Blog
New Koi Sketch
Pen and pencil drawing of one of our new koi fish.
Sketching away
I’ve been working on illustrations about 4 days a week, but I haven’t been posting them since they are all copies of other artists works. I’m learning pen and ink techniques and one of the more interesting ways is to copy someone’s work that I like. Lots of Edward Gorey and Robert Crumb and I just found another artist, John Kenn Mortenson.
I ordered new pens that should be here on Monday. I decided to go back to using technical pens. I’ve been using the Micron Pigmas and they are nice, but not exactly the line control I’m looking for. I’ve also tried dip pens, but the cheapy one that I bought drove me crazy. I wasn’t willing to invest in a quailty dip pen after finding I didn’t care for having to stop so frequently to reink. … Read More »
Steampunk rocket tentacle attack
A little trading card sketch of my work in progress painting/sculpting project. I drew 3 of my ideas in the making. Colored pencil and ink on Strathmore paper.
Photo of the progress so far. I have at least 4 coats of paint on the rocket so far. The tentacles (paperclay) only have one coat at this time.
Hooray for plastic artichokes
I found my artichokes today! Fake artichokes for a papier mache project I’ve been mulling over for the last couple of years.
I don’t remember exactly how the idea came about, but I decided while rewatching “This side of paradise” episode of Star Trek TOS, that I needed to make the spore plants that spewed confetti all over the away crew and made them act nutty.
After a close up inspection of the spore flowers, which looked suspiciously like spray painted artichokes (I do love props), I thought I could accomplish replica spores with some papier mache.
After some thought on how to achieve realistic artichokes involving molds and such, I decided that the cheapest route would be to find fake ones. I thought that buying them online wouldn’t be a problem, but unless I wanted 100 of them, I … Read More »
St Joseph’s Catholic Cemetery
March 25, 2012. Scott, Karen, Wednesday and I decided to check out St. Joseph’s Catholic cemetery off of Broadway. There were quite a few headstones with photos, which is always interesting. There was also a surprising amount of vandalism and lack of maintenance for a cemetery surrounded by a tall fence with an on site maintenance building.
After checking out the cemetery, we ventured across the street to This and That thrift store to check out their current offerings. We didn’t find anything we couldn’t live without.
Our final stop was the infamous Pancake Circus. Time stopped here … Read More »
Preston Castle Book
I was recently contacted by an author working on a book about Preston Castle in Ione, CA about using some of my Preston Castle photos I took on our July trip there. Our friend Wednesday, who was also on the trip referred him to me after he found her photos on flickr. I was beyond flattered on both accounts. I sent him the majority of the images from that day to select from, and he chose 7 images. He said he is going to recommend one of them for the cover to the publisher! I imagine it will be a couple of months before I hear if one of my photos will be on the cover, but how exciting is that?! Either way, it will be fun to have my photos in a book.
When I have more info of when … Read More »
Fun at The Crocker Art Museum
Trill and I decided to take advantage of her week off from school for the dead presidents and go to the Crocker. We arrived right when it opened, which was great for parking and we practically had the place to ourselves for a good 30 minutes.
We checked out the Edgar Payne display and partook on the Fill in The Painting postcard coloring project.
Finished the buildings!
Hooray! I finished the buildings I started on 11/30/11.
I learned the value of sketching out the form before doing the details. I learned this by not following that advice and winding up with portions of buildings that look like they have been through an earthquake!
Next practice sketch will be done with the basic form in place first.
My habit of jumping right into detailing is proving to be much harder to break than I anticipated.
Today’s sketch
I forgot to start posting my sketches. I’ll start with what I worked on today. I noted this illustration a couple of days ago while reading Sandman Vol 6. I believe this was the cover of Three Septembers and a January. Original by Dave McKean.
I had a hard time with the curves.
It’s good to have a goal.
I have set a new goal for myself — become an illustrator. I have toyed with many ideas in the past and have always been stopped by my level of illustration skills. It seems that no matter how I have tried to get around it, I need to learn how to draw. I want to learn how to draw. I have a million ideas to execute, and for some reason, I have not taken the time to hone my illustration skills.
I was in a very peaceful state the other day. My mind wasn’t cluttered with worry or lists of things to do, so I posed the question to myself, “What do I really want to do in life?” My first thought was, Draw. I followed that thought out over the next few days and realized I had quite a list … Read More »
Plymouth and Jackson ~ Sept. 17, 2011
The original plan for this trip was to pig out and Marlene and Glen’s Dead Fly Diner in Plymouth, then head over to the Plymouth House Inn to interview the current owners about the history of their building (it’s quite a story!). But, the work week ended with the interview unscheduled and the interviewer, me, unfit to interview. I needed a day of fun on a whim.
Wednesday, Wire, Trill and I headed out at 9:30am to the Dead Fly Diner. We arrived about 10:30 and didn’t have to wait too long to be seated. Wednesday and I decided to try their famous homemade waffle batter. Wire went for the crab cake eggs benedict with biscuits and gravy and Trill ordered a ham and cheese omelette. All conversation stopped when the food arrived, we were so hungry.
Now that we were … Read More »
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