Shapes

Warm-up sketch for the day. I"ve been trying some new things with shapes lately... This is largely because I sit by the talented Scott Gwynn at work and he is obsessed with shapes. It seeps into one's brain. I'm not so fantastic at them, but it's fun to experiment.

Heather and Steve

This is Heather, and her fish purse, Steve. Heather has been one of my best friends since I met her in seventh grade and discovered a mutual love for that great epic, Star Wars (as you can imagine, we were in the minority of middle school girls who could quote Empire Strikes Back and name all the different planets and spaceships... gotta stick together). Among other things, we share a love of beta fish and Gilmore Girls, compulsive cosmetic shopping at Wal-Mart, and a tendency to get lost obsessively in imaginary worlds.

Anyways. Heather is now the queen of Ebay and has a Fahsion Blog to prove it. I thought it would be fun to use has reference. Plus, she has sportingly modeled for quite a number of my illustration projects so I though it about time I do a picture of her.

(Side note: When I'm attempting to draw an expression, I often find myself making that expression. So , yeah... lots of fish face...)

Sketches

Memory sketch of a girl I saw on TRAX yesterday. Tim Burton tights! Colored hair! Must draw.

And first big snow today (though, in retrospect, non of it really stuck...). This is about how I feel when I have to leave nice comfortable inside for snowy outside:


...But I don't have the puffy coat.

Fanart Friday: Divergent

Tris (or as she came out here... Dystopic Rapunzel):


And her friend Christina:


From today's audiobook, Divergent by Veronica Roth. Doodles occurred. Seems to be inevitable.

I find girl-fighter stories really entertaining... not sure why... I'm a terribly pacifstic person myself (If you've read Divergent- I'm Amity, no question). Can't say I have any desire to pick up a weapon myself. Except maybe a bow and arrow. Cuz those are cool. And once I won the archery contest at girls camp, so I think I have some latent ability.

Bus Stop

I really enjoy riding the bus. I'm not sure I can explain it to you... as I"ll admit it is often not terribly convenient. But I still like it. I always feel semi-adventurous.

Cricket

The boy next door, from Lola and the Boy Next Door.

That book made me want to go back to San Francisco.

Tea Time

Herbal tea has recently, of necessity, become quite important to me. I like the ritual... sitting down with your cup, and feeling that all is now right with the world.

Also, it smells really good.

Dancing Flamingo

Warm-up sketch.


Also, I want flamingos on my lawn someday. I think they're classy.

El Gato de Muerte

Feliz Dia de Los Muertos!

I admit i find this holiday rather cooler than it's US counterpart. At the very least in it's design. So eerily cheerful!

Cindercrow

And then the clock struck twelve...

Happy Halloween! This is my submission for the studio blog. The theme this week was "Scarecrow." I happened to be working on mine during the trick or treat activity they had, with the cute little girls dressed as princess parading past our office. So... yeah. That's where it came from.

Fish Love

I may never get tired of drawing these.

(Reference to this, if you haven't been here before...)

Tumblr

So there's this thing on the internet called Tumblr. And I've decided to join in the party. Mine will be a sketchblog for the most part... because posting keeps me accountable, even if no one sees it.





So this sort of stuff will be HERE now... I've challenged myself to try and post something everyday. Wish me luck!

Pottermore

If I were a first year at Hogwarts...



I'd be in Ravenclaw, have a cat for a pet, and my favorite classes would be charms, transfiguration, and astronomy.

I'm a nerd.

Estefan's Salon

I haven't worked on Estefan (the eventually upcoming BYU short film) for a while now... but, here's a color study I did of the environment. Environment design the effort of many.

Can't wait to see how the film comes out!

Tribute

For Richard Hull, brilliant illustrator and beloved professor, who retired this past semester.

I'm sorry for all you students who won't have the privilege of learning from him... I am much luckier than you.

Thanks for everything, Brother Hull. I hope you enjoy the plein-air painting!

Fanart Friday: Anya Balanchine

Okay, so it's not Friday, but I meant to post it yesterday... so it counts.



From All These Things I've Done by Gabrielle Zevin, Russian mafia princess, New York seventy years in the future.

I thought it was a cool book, an alternative take on the "dystopic" trend so popular in YA lit these days, though it's not itself dystopic. And you know, I always love a good girl power book.

Also... I kinda want to see the movie.

Soundtracks

I love cities. And I love music. And I especially love them together. I love to put on my headphones and stroll around downtown... makes me feel like I'm in a montage from a movie (riding the bus with headphones has the same effect). Type of movie varies with my mood... quirky indie film, chick flick, action adventure, thoughtful drama...

Today has been mostly Pop Latino. Not sure where that fits, but it was fun.

Unlikely Friends

For Heather.

And no, he's not going to eat the bird.

Israel Sketches

I've had big plans of posting these about a month ago (I can't believe it's been a month!), but I kept putting it up because there were a few sketches I wanted to finish... Which of course hasn't happened. Lesson learned: sketch pages are meant to be done the day of. Still, I did manage to sketch more than I have on any other trip.

So... Some pages.











Israel was great. Did I mention that?

And... if ever there's a mysterious benefactor out there reading this, looking for an artist to send around the world for some reason... I'm pretty sure I could make myself available. It's possible that might be my dream job.

Suitcases

"Have a suitcase heart. Be ready to travel." -Gabrielle Zevin

At risk of sounding melodramatic... I read that line the other day and it kind of got stuck in my head, since I've been living out of suitcases for the last few weeks. And it kind of reminds me of that "rootless" sort of feeling that accompanies transition periods.. I've been apartment hunting. Not my favorite thing in the world, to put it mildly.

On another note, I've always wished I had one of those retro suitcases with stickers all over it. And of course to have gone to all those places on the stickers.

Autumn Hair

Yesterday the warm-up exercise at work was to create something with hair a la Kevin Keele.. Which was fantastic, since hair is one of my very favorite things to draw. I was enjoying the excercise so much it was hard to move on to my actual assignment. But then I went home and kept working on it.

It was satisfying.

Also, fall is here! And with it my first September in which I do not return to school (well, minus the one where I was in Uruguay) and that is also very satisfying.

A Mural in Nazareth

I recently returned from a two week trip to Israel with some fellow artists, in which we painted a mural in the St.Vincent Hospital in Nazareth. I posted the plans for it a couple months ago here. It was an amazing experience, a truth I'm never able to adequately express when answering the question: "How was Israel?"

Since the mural went up a stairway, it was a bit difficult to get a picture of it in it's entirety, so I took a video instead.( and I apologize for the quality...)



The other artists who worked and help plan it:Bethanne Andersen (Our fearless leader), Boston Madsen (mastermind behind the fish... love that detailing!), Adam Borgia (Adam did all the tough start up work... there's no way it would have gotten done without him), and Jake Wyatt (responsible for a lot of the composition). I primarily worked on faces. It was the first mural for all of us.









I'm really grateful I got to be a part of this. Israel is a special place, and we met some truly inspiring people. Everyone was so welcoming and kind. I was constantly thinking..."Wow... I need to be a better sort of person." It was a privilege to be able to participate in some small way in the work they're doing.



Check out forpeace.us for more information about the project and pictures of the mural in progress.

Also, sketchbook pages from the trip coming soon..

Gestures!

This post is brought to you courtesy of THIS SITE. It's an online photo generator, meant to simulate a figure drawing class. This week at work one of our warm up excercises was draw gestures with Force using this tool, and I was reminded of how fun gesture drawing is. Seriously, I went home that day and did this for several hours. These are all around two minutes or so, except for the first few, so you can imagine how many pages I went through (I don't tend to have a whole lot of patience for poses longer than two minutes, a weakness I should probably work on overcoming...).







It's been about a year it think since I've drawn, not painted, from a live model. oops! shameful. Photos aren't really a substitute, but it was good practice... and I think I actually got a little better after awhile (maybe? at least I got brave enough to stop cheating and drawing it first with orange pencil and then pausing the generator to go over it in pen...). And I definitely want to go do some actual figure drawing now.

Anyways, drawing is fun. And somewhat addicting.

(A note: Make sure you specify whether or not you're ok with nude models if that's a concern)

After Hours

I've been inspired by the amazing Anthony Holden this week to try and keep a better sketchbook. Anthony has some of the funnest "doodles" I've seen in a long time. These are nothing like those. But, my goal is to have more fun when I draw. I've decided to start small and do a memory sketch of someone I see every day.

You might notice that the key criteria of who I choose is largely based on: hair, patterns, and color. All things I enjoy sketch-painting.






The above guy was on my bus this afternoon and had the most spectacular hair I couldn't even do it justice.

For some reason I don't get around to doing these sketches until like 11 at night, which is unfortunate because I then do not want to go to sleep.

(Confession: One of these is not a memory sketch. It's from a book. Yes, I cheated.)