Horned people posin'...

More PE sketch assignments from this summer. Here are a pair of Unavisi (invite-only character race designed by Brianne Goetz). Davina Falcão's fella Atthis in graphite and pen and Amy Clark's Yew with a juvenile gryphon sketched in Photoshop.

Semi-chromatic ladies...

More of my sketchbook PE assignments from this summer...

Del Borovic's character Tain

Black ink pen, red nupastel

Mandy O'Brien's character Amile
2B and 4B graphite pencil, various colors of nupastel

Broody dudey...

Another thing from PE assignments this summer, Amy Clark's Conan. Broodin' boyo. More PhotoshopCS3, soft brushes and mucking with color.

Pirates! Arr!

I woke up today with a horrendous migraine. At first, I decided I could walk it off and started getting ready for school anyway. Biiiig mistake. After scraping myself up off the bathroom floor, I downed a few extra-strength excedrin and went back to bed, curtains drawn. I felt like crap pretty much until noon. I'm sort of annoyed because there was Stuff To Be Done today both in my Web Art class and at the tutoring gigs I do (had to call my tutorees and let them know I'd be a no-show).

Anyway, in light of that failure on my part, I figured I should post some of the art I did over the summer for the Private Exchange. The exchange(s) these were for were a "sketch" level so I didn't really get too involved with clean lineart or developing color or even using a print-quality dpi. Um. Sooo...let's start with a couple of pirates! Swashbuckling ahoy!

Daerik (left) and Jessie (right) are characters belonging to Amy Clark, aka phoenix_element. Drawn digitally in Photoshop CS3.

Aboidoodles crosspost...

Crossposted with Aboidoodles (another art/project blog of mine and my buddy Tam's that gets images this one doesn't, bwahahaha). Head over there to learn more!

Naked in Red-Blue-Yellow

A lifedrawing sketch from back on May 7th for Drawing 3. The guy, a man in maybe his 60s or 70s, had a very interesting figure with an oddly proportioned back and abdomen. I very much enjoy drawing backs. I think they're one of the top three most beautiful human features aesthetically.

Anyway. I like doing lifedrawing this way. I used a scrap of bright yellow canson mi-teintes pastel paper and covered it with a layer of blue oil pastel, then smeared it with orange and red and brown oil pastels, dotted it, generally made a mess. Then used an exacto knife to scratch out the figure, occasionally smearing what I'd scratched off back into the piece. Went back over it with red oil pastel for the "border" and "ground" and then a dark blue oil pastel for dark shadowed areas. I left it very textural instead of smooshing the pastel down, so some parts are raised. A lot of that dimension got lost when I scanned it. And at some point apparently one of his feet got smooshed out... Oh well!

Still, I had fun.

All bottled up...

Ummm...just a digital speedpainty sketchy thing done to the prompt of "transparent sphere."

I know, I'm a weirdo. Woo!

Commish Wip: "Watching Over You"

I don't know what it is about coloring this one that is just MURDERING me. Ugh. I have no idea what it is at all, but it's like pulling teeth to finish it.

Commish WIP: "Watching Over You"

Something I'm working on that is stupidly overdue.

I have developed a new way of coloring that I'm much happier with, and you can sort of see it in action here. However, keep in mind that the colors seen here may drastically change before this is done (I'm going to adjust both skintones a lot, for example).

Three for the show! (Death, Presidents, and Sap.)

A page from my sketchbook in chalk pastel and charcoal, done on a homework prompt of "draw something you think is dead."






A page from my sketchbook of brainstorming I was doing for a piece involving Abraham Lincoln (whose 200th birthday anniversary is this year, wacky). ...also, I drew Abe Lincoln on a Chipotle burrito's foil wrap with sharpies, and later tore it off and pasted it in the sketchbook. I'm a doofus, but I have fun.



And some sap drawn for a friend (and partially for myself) involving her character Seville and my character Sugar Maple. They are Unavisi, which is a race and a project designed by our mutual good friend Brianne for her friends to participate in by invitation only.

Improving me: (#1) Movement!

Crossposted from Aboidoodles: I have a lot of weaknesses as an artist. One of them is that I don't do movement much. Action. People (or things) in motion!

So I confronted that by having Dre, in my head, stealing something or breaking in somewhere or perhaps just getting up to general mischief, and ending up having to run around and jump over things to escape people very intent on SHOOTING HER. ...naturally she thinks this is fun as all get out.

So here's a sketch of Dreor showing her athletic, trouble-loving side.

What would you scientifically name a fairy?

I know, I know. Fairies. You're making that "seriously, Kate?" face right now, I can just feeeeeeeel it.

But nevertheless, back in the day, I had a pet chameleon and a large reptarium set up for him. That is, a terrarium of sorts designed for reptiles which cannot be kept in glass cages due to temperature and humidity concerns. During that time, I got the idea in my head of drawing a vivarium of some sort...for fairies.

In my head, the image involves a sign, such as you'd see in a zoo or other exhibit, naming the species contained in the vivarium and describing them a little. And within it would be active little folk, flying or tumbling or just lounging about. Whatever. I imagine at least five individuals within the vivarium.

I might want to include a human, observing.

Anyway, I'd completely forgotten the project for the last few years. Today, while cleaning up my files for a minute, I found it again and was amused. I thought I'd share here the old sketches... One is of a vivarium, but I think I was just practicing.

I was apparently studying the posture of divers for an idea of the agile flight poses of the fairies. Good idea, self. Maybe this is worth revisiting at some point.

Tell it to the bees...

One of the sketches from one of my sketchbooks this year, which I only got a chance to scan because I had two minutes with a school scanner. Heh.

For centuries, it has been a tradition in beekeeping families to "tell it to the bees" when a member of the family dies. Usually it's a child who goes down to the hives immediately after the person has passed and informs the bees that a beekeeper has died. Later, the bees are given a portion of the funeral cake or some other sweet to feast on, and they are formally invited to attend the person's funeral. There have actually been several recorded cases where the bees did, in fact, honor the invitation and come to the funeral. It has also been suggested in beekeeper folklore that the bees will not only empathize with the family in the event of a beekeeper death if told of it, but ensure that the soul has safe passage to the afterlife.

Much of the folklore surrounding beekeeping, and the rituals of beekeepers and their families, really intrigues me. I find it sweet and quite spiritually admirable at times.

Either way, this sketch was inspired by the idea of "tell it to the bees" and the insects' escort of the beekeeper's soul.
Prismacolor colored pencils, black fine point ink pens on recycled sketchbook paper.