Another one

Normally I shy away from rendering a model's face because, well because faces are difficult. This model had a very intense stare, which made me want to take a stab at it. The trick is to look at the face as just another jumble of shapes in varying degrees of light and dark, rather than see the shapes as recognizable figures (nose, mouth, eyes). I feel like the main struggle with drawing anything is to overcome what you think the subject looks like and draw what you're actually seeing. This is probably one of the hurdles that keep so many people from starting to draw.

If you haven't already, make sure you preorder a copy of Dewclaw Issue 2 over at Lisp Service. It's only $8 and it features all of my animal portraits and stories, as well as the previously unpublished backstory of Arthur Giraffe. You don't want to miss out on this one.

More figure drawing

Here's another drawing from last week's figure drawing session. I like how the shading came out in this one, and how it weighs down the figure.

If you haven't already, make sure you check out the latest post at Chickens Don't Clap! which features the top 25 albums of 2009, as well as a heading drawn by yours truly. Enjoy!

Floppy Desk

So around a year or so ago I found this desk across the street from my house. It was a bit beat up, drawers missing, and paint chipped, but I thought there was still some life in it yet. For a long time it sat in our front entrance, gathering mail, scarves, keys, and providing much needed storage space underneath. As useful as it was, I felt it wasn't living up to it's potential so I decided to fix it up a bit and give it to my cousin's daughter for her fourth birthday.



I sanded the whole thing down and painted it purple, then outfitted it with new drawer knobs that I got from the rebuilding center. The most challenging thing was figuring out what to do about the two missing bottom drawers. But then I remembered how kids like cubby holes to put stuff in, and with the expert woodworking help (once again) of Michael Heumann we were able to turn them into just that. Below is a picture of Nora and her sister Lila sitting atop the finished product.



Oh yeah, and I drew a picture of it too.

New Nude

Here's another nude from last week's session. This also marks my first post on my new computer which will hopefully make posts tens times more abundant and transplendent. Happy Spring everyone.