Chris's Birthday Party

 

So, last Month was Chris's Birthday. I agreed to do portraits of the guests during the party. I had such a blast at the party. I mean I got an excuse to draw all night and on the plus side ended up with some really nice drawings.

Above was the host of the event dressed in a gas mask. This was actually the last of the portraits I did that night. It came out pretty well.  I like the pose and the proportions of the body. I'm really happy with how much the torso pushes forward on the page.

Like many of the drawings here they are limited to just the subject and not much else. I really should have put more thought into the rest of the page. Everything is a learning opportunity.  

This is one of my favorite drawings of the night. I began drawing the face and ignoring the mask planning to go back and put in the mask details. However when I took a step back, I really liked how the blue undertone looked as the mask.    

During a lull someone recommend I draw two people. They were conversing during the pose and it was one of the first times I had two people actively sitting for me. There is a nice interaction between the two figures.   

This was another two sketches pair. I really had some difficulties on the figure on the left, but it ended up looking pretty good.

I did enjoy this sketch. The subjects hair was actually a very nice blue. I decided that the blue undertone was a great for the hair.

Overall I am pretty happy with these sketches.

Oddfellows Watercolors

So because of my Father, I am a part of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. They have meeting twice a month and while they are enjoyable, my short attention span has me needing to do something with my hands during the meetings. I have drawn, done some great pen sketches in the past. I have recently gotten back into watercolors during these meetings.

Above is one of my favorite of the recent ones, Walter. He is in a wheelchair/scooter and his health has been declining in recent months. I really like how I rendered the wheelchair.

Above is Robbie one the the trustees in the regalia they sometimes don.  This is a pretty good quick sketch.

Above is one Melody. She actually came out to my show over at Ong King last month. She was really pleased with the painting. I started with the yellow watercolor pencils then went into color. This painting has a nice feel to it. 

HMoA Drawing Class 08-13-12 - Blithe

Last Monday, I went to the drawing class over at Honolulu Art Academy. Here are the drawings from that session.

The one on the top is my favorite of the 5. It is four 2 minute gesture drawings and a 20minute pose on top of it. I think I could have made the drawing a little bigger and still fit the page. It still was a great feel to it.

I really like this set of 4 gesture drawings. The second from the left is my favorite of these. I guess the biggest testament to how much I like it is that I didn't do another drawing on top of it.

I do enjoy this set of drawings. This is 2 two minute, with the 2 five minute 

This is a 20 minute pose. It actually has a great likeness of the model.

This was the last of the poses for the night. It was a rough pose.

This life drawing class is on Monday at 7PM. It is located at the The Honolulu Museum of Art School, formerly the Academy Art Center at Linekona. There is a 10 dollar class fee. 

HMoA Drawing Class - 08/06/12 - Quantae

I went to the drawing class at Honolulu Art Academy this yesterday.

There was a male model there, which is unusual. He apparently is a professional artist model from San Fransisco.  

He managed to put a lot of emotion in his poses. He also would do neat things with his hands, splaying them out or holding objects. Generally, he knew what he was doing.

Funny story of the night. The guy next to me in the pose above drew a batman costume on the guy. After the pose the model came over and commented that he modeled for the cover of a batman comic.

The top is my favorite of the group from yesterday. It is 2 two minute gestures with a 20 minute sketch on the right. I think all three poses look good and there is still a lot of the gesture in the 20 minute drawing.

This is the two five minute poses and five gestures behind. I have been struggling with these five minute poses in the other weeks because I am unfamiliar with drawing in this amount of time. I decided to approach them like two prolonged gestures. I really like the gesture on the right.

This is 5 two minute poses with a ten minute pose on top of it. Again 10 minute drawings are unfamiliar to me. However I tried to do just a prolonged gesture. I am kind of happy with the end result. The 6 drawings have a nice flow and movement between them.

This was a rough pose. The foreshortened leg on the chair gave me lots of problems. However the Burnt Sienna looks so vibrant on the blue background.

I am really happy with this drawing. This was the last of the 20 minute poses for the night. This drawing has a great feeling to it. I moved to the floor on this pose to get a little foreshortening.

This life drawing class is on Monday at 7PM. It is located at the The Honolulu Museum of Art School, formerly the Academy Art Center at Linekona. There is a 10 dollar class fee.

"All creative art is magic, is evocation of the unseen in forms

persuasive, enlightening, familiar, and surprising."
~ Joseph Conrad

HMoA Drawing Class 07/30/12 - Blithe

This is a poor week for my figure drawing class.

I was not very happy with the end products after this class. I blame it mostly on my lack of preparedness. I tried out a new set of oil pastels and bought a smaller then normal set. The color set lacked a middle dark and middle light tone. So to get the fleshy tone I had to mix my colors with white. It was a little more time consuming then I could handle in a 20 minute sketch.
   

Unhappy with my oil pastels I decided to do the last pose in watercolor. Not bad for my first 20 min figure watercolor.

This life drawing class is on Monday at 7PM. It is located at the The Honolulu Museum of Art School, formerly the Academy Art Center at Linekona. There is a 10 dollar class fee. 

"Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity."

 ~ Chuck Jones

New Pen

So I just got a new fountain pen for my birthday, which is tomorrow by the way. I decided to try it out with a few drawings.

The Ink is 'Beaver' color from the Noodler ink company.

I'd also like a moment of silence for my previous fountain pen that died because of complications and clogged inner workings when I put unsafe ink inside.

My favorite of these drawings is above. I drew a guy typing on his laptop at a Starbucks. I'm really happy how clean it came out.  There is also a really good likeness to the guy.

I had a work meeting this weekend. So in normal fashion I took the opportunity to draw both at the meeting and on the bus ride to and from the location.  

This is Jon. He has worked with me a few times. He is a photographer in his spare time. I am a little unhappy with this drawing and I think I drew him a little wider then he actually is. It's one of those "looking back I see some problems."

 This woman was sitting in front of me at the meeting. She has been at the company awhile and I should really remember her name. She was wearing the coolest earrings.

 

This guy subbed with me on my case one day. I remember him because he cannot swim.

 So we're on Bus riding sketches. This woman was sitting next to what I assume was her husband. They looked like a cute Asian couple.

This was a interesting sketch. When I sat on the bus there was an old man with a long beard sitting in the front of the bus. I really wanted to draw him, mainly because of how interesting looking he was. He had his hand grasping the pole and that's where I started the drawing. I really wanted to capture the pose he was in.  On the next stop the woman came in and sat down. I was a little peeved because she was blocking my view. I debated about just drawing him and ignoring her from the drawing.
However it really didn't matter as the next stop was his. I managed to draw enough of his hand and arm to make is look correct. I ended up with an interesting layered drawing that I really couldn't have planned better.

I had a few minutes after the last drawing and started this sketch. His curly hair was a little fun to render.

HMoA Drawing Class 07/23/12 - Katelyn

 

I went to the Figure Drawing Class at the Honolulu Art Academy, yesterday (7/23/12) 

Here are my drawings form the class. 

Above is my favorite of the 4. This is a 20 minute drawing, using oil Pastels on a toned background.

There is a great play between the oil pastel and the tone underneath in this drawing. I had multiple of the participant in the class comment on her stomach and how nice it looks with the wash's colors leaking underneath the drawing. It makes a great effect. 

 This is six gesture drawings with two 5 minute poses and one 10 minute pose on top. There is a neat energy to this picture although cropping out the two left figures...

Makes for a much better piece.
   

 This is 4 gesture drawings with a 20 minute drawing on top of it. There is a neat feel to this drawing.

This was the last pose of the night. I have been trying to challenge myself by taking seats where the model is very foreshortened. I could have worked on this drawing for hours. I guess it was a little ambitions for a 20 minute pose.

This life drawing class is on Monday at 7PM. It is located at the The Honolulu Museum of Art School, formerly the Academy Art Center at Linekona. There is a 10 dollar class fee. 

Darkness Montypes 6-10

 So I did 5 more of these darkness monotypes. I really think these are better then the first 5 as a group. I really like the one of the sea anemone and the hand I think that's my favorite of this set. 

HMoA Drawing class 06/25/12 - Blithe

SO I got to go out to a figure drawing class on Monday. I came up with some good pieces. There were a little more short drawings then I'm used too, but I think I adapted to them well. The poses went...

10 - Two min poses
2   - Five min poses
1  -  Ten min pose
3  -  Twenty min poses

I really like the look of a drawing on top of the earlier gesture drawings. My favorite of the night is the one above. That is three gesture drawings with the 10 min sketch atop. 

This life drawing class is on Monday at 7PM. It is located at the The Honolulu Museum of Art School, formerly the Academy Art Center at Linekona. There is a 10 dollar class fee.

Darkness Monotypes 1-5

     I have been working on some monotypes for a show I'm trying to get into. The theme of the show Dark and Disturbing. So maybe I have Cthulhu on the brain but I am kind of creeped out and terrified by ocean creatures.
     I asked a favor from Ashlyn, my marine science friend, to send me weird pictures of sea creatures. I then took them as inspiration for these monotypes.

Am I on to something?