very rushed, what with our film being due in mere days now [ACK!!], life drawing has definitely been pushed to the back seat. Or, maybe even the trunk....

BUT I am excited to start to implement all I have learned this summer, whew!
Here's the pieces I chose for my final portfolio. Some caffe thrown in there as well, as we had to hand in a page of it.

Digi Life Drawing!

So l am still getting over the excitement of finally getting my Modbook [yay!!], so l brought it to life drawing today and Bobby did a demo with his tablet pc for digi painting, so I decided to jump in & start trying to use Photoshop as more of a painterly approach. I kept each drawing on one layer & tried mostly blocking in tones & shadows with colours. By the end of class, l felt like I was just starting to get into it. And with 10 minute poses, the time kept flying by!

l can't wait til this summer to continue the experimentation!

Caffe-teria

Yesterday in life drawing, Bobby moved our regular class from the model room, to the cafeteria. Time to caricature our fellow Sheridan-ites! Always good times.... my fav was the lady at the top. I dub her Eleanor. I believe she was posing just for moi. :)

Retro yearbook page

For this year's Sheridan Yearbook [all the Animation students get a page to showcase their work in a yearly Animation Yearbook], I decided to do something a bit more fun.

I normally would just throw some of my drawings/sketches on a white background, but when I was at the gym a few days ago [where I seem to think of a lot of interesting idears!], I thought of doing something like this! I know if I saw this sorta thing in a big book o' drawings, it would catch my eye. I hope it catches yours!

Colour Tams Test

I did a bit more experimenting with cool and warm colours and shadows a couple nights ago; I decided to sketch Tams whilst she worked on her laptop. I found even just focusing on the face, there are endless shades of colour, and different plains to discover....

...and her hair was an interesting element too!

Cooking with Colour...

So these past couple weeks in life drawing, we have been doing costumes with colour... something that is much trickier than it looks!

Colour is definitely a fine art. You should be able to get a Bachelor of Colour. I think they should offer that. Yes, I definitely aspire to be a Colourologist. Mmm-hmm, yes, one day.

Well, here's what I've been cooking up the past couple weeks.... still a loooong way to go, but I am having fun, trying to loosen up a lot more and just throw down colours and see what happens!