Business card

So this is the beginning of my final portfolio for AIS (Art Instruction School). One of the first projects is to design a business card. Had a heck of a time figuring out some decent lettering after having experimented with quite a few. Then the cartoon figure... looks just like me!

It's a work in progress and hopefully I'll have everything done by the end of February. Well, that's my goal anyway...

Suzy grid... again

I spent my 30 minutes this morning working on yet another grid patten so I can produce a reasonable facsimile of Suzy for the AIS course. I'm not beat yet! It has been frustrating, but as a friend of mine says: "Progress, not perfection." Onward and upward.

But I also played around with some ideas from Bert Dodson's book, "Keys to Drawing with Imagination."

Dashboard

I picked up one of Danny Gregory's books (again!) and found the inspiration I was looking for. Or should I say, I once again found the courage to put away my anxieties and frustrations about art and being creative. So on my lunch break, parked along the road admiring the fall colors, I decided to sketch part of my dashboard. Loose, free, unperturbed... just because.

More faces!

Quite honestly, I had no desire to shade and tone and draw nice clean lines this morning. I was more in the mood to just color outside the lines! So no planning or layout, I just took an ink pen and went at it.

The first lady is a portrait I'll be working on for AIS, so you'll be seeing more of her (yes, it's a woman!). Just wanted to lay down some lazy lines loosley (lay lazy lines loosely... more fun with words). But as I work more on it, she'll start to look more like a real person.

The second face is Tina from Mark Simon's book, "Facial Expressions." Tina is in love with me, she just doesn't know it yet. So as an expression of my love, I created her in scratchy line. If this doesn't win her heart, nothing will.

Face parts part deux

Finished up the assignment from yesterday and then just scratched out a face on paper. No inspiration today... just doing the work.

Ink a tree

Say "ink a tree" three times fast. Lots of fun when you've got nothing better to do!

I drew this while I was sitting in my car at a lunch break. It was either do some sketching or subject innocent bystanders to my singing to the song on the radio. I decided that letting others enjoy their day was better than my own personal gratification.

A change of pace

Thought I'd take a break from body parts today and try my hand at some pen and ink. The subject seemed appropriate for a Sunday...

Faces!

More face sketches from my face book. I'm guessing that none of the models in the book will be calling me to commission a protrait this week, but I'm okay with that (wiping alligator tears from eyes).

A little ink, a little color... all in a day's fun.

Pharoah girl and duck boy

Not my proudest moment, but it was an exercise in creativity! I decided to sketch this lady in pen (no pencil baselines to work from) and then I worked on duck boy with a graphite stick. I called the girl Pharaoh lady because of her hair and chiseled face (this is probably what Pharoah's daughter looked like as she poked around in the kitchen cabinets looking for a candy bar) and duck boy has webbed hands (maybe he just got out of the water and he didn't have time to transform into his fully human self). What did I accomplish here? Well, it kept me from extending my Sunday nap to an hour from 30 minutes! (Don't even ask me how to align all these graphics on Blogger cuz obviously, I haven't figured it out!)

Fun with faces

I took an art book off the shelf and blew the dust off. It's called "Facial Expressions: A Visual Reference for Artists" by Mark Simon. It's a book filled with portraits of people's faces. Men and women, ages 20 to 83. I've used it every once in awhile, but I just had a fun day with it today. Scratched out a few faces for your viewing pleasure.

Sketching people... ARGH!

The one thing I want to be able to draw most and the one that frustrates me the most... PEOPLE! I savor the thought of the day when I can draw people that look and pose and act the way I want them to.