There Will Be No Week 22

I'm making an executive decision here.  I'm going to stop drawing this week.

There's lots of reasons.  One, I'm really tired and cranky.  That's not conducive to creativity.  Next week summer is over and my schedule goes back to not being completely ridiculous.  That will help.  Two, insomnia has bitten me real bad ... making me tired and cranky.  I guess this is just an extension of the first point.  Three, I just have no motivation.  I come home and I want to lie down.  My body is starting to run down.  Heck, I'm even skipping some of my fitness workouts.  That's the surest sign I'm burning the candle on both ends a bit too much.  You have to listen to your body, because you're the only one who can.

So I'm taking a break, from everything.  Good timing, I think.  It's a long weekend coming up, and then it's a new month and everything starts fresh.  I'll be raring to go, and maybe I'll put an hour in each day to make up for some of this lost time.

See you next week.

Week 21: The Rest of the Furious Five ... Mostly

Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of drawing time on my hands this week.  In fact, I've actually worked 13 days in a row, most nearing 10 hours.  I go home and go to sleep.  Except sometimes I've had insomnia, like the past two days, in which my days become less fun.  So, really, my not drawing a lot makes sense.  Still, let's take a look.

This is Master Monkey.  True story: I spent three months trying to learn monkey-style kung fu at university.  My instructor thought it would be the best to complement my natural abilities.  Those three months sucked, and at the end, the instructor conceded that I'm not a good monkey.  That experience likely helps shape why I don't like Master Monkey.  As for the picture ... meh.  It does nothing for me.  It mostly looks Monkey, I guess.  Some of the hands are okay, others are horrible.  I won't be drawing Monkey again anytime soon.

This is (mostly) Master Tigress.  No, it's not completely finished yet, but I'm uploading it anyway.  True story: my Kung Fu instructor said "You're a natural tiger."  Later, as I finished my training with him, he said "You'll be a tiger for life."  This thrilled me.  Tigers and big cats have always been my favourite animals.  Relatedly, Tigress is my favourite of the Furious Five.  This drawing is shaping up fairly well ... except for the head.  The head doesn't capture the tilted 3/4 perspective.  I blame the jaw and nose.  Something is off there.  I will erase and redo that area, hoping to fix that area.  The marking are fairly good.  Obviously, I still need to shade virtually everything.  Let's look at this again when I finish it.


For me, summer ends next week.  Then I go back to regular working hours, which means more art hours.  I look forward to it.

My Average Summer Day

Summer is a great time.  I try not to complain about summer: not the heat, or the lack of rain, or the then abundance of rain.  Summer is meant to be enjoyed.  That said, summer has a tendency to work people to the bone.  If you climb into bed on a summer night not completely exhausted, you're doing something wrong. Between summer jobs, swimming, playing outside, or even just baking under the sun, you shouldn't have excess energy at day's end.  For me, this is doubly true.

Here's my average day.  Note the word 'average.'  By definition, some days are better and some are worse.

7:00am: Wake up

7:02: Start my morning yoga/martial arts stretching routine.  Goal is to reach the splits by start of 2013.

8:00: Have a shower and prepare breakfast.  Pack a lunch.

9:00: Twenty minutes of meditation.

9:20 - 10:30: Free time.  For this blog's purpose, this is the time where 90% of my drawing gets done.  If I don't draw now, I might not get a chance later.

10:30: Get ready and leave for work.

10:50am - 3:00pm: Working at a summer sport's camp run by the karate school I go to.  My job description basically reads 'keep kids aged 6-10 happy and entertained.'  I like kids, I really do, but this is an exhausting four hours, especially when I'm the head councillor for the day.

3:00 - 3:30: Down time.  I would call it free time, but I more or less use this time to sit in a silent corner and take deep breaths, unwinding.  I have yet to do anything productive in this window, save for perhaps dropping off library books.

My schedule now diverges, depending on whether I work that afternoon.  If yes, which is the majority, then:

4:00 - 9:00: Working as an assistant karate instructor.  As far as summer jobs go, this is awesome, but it has more physical demands than, say, operating the McDonald's drive-thru.

9:20: Arrive home, eat something, go to bed shortly.  If I still feel alert, I might draw.  I think it's happened maybe twice.

And when I don't work:

4:00: Go for a 5k run.

4:30 - 5:30: Free time.  Good time for drawing.

6:00 - 9:00: Personal karate training.  The number seems big, but I spend about half the time teaching and correcting other students.

9:20: Arrive home, eat something, go to bed shortly.  If I still feel alert -- no, hasn't happened.

Looking at this, this is a hefty schedule.  I often work nine hour days, not to mention my own personal fitness goals.  On most days I have maybe two hours of free time, but it's not as if I use all that time for art.  I have other interests, from simple reading to juggling to being with friends and family, not to mention the pure laziness of relaxing to the TV or a videogame.  Also, necessities like cleaning or shopping or doing dishes or petting a cat get priority.

The fact I draw at all is impressive.  I'm making some big sacrifices to fulfil this art challenge.  I've effectively given up chess, writing and music in favour of art.  If this doesn't show dedication, nothing does.  One reason I'm not super-psyched about art over the last few weeks is likely this schedule.  If I can survive this, I can survive any art-related challenge.  When I'm an accomplished artist, I can look back to this time and know my dedication here brought me my future results.  No question.

Week 20: The Furious Five, Three at a Time

I love watching cartoons, and by that I mean real cartoons, not the animated dramas called anime.  Children's cartoons focus on fun, and most have surprising depth.  Look no further than classic Disney, in particular from about 1973-1995.  These movies are characterized by fun, active characters in simple yet engaging plots, and almost always accompanied by a strong moral message.  Though Lion King is unquestionably my favourite, I'd like to give a shout out to Oliver & Company, a criminally underrated film.

I also love martial arts.  I've been practicing various forms for about half my life, ranging from tough tournament competitions to the daily quest of self-improvement and mastery.  It's undoubtedly the best thing I've ever done for myself, though learning to draw may become a close second.

Given these two paragraphs, it should be no surprise that I love Dreamwork's Kung Fu Panda.  It's a simple, fun frolic in the world of animation and martial arts.  When I first watched it, I actually redoubled my own training, such was the effect it had on me.  This week, I tried to draw some of the characters, starting with the Furious Five.  I hoped to do all five in one week, but ... here's the first three!

This is Master Viper.  True story: one of my sparring stances is modelled after Snake Kung Fu.  Many of my partners say it's very tough to spar against, and I've had great success with it, even if my own Kung Fu experience is rather limited.  This is probably why I'm drawn to Viper.  I'm pretty happy with this drawing: the scales on her belly look good, and the pattern around her back turned out well.  Ignore the dark cloud near her head: that's completely the scanner's fault.  For a line art of a snake, I can't do much better than this without investing double the time.  Awesome.

This is Master Crane.  True story: I studied Matsumura White Crane style for two weeks, before I left for university.  My sensei then past away before I returned, much to my shock and horror.  I've sometimes wondered if going to school was the right choice.  This doubt likely fuels my interest in Crane ... as well as his sarcastic wit.  I'm less happy with this one: it definitely looks like a bird, but it doesn't immediately looks like Crane.  I need more detail in his face, hat, eyes, feathers and talons .... in short, everywhere, but again, I was in a serious time crunch, so this will have to do for now.

This is Master Mantins.  True Story: I have no experience with mantis kung fu.  Sorry, no more personal anecdotes.  I do like praying mantises in general, though, and Mantis is a mantis.  This drawing took about an hour, making it the quickest of the three.  I managed this in part by ignored the shadows.  There's nothing glaringly wrong with this image, but I don't really like it.  Oh well.

Here's all three on the page:

 

For the record, I had two days this week where I worked more than 12 hours.  I'm used to busy schedules, but even that's a little too extreme for me.  Thank the Goddess I had drawing to fall back on: just a few minutes each day to sit at my desk and be creative, not reactive or productive.  One day I'd try to get the outline, the next day I'd go for the quick shading and details.  Not a perfect system, but when you are starved for time it's better than nothing.

Next week I should finish the rest of the Furious Five ... and hopefully more, and seven days to do two characters seems excessive.  Or maybe they'll just have seven days worth of detail and finish.  You'll just have to wait and see!  Oh, surprises!

Week 19: Back to Basics

I've decided to really focus on line art for the rest of this month.  There's a couple of reasons.  One, when I do my realistic stuff, about 20% of my time is sketching the outline and the rest is varying degrees of shading techniques.  That's not an ideal ratio.  I feel like my outlines are often weak, and I need the good shading to 'salvage' the drawing.  Finally, I only have 10 pages left of my notebook, and I can fill it up faster if I don't focus on expertly shading every little thing.  That's the goal, at least.

First things first, my second birthday card:

This is based off my sister's favourite game, Robot Unicorn Attack.  If you've played it, it's probably your favourite, too.  If not, go play it here.  See you in a couple hours.

I drew this in two and a half sittings.  As is, it looks okay, but I wanted to do so much more.  I simply ran out of time.  In fact, I didn't even turn it into a full card; I just wrote a happy birthday message in the top corner and called it a birthday poster.  She loved it, by the way.

The drawing is good enough.  I was happy to give it away.  The one butterfly-sprite thing looks quite good.  Considering I rushed, the dark, even shading of the unicorn is quite impressive, even if the transition to the lighter colour looks artificial.  The circle I drew completely free hand, and it looks very round.  Awesome.  Finally, we have the lettering.  About 70% of the letters looks okay, but several are off in some way or another.  I realized too late I should have used a ruler to make it all level, or even some guidelines.  Oh well.  Considering I'm trying to copy a computer font in block letters, I'll take it.

This is a simple line drawing of Amaterasu, a character from the super-awesome game Okami.  I actually copied the design from somewhere online, but I forgot to record where.  Opps.  If I find it again, I'll be sure to properly cite the source.

So ... it's a howling wolf.  Not the first time I've drawn something like this.  Not bad.  The head/snout area is off in some way, and considering that's the most important part, that negatively affects the whole.  This only took ten minutes, so as a quick and simple drawing, that's a good sign.  A few months ago it would have taken me three times as long to create a worse image.  Progress.

Here we have my sunglasses.  They are a dark pair, with dark lenses, drawn in a dark room.  Again, a fairly fast sketch, as I wasn't in a great drawing mood that day.  I tried shade in the non-lens part quickly but still conveying the shadows and contours.  Again, not bad.  I didn't realize how complex this project would be, because there are a lot of weird little angles, most of which I glossed over.  Also, the reflection in the lens would have taken a solid week to try and draw.  So I didn't.  Note to self: when I get really good, try to do a piece conveying reflections in someone's glasses.  It has the potential to be awesome.

Finally we have this failure.  It's an unfinished rose.  It sucks.  The centre few petals are okay-ish, but I had such negative thoughts about this one almost from the first stroke.  I tried and tried and tried to get the bigger, surrounding petals, but nothing worked.  In the end I just abandoned it.  I'm not a big flower guy, anyway.


I suppose there's no point in hiding it: this wasn't a great week, and this is about ten days now of me feeling utter hostility towards drawing.  It takes an effort of will to sit down and actually put pencil to paper.  To be honest, though, I expected this.  When most people try something new, such as a commitment to get into shape, they quite after two weeks.  If they survive that, the next hurdle is just after month three.  For some reason, the enthusiasm just seems to plummet around then.  I've seen it time and time again.  If you fight through this plateau, the rest is smooth sailing ... until the next plateau.

That's why I'm going to keep it simple and do some line drawing.  I'll beat this by sheer quantity if I have to.  I'll just draw my favourite characters from my favourite movies or games, I think, something fun.  Let's see how it works next week.

Week 18: A Birthday Card

Back to drawing this week!  Yeah!

My family has two birthdays coming up, for my brother and sister respectively.  Well, technically, my brother's birthday was last month, but he's away from home and won't return until mid-August, so we'll be celebrating both in the coming weeks.  For the first time ever, I decided to make my own birthday cards.  It adds a personal touch and I save a few bucks ... though, assuming I got paid minimum wage, this first card would have cost over $30.

I'll just add here that making art for someone else, even just a carefree birthday card, is rather stressful.  I became far more critical of my work, something I didn't think possible, but there it is.  You always want to make it perfect, but when someone else's eyes will be seeing it, you want to make it extra perfect.  Though I only made one birthday card, essentially two images this week, I put in many hours of work.  Here we go:

This is the front cover (the card is folded in landscape style, so it's longer horizontally than vertically).  For those who don't know, this is the Pokemon Krabby.  I think I did an excellent job with this: good proportions, nice shading, looks like the real thing.  Note that my scanner wasn't being my friend today, and it refused to scan the top part of this image, which should read "Don't Be."  In other words, the front of the card says "Don't Be [picture of Krabby]"  Why don't be crabby?  Because ->

Don't be crabby, it's your birthday!  So, basically, you open the folded card up, which reveals a much happier crab, complete with party hat, party balloon and a present, as well as a banner.  I won't lie, drawing this part really sucked.  Krabby doesn't have as nice proportions, and trying to turn the claw sideways to hold the present almost made me scream.  Not to mention the completely 2-d present looks completely out of whack with the rest of the image.  But hey, at least the balloon looks good!  I think it's the best touch.

I believe this is my first sample of handwriting uploaded here.  I have excellent handwriting, but it isn't very artistic: it's small, compact and straight.  I'm told it looks like a computer font.  I write to take up the least amount of space possible, so I can cram more words onto a page.  This is an admirable trait but less good for a birthday card.  It takes an incredible act of will to write bigger, and still, the first time I wrote 'birthday' it covered maybe 1/3 of the banner.  I tried it three more times ... then I practiced writing it on a separate piece of paper about six or seven times, and then I finally did it.  Even here, I had to add the exclamation mark to make it even, but it worked.

Here's the complete card in one image:

Of course, I've added my own little message in the black space under the banner, but the Internet doesn't need to see that.  This is my art blog.  You're here for my art, not my sappy birthday banter.

So, this is the first time since grade school that I made a birthday card, or even just a card in general.  I never remembered it being this stressful, the desire to make everything perfect.  I think it came out rather well.  It might not be funny, but it's definitely light-hearted, and that's always fun.  Also, my brother doesn't know I've been practicing art, so I'm sure he'll be impressed by that alone.

I now have to make one more card.  Her birthday is Thursday, but I don't really know what I want to do.  I know the general theme of what I want to do, but not any particulars.  I have four days, so I better think fast!    This is my first artistic time-crush.  Let's see how I fare.