some work from K@rl's class

Since we only have two more weeks of class. Some of these are two to five minute poses and some are 25 minute stuff. I like him a lot because he cares about form and not just graphic pattern shapes of light, which tends to be the focus in a lot of drawing classes. His way of drawing ties in nicely with my sculpty tendencies :)

had started

this little one on Friday. He is very rough and about the size of a P@perm@te pen cover. In fact, I used the cover as an armature put onto the knob for a swivel chair that fell apart. The clay is the free kind you get from P!tf!re P!zz@ grill (haha I saw a kid get a pack and asked "can I have one too?"). So that was fun...

rough sculpt again

I figured out that I could make my bathroom into a makeshift sculpting area and use my chopstick armature (thanks Mr. H0nsucker) so I will probably be doing more of these to get better and get my shapes better in general. It was a lot of fun and I almost burned my toast! Haha. Oh, and I went to an amazing seminar yesterday on storytelling by Mr. Br!@n McD0n@ld. He is the real deal and is used by major studios (!LM, D!sney, P!xar) as a story consultant and in training their story departments. I heard about him via a friend at a studio who received training of his and is writing his own comic (even though he also works as vis dev artist). The topic for the day was "T0 Hell @nd Back" about themes visually that are present in storytelling universally that make your story believable and make for great storytelling in general. A lot of imagery from D@nte's Inferno which was interesting, and he explained that conflict was essentially a story that as human beings we can learn from or that shows/satisfies our primal need for survival, which makes the audience CARE about your story and characters. Some very interesting stuff and I saw some clips from some of my favourite movies, too. Themes of Hell, the Devil and Angels were also discussed and how visual motifs give the audience ideas as to what is 'not right' and how to set up their expectations and follow through. Anyways, I'm off to buy some more clay! Yeahhhh!!!

Uhhh...

I feel kinda badly but I was lazy and left my toned/tan drawings from Monday in class, then I left my big sketchbooks (Layout bond) in class and Wednesday I didn't upload my character design to my USB, and yesterday I didn't take a photo of my final head/hands drawing for class. I did stuff my face on some awesome guava macaroons and bruschetta though (with brie), and am really looking forward to buying some WED this weekend. Also, it's official..I'm taking a new oils class that I'm excited for because I LOVE painting. I can't decide which I like most; drawing/painting or sculpting. They all feed off each other I think, and I love them all so much! I hope that I can continue doing all of them, and get really good at all of them. I was reading a blog where a retired actor said "Acting is a way of life". I feel that way about art and design. It's a way of life. Pianist H0r0witz has t his great quote where he says when he doesn't practise for a day, he notices, then two days, his wife notices. Any more than that, the world notices. It's absolutely something I intend to do for the rest of my life, and there is really no excuse to not draw, paint, sculpt, design, research with your eyes or create a thought process and store ideas EVERY DAY. I feel like it's an integral part of humanity and who we are and what we do. It makes us alive and emote and leave a footprint in a positive way. Anyways, enough of my weird "Pe@ce and L0ve" writings (yeah, my parents are from that time and they kind of raised me that way haha)...have a great day! OH, I started this GREAT class on Wed. The teacher is one of THE top four designers in the film industry. In fact, he's so busy he's teaching our class AND has to fly out of state at least once a month to work on a show (which is why we have a weird schedule). But I am learning a LOT from him. He showed us a demo and what I noticed off the bat is the guy can DRAW!!!! One guy immediately said the class was too advanced for him and that he 'needed to learn more about PS' (even though we're seriously just drawing..and that's what the prof said "we're going to do a LOT of drawing in this class). I threw my hands up in the air and said YESS!!! excitedly. And he draws in a way that pushes and pulls the forms...it was amazing! Before he has class, he says he makes it a habit to talk about design and what makes good design in his opinion. He said every class EXPECT it, and he'll give us a list of movies and designs to look at that we SHOULD know...it should be part of our vocabulary visually and understand the choices made by the designer. He spoke about areas of rest and areas of noise/busy areas. He said that the shape based-PS business of "this is cool but I can't tell what's going on" is not what he considers to be design, and he thinks that in a sense that that is getting phased out because people are getting tired of it. What he says about design is part of the tenets that I learned EVEN in lighting design, so I thought that it was GREAT. I knew that I had found a good thing, because even in lighting design we spoke about an excess of colour and 'cleansing the palette'. Before you learned colour in lighting, you learned about focus and intent. Your audience has to know where to look. You learned about the attributes of a light and what it does (convey mood, rhythm, etc). He also said, "your job is not to WOW the audience. It's to create something that may not exist, but COULD. There has to be a sense of believability". I TOTALLY agree. Sometimes we get so caught up in the surface, the first layer and the 'cool' factor. But then how is it relatable to the audience and WHY should a person CARE if they can't relate to it? Nothing is by coincidence or random. You have a visual language and aesthetic that has intent so that the audience even though unconscious responds emotionally to the lines, the shape, textures, etc. I LOVE that.

more pretty ladies

I never had this model before..she liked sitting a lot :S But it was fun...saw some people haven't seen in a while. Our class was cancelled (which is why I went to workshop instead) because my prof was sick. And..it gave me a great excuse to get thai for dinner!

this girl (2-15 minutes)

New Studio but with an artist I know quite a while now, who is super nice and supportive and is always willing to lend a hand. She has her own studio now and is terrific, and also teaches at Gn0m0n and works. I LOVED that she said that her friends would just come in sometimes and just paint and do master copies. That must be like a DREAM...doing that stuff until all hours of the morning! Something about the poses when I was looking at them this morning before uploading reminded me of that song by T0r! Am0s "S!lent All These Ye@rs." Especially the piano part and when she says "B@by don't look up..the sky is falling." A favourite growing up and reminds me of my brother (since he introduced me to her :) Anyways.....

more drawings

So I'm on two hours of sleep so I apologize for random typos. Here are some drawings of C@r0l from last night.

charcoal ladies and one dude

I'm not lying :) The guy is actually a much older one from a STACK of drawings from this class (seriously; we had a one day workshop where we did a total of 75 drawings in five hours!). Interesting how the form is not there as much as with the ladies (sounds like a tag line from a movie lol). I took my super large sketch book home as I was using the 11x14 newsprint and toned paper more in class, so took a few pics of what I did last night on the toned paper and one from the old ginormous sketchbook. Wow, that's some command of the English language. Oh well..it's my blog! (mwahaha *evil laugh*)

Dlights?

The models were kinda not at their peak this time over (they were just having fun, I guess) and one part of the room looked like ANYONE could sign up to pose LOL but I did get a few drawings in. I also got my tickets to the C0wb0y Fest! Yeahhhh!!!! Only took a day to arrive...the guy (Travis) did me a favour and even though they weren't really doing it anymore, decided to mail mine to me :)

the girl who surprises everyone

Because her last name is latino but she's asian...throws everyone off haha. A real sweetheart and so professional. I'm also excited to go to a cowboy/Western themed event put on by the Guild...it's going to be awesome! I plan to bring my sketch book. I hope there will be horses! I know that there will be coffee and peach cobbler pie made over a fire! Also, it was neat to hear that one of the regular models will be playing (if her scene doesn't get cut) opposite the lovely J0hnny D*pp in L0ne R@nger.