torncanvas.net // sketchblog

About to do something drastic.

2007-12-30T20:34:00.000-05:00

Well, i wasn't going to finish the switch from Blogger to WordPress today but… why not. Let's get it over with, shall we?

Actually switching the blog should be easy. Getting the RSS feed right should also be easy. I'm not entirely sure, though, that Feedburner will fully realise what's happened. So there may be a few double posts in the feed.

I apologise in advance, especially to the e-mail subscribers.

Sketch: Magic

2007-12-30T13:32:00.000-05:00

Attempting some Wordpress-fixing today, which may or may not break the front page. Ironically enough, i don't think it'll affect the blog at all (at least, what i'm doing today won't. Tomorrow is a whole other story.)

Get the Lead Out!

2007-12-29T21:55:00.000-05:00

“Get the Lead Out” was something one of my art teachers started when i was in high school. I don't think it ever quite made it to the internet - while Sue does have a website, she's not too tech-savvy (which is a shame, really; i would love to read a blog by her).

Anyway, “Get the Lead Out” was basically an attempt by Sue to get her students drawing every day, even the days they didn't have art class. The goal was to draw for at least ten minutes a day, in any medium, and keep track of how many days in a row you could go without missing (my personal record is over 400 - 417, i think, but i'm not sure of the exact number). The drawing also had to be new - we couldn't just work for ten minutes on our current work-in-progress and consider that our drawing for the day.

It's been years since i lost my 400+ ranking, and i'm still trying to get it back - i'm at 10 right now. GTLO is actually harder at the beginning than it is after a year or so of drawing; at 300+, missing a day and having to start over is motivating in and of itself. At ten? Meh. If i miss, i can catch up again in a little over a week.
So, with self-motivation in mind, i've made a list of Ten Reasons GTLO Rocks:

It's great practice.
1a: You gain a mastery of your drawing materials you just don't have when working only a few times a week - even if those few times are several hours long.
1b: Coming up with something new to draw every day is one of the greatest creativity exercises imaginable.

It gives you something to post between Illustration Friday pictures.

It exercises the right side of the brain, making it a great break from math homework, income taxes, and annoying co-workers.

It can be done with nothing more than a napkin and that half-empty ball-point pen you found in the bushes this morning.

It's so much easier to figure out problem spots in drawings when you're finding new ones every day.

It's so much easier to solve problem spots in drawings when you have a chance to practise every day.

You can test out new art supplies without risking the ruination of a more time-consuming piece.

Instead of spending hours labouring over a “Keep Out - Artist at Work” sign, you can just grab your latest monster image from your sketchbook and tape it to the door.

Meetings with your psychologist will take on whole new levels of meaning. (Trust me on this. Bring your sketchbook to your next appointment, and prepare to be amazed. Especially if you have a really bad shrink - they're the more “inspirational” ones.)

Your support of local art-supply stores will skyrocket, as you'll need to restock on sketchbooks and pencils far more frequently.

Now, i'm off to dig up reference photos for a month's worth of foreshortening practise. Anybody care to join me?

Sketch: Flyboy

2007-12-29T11:07:00.000-05:00

This was originally going to be some super-hero-style flying, but i never finished drawing the body. As such it looks a bit more like a half-finished drawing of someone piloting a jet at Mach 10.

Sketch: Spell-caster

2007-12-28T06:33:00.000-05:00

And thus begins a month of foreshortening sketches.
The front arm looks okay but the back arm isn't as foreshortened as i want it to be.

Sketch: Kitsune Dom

2007-12-27T22:26:00.000-05:00

I think i ought to spend a whole month or so doing sketches which involve foreshortening in some way or another. I could use the practise.

Sketch: Hermits United

2007-12-26T11:08:00.000-05:00

Doctor Who fans will get this before anyone else.

Got some new pens for Christmas; don't quite have the hang of them yet. And spent more time trying to figure them out than making the drawing actually look good. Tomorrow will be better, i think.

Sketch: Santa's Present

2007-12-25T13:19:00.000-05:00

Letter from child to Santa:

Dear Santa,
My Daddy is very worried about Global Warming. Could you please fix it?
- Virginia

Response from Santa:

Dear Virginia,
Tell your daddy to go live in an arctic desert for a few centuries before he complains about global warming. I ain't lettin' go of my tropical paradise.
- Santa

Merry Christmas, everybody, and remember to use your family's most high-mileage car while going to Grandma's house - we gotta cool things down before them elves get the idea to start slacking off.

Sketch: Kiru, sort of.

2007-12-24T20:05:00.001-05:00

Started off as a sketch of an alien character from a story i wrote some time ago… and then went through a series of changes including Magical Goddess, Jungle Girl, and Anti-Arachnid Super-Hero.

Imaginary characters are like four-year-olds; sometimes the only way to get them to stay still long enough to draw them is to catch 'em sleeping.

Aaaah…

2007-12-23T21:26:00.000-05:00

Nothing quite like the endorphin rush of finishing a tricky picture. Even if “finishing” actually means “finally finishing the #!&# line-art and i've still got a few days, if not weeks, of colouring to do before it's really finished-finished.”

I'd post the line-art, just because i'm so bloody proud of myself for finally getting that… that… that thing done… but i'm trying a wee bit of an experiment, in which i create a whole body of work and keep them all secret (er, as secret as possible) until one day when i release them all at once. So, i can't really post it yet - the current tentative drop date is 30 June, though some very limited preview images will come before then.

It's all rather irritating to me because i don't like hiding my art, even for a wee bit. What's the point of creating something if nobody sees it? But, the sad truth is - my stuff doesn't sell. Well, it does, but not nearly well enough to support even a starving artist (much less an artist with a ravenous appetite.) And i'm no professional salesperson, but to me, a lack of sales says one of three things:
- People aren't seeing my work
- People are seeing my work, but don't like it
- People are seeing my work, and like it, but aren't particularly driven to buy it.
I know it's not the first and i doubt it's the second, so i'm going to be trying some much-more-aggressive-than-usual marketing techniques. Holding back a bit and then releasing a whole group of pieces at once is just one of those techniques.

The worst that can happen is nothing sells, which is what's already happening. Oh, and i may go mildly insane doing twice as much artwork as usual - seeing as i plan to do both the pieces i'm keeping hidden for now, as well as pieces i'll publicise as soon as they're done (hey, if i drop off the face of the 'net for three to six months, everybody will forget about me by the time i'm ready to show the Secret Stuff, right?) And there's a chance that my marketing will be too aggressive and i'll come off as a bit rude. So - broke, crazy, and rude. I s'pose i can deal with all that.

Sketch: M for Москва

2007-12-23T17:26:00.000-05:00

I'm actually not sure how common the "M" hand symbol is in Moscow - i've only ever seen it once.
Then again, i've only been to Moscow once, for one day, two and a half years ago. And that one day was not exactly spent hanging with Muskovite hip-hop elite.
But - i don't know of any hand signs for St. Petersburg. And i had to do something to celebrate finally getting my hands on the latest copy of Time Magazine.

Sketch: Уф!

2007-12-22T21:02:00.000-05:00

I love cold weather but some of the other aspects of winter - i.e., half-melted piles of snow which re-freeze into large, sloping masses of ice - i could do without.

Sketch: Медведь + Bloggerificness

2007-12-21T07:07:00.000-05:00

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

The best blogging techniques.
How to get traffic to your blog.
How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

^ copied-and-pasted. I don't typically "snag" unless i'm wearing a woolly sweater. I'm more of a glomper. ^_^
But, i would like to turn this into a bit more than just posting a picture every day, and hey. Free blogging class. Thus, i shall glomp it.

Sketch + News: Still alive

2007-12-20T07:53:00.000-05:00

Oi, haven't posted in a while.

Haven't done Illustration Friday for a while, either - but i've got a new screen-capture programme, and i think i might make a video of the next digital picture i do (which will likely be next week's Illustration Friday). Of course it depends at least partly on how much memory the programme takes up while it's running, if it makes Photoshop lag too much it'll be pretty self-defeating.

May be making the switch from Blogger to WP soon, because WP has built-in Pages which will make changes to the layout significantly easier. Tried to get it working already, and had it going good for a while before accidentally breaking it, so now i've got to see if i can fix it XP Which i don't have time to do any time soon; maybe some upcoming weekend.

Sketch: Посмотри!

2007-12-08T07:04:00.001-05:00

Sketch: Есть хочу

2007-12-07T07:21:00.000-05:00

Seamus Kennedy: People-Watching

2007-11-25T15:10:00.000-05:00

Seamus Kennedy: Gift Art

2007-11-24T08:26:00.000-05:00

I went to a Seamus Kennedy concert last night. Lots of hand-clapping-along-with-the-music and foot-stamping and loudly-singing-along and general merriment.

I see Seamus at least twice a year and most of the time i give him a little bit of gift art:

I don't like this particular one, but Seamus did, which is what really matters.

Showed Mum before the concert:
"It's not all that great, but i don't have time to work on it any more."
"Is that really what i look like?"
"No, Mum, i told you, it's not a good picture…"
"That's a funny-looking trumpet."
"The whole thing's funny-looking!"

Anyway…
I also did some people-watching sketches at the concert, which i haven't had the chance to scan in yet. I'll post them tomorrow.

IF: Superstition

2007-11-21T07:47:00.000-05:00

I told him black cats were bad luck, but would he listen? Noooo…

*Print Available*

Sketch: Huntress

2007-11-12T07:05:00.001-05:00

Sketch: Bounty 'bot

2007-11-07T07:59:00.000-05:00

Sketch: Katana

2007-11-05T07:53:00.001-05:00

Sketch: Cyclops Assassin

2007-11-04T07:50:00.000-05:00

IF: Trick or Treat

2007-10-31T10:11:00.000-05:00

Alternative caption:
"Halloween was Witch Hazel's favourite holiday. It was the only time of year she could fatten up the neighbourhood children without raising suspicions."

*Print Available*

Sketch: Sniper

2007-10-26T06:09:00.001-05:00