Heaven and Hell Assignment

Here is an assignment I had to work on for my Design Drawing class. We had to depict heaven and hell using whatever theme we wanted, in multi-narrative form.

I chose do render a "heavenly" life/upbringing, compared to a hellish one (with a little humour and sarcasm of course). It took an insanely long time and still has issues that could be worked out . . . but I think it's fairly humorous as it stands and thought I would post it!

xo

first cartoon

FINALLY DAY 25

My last thing-a-day in graphite!

This is my family dog, Nala. She is so cute and I miss her.

Day 24

Watercolor pencils of a sunset. I've had this picture I wanted to paint for a while. . but haven't had time. Clearly I still didn't have much time. . . and it's tough making watercolors look good in a hurry surprisingly. Here it is anyway.

Day 23

A drawing in graphite of a picture I took in Mexico a few years ago.

Day 22

A silly drawing of me over the weekend. No wine, no salsa; just homework and rain. . . oh, and fuzzy hair because of the rain.

Day 21

I completed this to practice line drawing in ink for one of my classes. Besides the proportion issues with the eyes, I generally like it and am feeling more confident with my strokes.

Day 20

Conte - Black & Red

This was an elegant ad. . . that now looks like a woman stuck in a bad dream. Maybe it's because she is wearing lipstick and a flower in her hair while trying to sleep :)

Day 19 Experiment

More experimentation with the watercolor pencils. I was trying so hard to let the white come through and show the highlights of the flower, I don't think I ended up with enough contrasting dark. . . or maybe I didn't spread it enough around. Ah well, I still quite like it.

Day 18 - Watercolor

Oh watercolor pencils, why have I not tried you before?

Yes, I bought more supplies. . .but I've been curious about watercolor pencils. And I'm so glad I did buy them!

I took this picture while snorkeling in Mexico quite a long time ago. I attempted it before in acrylics, and hated the way it turned out. With the pencils however, I can draw all the detail in and wash over it to blend. This was kind of a rush job . . .but I think they have a lot of potential. Especially because I feel more comfortable with drawing, so if I can fit that more into the painting equation it would be better.

Day 17 - A Sea of Umbrellas

Ink and markers! Yes, it is definitely raining out. . . :)

Dragon for Day 16

This was my first time ever drawing a dragon . . .which seems odd, because it seems an interesting subject that I feel I should have come across before. Inspired by listening to Dragonette, I decided to take a crack at it. I think if I had more time I would attempt something more elaborate and detailed. But I really like how the pen and inks turned out here.

Day 15 - more pens!

Here is another flower pattern in black pen. I wanted to concentrate on the negative space here and felt the best way to do that was to keep it black and white. I like the resulting pattern.

Day 14 Pens and Ink

Inspired by one of my scarves, I drew a version of the floral pattern with black artist pens of varying weights. Then to add a splash of colour I used my India inks.

Day 13

Colored Conte in complimentary colors.

Day 12 - fall colours!!!

Here is a painting in oils of the beautiful fall trees!

Day 11 India Inks again!

Apparently I can't get enough of these :)

Here is a quick picture of my 2 friends. I was talking to them on skype and decided to paint them while we chatted!

Day 10

Here is a girl dancing in India inks. . . as you can tell, I've only taken half of the picture, as the other half looks ridiculous :) I will leave the rest a mystery!

I like the movement you can get with India inks. . . they are very fluid.

That's all for now!

Day 9

ha..you can tell I do these late at night and just find something in my room to draw :)

Here is my jewelry doll drawn with charcoal. I like her because she is classy . . . and keeps quiet while I'm doing homework.

Cheers!

Day 8 with India Ink

In preparation for an assignment due in my Design Drawing class, I thought I'd experiment with a few supplies I have. I bought these India inks about a year ago and have probably used them once. This piece was meant to re-familiarize myself with how to use them.

I used watercolour paper and created a grid and border with masking tape. I like how clean a piece looks after doing this - like it has pre-made frames. I think you can tell which was my first square . . . inks have a finicky nature, and you need to be very light and fluid with your strokes. The main thing with inks, I think, is to accept the subtle imperfections and realize the beauty in them. They are actually very enjoyable to work with if you can accept the medium for what it is!

My favourite squares are in brown at the bottom right (remind me of antlers) and, of course, the black and white zebra-looking pattern in the bottom left (which I have to say look good under the green).

I think maybe tomorrow I will actually try to create a composition that actually mixes the colours. We will see the best way to go about this, as the watery nature of inks make me think it could very easily turn into a big puddle. . . deep breaths Monica . . .deep breaths.

:) Night!

We can just breeze through Day 6 & 7

Here are my 15 minute sketches for the past 2 days . . .

Day 6 - a hand in ink (to help me make decisive strokes)

Day 7 - my new desk lamp (to help me do my TAD when uninspired)

I know. . . I'm reaching here. Apparently this isn't so easy when uninspired.

Looking forward to tomorrow!!

I did do a quick sketch today, but am having issues with my scanner.

Need sleep . . . will figure out tomorrow :)

Intense Reduction

Day 5 before midnight! Woot!

I did this reduction piece in graphite powder. So I sprinkled the powder over the page and smeared it with a cheese cloth/my fingers. Then I proceeded to erase all the light areas and blended/added graphite for the darkest areas (I learned this technique from a wonderful drawing instructor I once had, Frank Haddock).

This is a very serious statue in my house. . . the light was hitting his intense glare quite nicely this afternoon :) I really like doing reductions - they just make a lot of sense to me in terms of light. It also gets you to look at negative spaces and different shapes in the object.

Well I've done my 5 creative things this week! I will continue my next 5 on Sunday. Have a wonderful weekend everyone and thanks for checking out my blog!

xo Monica

Abstract

Day 4 . . . an abstract acrylic painting, using red, yellow, black and white.

I had something in mind while painting this, but I'd rather not say for a bit to see what people get from it. Plus, abstract is supposed to be . . .well . . . abstract. :) I haven't done much abstract work, but it actually took quite a long time. I think that was because my perfectionist mentality seeped in today, but I managed to eventually walk away...

What I would have done differently: put in a white wash background at the beginning and allowed it to dry. It was a pain how the colors seemed to fuzz outward slightly, catching all the little bumps of the canvas.

Cheers!

PS. sorry about the reflection from the flash . . . again, it's passed midnight and the lighting is terrible. maybe I'll take a better one tomorrow.

Red hot

Here is my day 3 creation (fyi, I'm counting day 1 creation as making the blog). I didn't have the frustration of my day 2 oils, so enjoyed today!

I'm not sure if you are allowed to post naked drawings on blogs, but we will see if it gets removed or the blog-gods come after me :). I used colored conté here - red, black and white. I've used a single color with black and white before and really like the results. I usually squint my eyes at the picture and immediately pick out the darkest areas and the lightest areas, then fill it in with black/white and the single color is all the in between and blending. I think it gives a nice shape to the picture.

I feel like she looks a little bit on fire, hence the name . . . but we're all red hot on some days, right? :)

One issue I always seem to have when I do pieces like this is the background. What do you do? Normally I leave it blank, here i've tried to scribble it in. Any advice when you aren't looking at a specific background? I think I need to think more of the composition as a whole, and not only concentrate on the subject . . .

Thanks friends!

Until tomorrow. . .