100th Post! and Elsewhere

How appropriate that my post for our project as elsewhere should be the 100th post on my blog! Thats right, must mean I've posted over 100 things that I've been working on over this past, suppose I should look back and reflect but I'll save that for post 101... Anyway, over the last few weeks of my drawing lecture with Suzanne Buchanan we have been drawing the museum Elsewhere in an attempt to map out certain areas of the space. This post will contain all the drawings I have done for elsewhere.

Day one at elsewhere we took 5 sticky notes and selected 5 objects to draw, mind you with our time limit I was only able to get one drawn while I was there.. but here it is

As you can see its a big scary looking mask. It just stuck out amongst the books. So later on I took this same drawing and gave it some color just for the fun of it..

Alas our main objective at elsewhere, was not to just draw, we were supposed to map out spaces we determined with duct tape. Well I'm no cartographer, and if I were I think I would fear mapping out elsewhere, everything gets moved around, constantly. However I did not let that stop me. After 2 days of sketching I had two which I liked, I decided that since elsewhere really is just ALOT of stuff piled up, I really just wanted to show how much you can see from various perspectives. I tried to cram as much stuff on the page as I thought I could with out losing the feeling.


As you can see, the drawings I tried to create a sense for just how tightly packed everything is. If you read the text in the second one you can see just how exhausted I was when I was drawing this, as my thoughts were clearly incoherent.

Using these two drawings I wanted to try something digital for my final drawings. Using the eraser tool and drop shadows I created two very different effects and then threw in some text that I think reflects my final opinions of elsewhere.

This first one I wanted to have a blue with a black outline to really show off the hatching to show light moving around over the objects, I dont think I truly succeeded in this respect but the effect is still really cool to me.

Now my second one I think turned out really good, and I absolutely love the white outlines on some of the edges, again I thought of how light was interacting in the space, and I bent the laws of physics a little bit to get some of the stuff underneath outlined as well but who's judging.

I didnt just fall into those two as my final finals, I had a few other attempts which I will post below, I didnt select due to little things I didnt like about them, but I still feel its good to show my process..

Room Renderings

A Rendering we did in IAR 112 earlier this term

Not bad in my opinion, turned out pretty good and strikes me as being some of my best work this term.

Everyday Objects

For drawing class on Thursday we were told to draw everyday objects since our space renderings lacked well, signs of life... So I set out to draw what I could.


You have your tea kettle, quite frankly one of the most important things for a house

Your toaster, another important element to any home, for if you cant have toast with your tea what is the point?

Old timey radio, mostly just because I like how the old ones look as compared to the new ones.

Remote control, because getting up to turn anything on is just stupid..

and a phone, because well, people dont really seem to have these any more and who knows maybe one day my children will look back at this and ask me.. whats that? and I can tell an awkward story about a time when people didnt use Mobiles for everything

El Careton and more!

Tuesday's class took a little excursion over to El Careton a fantastic place to get a bite to eat and a really good view from which to draw. This was the result of that adventure, as well as a few other drawings that were done earlier or later that day.

So we have here a less than happy looking woman and the Brown Music Building. I must say I think that despite my poor perspective I think it turned out well.. and dots make it look so much better, those dots will make a resurgence in drawings I did later as well..

Now these drawings are not really related to my drawing lecture but they use techniques I've learned from it so up they go..
Firstly we have a drawing of the capital building, I did not go to DC but I still ended up drawing some of its major landmarks, I think it looks pretty good, some scaling errors towards the center with the columns but turned out better than I thought it would.

Also got the Lincoln Memorial Drawn just for good measure, as it is one of the first things people think of when monuments are mentioned.

Furniture aka I may as well be a catalog for IKEA

So with our first experiements with assignments in color I must say, I am excited. Despite my little episode about my perspective flat. I am happy to say that I was very happy with the furnishings I drew. especially this first one here, the lovely bed done with water colors. For my first experience with water colors I think it turned out pretty well although I forgot about leaving white space to show where their was a lot of white, sorry susanne.

Next I did 2 chairs, one of which I chose specifically because it was called Patrik and I was reminded of our own professor Patrick, odd that I draw that conclusion. I like this one, done with makers on marker paper. I used warm grays on the shadows and think that it shows really good contrast on the cushions not exposed to a lot of light. And the shadow gradients over time to the full light hitting the seat which I really think makes it all the better.

Below it sits another chair this time a wooden chair done with colored pencil on bond paper. This one I'm not to happy with just because I see how much I do not like colored pencils, while they do show texture well its very difficult to show contrast. Perhaps I should have gone over it with gray scale markers first but again, I'm a forgetful person but now I'll be remembering these errors and correcting them.
On this final page we have a sofa and you guessed it a chair. The sofa is marker on ink paper. I think this is my worst of all 5 drawings because the ink paper did not really absorb the marker as it has no tooth and thusly made it quite difficult to get a nice even coat on, then areas that I went back over to try and make it even appear to contrasted. I do like that the paper is heavy and thick but it lacks the tooth I think it needs for me to find it useful. Further experiments will be required.

My final Drawing is of course the lovely brown leather chair. This was actually the first sketch I did for this assignment hence its very boxy nature. I think it turned out quite good too good contrast, the light I think is very clear, the white colored pencil really worked some kind of magic on it. My only complaint is the shadow underneath which I think I did way to heavy, I accidentally used my warm gray number 3 when I did the follow up to show where it was getting darker, beginners mistake and nothing more.

On a final note, I think they turned out right good for a real first attempt at using color. Can't wait to work with colors more as we advance to the end of the term. Now that I've used them its like a whole new world has been opened up to me.

The Space Between Drawings

These drawings were present on my board however they never really made it off and onto the blog, most of them are from the outside of my assigned building foust. Why outside, well because the interior was rather bland and boring and I enjoyed the exterior well enough to do those instead. Hope you can appreciate them.


The first one of these is very chaotic in a way I can appreciate that, all those lines running around giving it contrast while keeping the form intact.

The second one not so much, mostly because its an interior shot and was in fact about 3 times the size it is now, but was eventually cropped because their just wasn't a whole lot to see.. There is a guy there, guess hes reading something good.. in the corridor.

Truth be told the only one I really even like is the last one, the first one I liked up until I did the third you see before you. The lines just look more precise in all the chaos, like a careful blending of attempted precision while still keeping a loose form to it all. The only other problem I see are my scale figure sizes, they look like children... to small to be university students, they seem better suited to an primary school than a university.

Presentation boards

Behold! the boards from all the drawings of Foust we've been working on for the past month or so.   The project was very educational beyond just technique.  Thanks to all the extra people who helped Jennifer get the boards laid out in time for the presentation I owe you so much gratitude. We couldn't have done it with out you.

The drawings will follow after I have access to a scanner that actually works, it would seem my canon one can only read about half a page before it goes and dies... but such things cannot be stopped sometimes.

Scale figures

Here are my scale figures for the assignment. I think I finally found a style I enjoyed towards the end where instead of doing lots of round shapes like people have taking more geometric route with a bit of round shapes where needed.


Certainly needs some more work but now that I have some ideas about what I like I think I can have more positive results

Entourage

My first example of entourage comes from Anna Loseva - (corrected 17.January.2009)


http://www.artanddesignstudio.com

2nd Jean Alexander


http://www.artworksbyjean.com- here the people are not the focus but rather blend into the background but the other entourage elements still give us a good idea of the scale of the space, the people really only reinforce this.

Michael Anderson
http://www.michaelandersonstudio.com - The simplicity here is great but even in its simplicity there is a lot going on with the entourage which is why I think this is so good.

Olga Berkovskaya
http://www.millerhanson.com/illustration.htm - the people and objects here are well represented and made realistically, it looks good although I dont know if this would be the best for the current assignment.

Finally Kirk Fromm
http://www.kirkfromm.com - these people look very realistic which I appreciate because while I like simplicity sometimes details are brilliant to have as well

Techniques

Suzanne asked us to look for 5 techniques that we liked so I stopped by the ASAI webpage and selected 5 illustrators who I really liked.

The first is Marla Morga http://www.mmorga.org

I really like her style as it is very crisp and clean. I'm not sure how this was drawn whether through a computer or not I still hope that one day I can reflect this style.

Second on my quick list is Henry Zeng http://www.zengsd.com

I really just love how even though it looks a little rough it still looks like something you could bring into a presentation. The hatching is really what does it for me, its very spontaneous but it works so well.

This next one is the work of Wenjie Chen http://www.wenjiestudio.com

I love the black and white qualities and the amount of detail present in them, it is largely contour but I can still see details in various parts as well shadows which really just make the piece blend very well. A little color in there as well adding a little bit really gave it some sort of pop.

This drawing by Jim Anderson is one of my favorites http://www.andersonillustration.com

I just love that all the details are made with hatching rather than lines, I will definitely try an recreate this in one of my drawings as I think that it draws your eye to it but also allows it to show that it is not meant to be what you want to see and I suppose give you a visual clue to look for the straight lines to see the primary subject.

My final selection is by Maksim Koloskov who does not have a webpage according to the ASAI web page but can be contacted at maksk@msn.com


This one I like again due to its quick sketchy feel. Its very loose yet rigid, the hatching is not perfectly straight or spaced equally but it really does look better this way. The sense of scale can be identified by the contoured figure, something that wasnt missing from the others but really well done here I believe.

*note* If anyone I have mentioned up here happens to stop by and objects to my using their work please send me a message and I will remove it promptly. I have done my best to document where I found these images as well attempting to credit the artists responsible. And hey if you'd like to poke about please take a look at some of my work or perhaps some other members of the department http://www.iarblogs.blogspot.com

Detail Drawings

These detail drawings were fun I enjoyed doing them, I decided for most of mine that I would focus on the detail of the changes in value on things which is why there is so much hatching going on. I think the phone turned out especially well, my laptop display hinge looks pretty good too and I was really trying to show that detail of how that fit in so snuggly with the rest of the computer. I think it looks pretty good. The xbox controller I like simply because of the angle at which I drew it, the shadows cast by the thumb stick came out really well in my opinion and I think I showed that the buttons are not just flush with the controller but rather bubble off the surface.

My apologies on the scans, something is abit off with my scanner, I will be rescanning them when I get to studio tomorrow. I tried to edit them in photoshop unfortunately it was a no go so rescans tomorrow look for them then!

-Cheers!

EUC Connector

Over in the Elliot University Center there is a nice corridor connecting the EUC with the Library this corridor was a subject for a drawing assignment recently in Suzanne's drawing studio, let me know what you think of it as while I did not hate it I didnt really like it either, but it certainly looks better when placed in comparison to my first two attempts.

I really want to go back there and try again really soon as I think I can do better.

-Cheers!

Mess Drawings

All these messes came from Wesley's room, while my room has a number of messes I liked these a little better as the are kind of organized messes. They got progressively smaller because as time went on I got more and more exhausted by the drawing, it really does take alot out of you.

- Cheers

*Edit* Images cropped and cleaned up a little bit

Art Exhibit Drawing

A few days ago we took a trip down to Weatherspoon and went to an exhibit and proceeded to draw a feature and drew it. We then redrew it trying our best to show the changes in value and make the image more three dimensional. I liked this drawing and from my understanding other people did as well which is making me feel better about it since I was hesitant about it earlier.

A Messy place

So we had to draw a mess as our first assignment for IAR 112. I like this drawing and I cant wait to do more, the layers were really fun and despite mine not being the messiest it was still a good challenge to draw.


I took my Chartpak markers later on and added some color. the bleed on these markers is really bad but all and all I still like the addition of color as it gives it more depth and character, maybe its just me. I have not been scared away from these markers yet!

-Cheers!