What a little water can do!

Seriously!

I'm glad I discovered that whole water/ink thing I blogged about a couple days ago, because my pen work has improved d r a m a t i c a l l y as a direct result.

I hated the face in the other version of this drawing posted below somewhere so I redid it in "my own style". Less gestural and more detailed. Honestly? I don't know why I thought that style would fit what I was doing with these drawings as opposed to the one I usually use. This drawing makes the other one look like a toddler drew it in comparison. Perhaps I'll experiment with other subject matter. Obv. this one is unfinished, I'm going to put those triangles where they were and finish up the clouds. I may also rethink the color scheme and of course, add more hair.

Also, because I'm as bored as a vagina in a gay bar, I started work on a second drawing from the same series. I figure this would be the easiest out of the bunch to do so here we are:

I'm thinking this is "Fall", for some pretty clear reasons. Unfinished.

It's a lovely day today

Many thanks to Ben Busch for this lovely photo and Astrud Gilberto for the lovely song in the video below. If anyone noticed, I actually went through with some of the visual changes to the blog I wrote about last post. These changes will surely give way to more over whatever period of time I keep this blog.

I need to spruce this thing up.

If I'm going to be blogging on a regular basis, I need to do some work on the look of the blog itself. Right now it reminds me of moving into my college dorm freshman year and being completely goddamn appalled.

Update!

There's a funny story that goes along with this updated drawing here:

Well, I don't know how funny it is actually...

I guess if you find particularly mundane bullshit funny then you're apt to bust several guts.

Anyway, for the longest time I was wondering why my pen -I use a traditional pen with a nib and such- wouldn't lay any ink down on the page. Literally for weeks I would try and draw with this particular nib only to end up scratching the page (and my ego), leaving but a scant few pathetic, visibly anger-laden marks. I then switched to older nibs I had in my possession to no avail. I became pretty upset that these nibs weren't producing anything, so in a little bitch-fit today I tossed my pen, whereupon it landed in a glass of water.

Naturally the ink was of a completely different consistency due to contact with the water, which for some reason induced me to begin drawing on a nearby sheet of paper. Well, long story short -or long story even longer-, it wasn't the nibs that were defective as I'd previously thought, the consistency of the ink was just too damn thick.

Is your mind blown? Have your FUCKING guts BURST?

I bet, right?

Enjoy the updated work! Now that the "Great Nib Debacle of 2009" has officially passed, there should be more work forthcoming fairly quickly.

1st of Four

Alright, here's the first in the forthcoming series of four drawings I blogged about previously. Begun and completed last week. I still feel it needs something, and may add more items in the background at a later date.

Persephone

I'm doing a series of illustrations/washes based on this painting:





The painting itself is based on my interpretation of the mythological story of Persephone and the changing seasons.
I'm not sure what the dimensions are -it's not a large painting by any means-, but it's acrylic and was begun and completed this year. My memory is a little wonky, but I'm thinking I started sometime in January and finished in July.
The sort of dark, sinewy organic figures with their structural similarity to worms serve as a metaphor for death. Above, the subjects flaming red hair, plume of flowers and sun motif depicted in the bright blue sky are indicators of life, triumph, etc.

The illustrations I'm planning on doing are going to depict those seasons specifically along with aspects of the story. Stylistically they'll be quite a bit different from things I've done before as I'll use a more gestural technique rather than the style depicted in the above painting. I'll post pictures as I make progress.

Kiddies

From what I can gather, the only reason people have children is to constantly try and escape them.

I'm going to blog more, I swear to God, though I'm fairly lazy and also a perfectionist, like Da Vinici.

Such a great combination of traits, right?