So I finished Schoolism last Monday, and listened to the book excerpt from Bobby Chiu. It was quite insightful. I feel from doing the Painting Creatures course I've learned a lot, and also learned how to figure out quick and easier ways of doing things. I've also learned that using reference is not cheating if applied correctly, although I've learned this several times in the past few years it still comes back to give me a kick up the arse.
As such, since finishing the Schoolism course I've done no art at all. Nothing. Nada. Zip. So I did a few figure drawings this evening:
On Friday I attended my first Christmas party for my new job, and I was absolutely annihilated. I've never had a hangover so bad - I was still being sick at 8pm on Saturday! Needless to say this has inspired me to come out with quotes I'll never stick to, like 'I'm never drinking again'. I probably won't drink too much over Christmas now as I've had my blow-out for the Christmas period.
I'm off to Amsterdam on Thursday as part of my birthday celebrations (the big 3-0, eek!). Don't think I'll be drinking much while there, but I have some expeditions planned - the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh museum, and we have a couple of shows at the Boom Chicago comedy club booked too. I can't wait! I went to Amsterdam a few years ago, and loved it so much that I've always wanted to go back. It's such a vibrant city, and we didn't do half of what we wanted to do the last time we were there. That, and the fact we were knackered from walking around on the first day didn't leave us with much energy to enjoy the city for the remainder of our time there.
Well, I hope you're all getting ready for Christmas - I managed to put my boyfriend off from putting up the Christmas tree until 3rd December, and now it looks like a festive elf has sneezed all over our living room; there's tinsel everywhere!
Well, right now I'm going to finish watching my recording of The Hunt, narrated by David Attenborough. I love everything he narrates, and the camera skills of the crew for this series are just astonishing.
I won't be posting a blog post next week due to said holiday above :)
And last but not least, my Pinterest of the Week: http://batkamal.tumblr.com/post/70928746752
Last week I kind of cheated with my dragon. I wanted to draw scales, but couldn't be bothered to draw every single scale individually, so I made a custom brush and painted them in. I didn't think it looked too bad.
The next Schoolism video showed me how to paint eyes and scales, so I've gone back to the drawing board with the scales on my dragon and refined them:
It looks subtly better now. Oh, and I did some work on the rabbit! I will probably shrink it even more though.
I'm hoping to get the Schoolism course finished now, I'm on lesson 7 out of 9, and I still have 2 weeks to do it. I've also quit Slimming World now, so I'll be getting my Monday nights back. I'm also still a week behind on my writing course, and I'm still as blasé about it as I was last week.
Nothing much to report on from the past week. I have a busy schedule for the next 6 weeks (including, but not limited to: work visit's, seeing my nan, Xmas party, work away-day, Amsterdam and Xmas to name a few!). I think December will be a quiet month for drawings, as I'll be so busy, I'll try to get some things done though.
Also, I've come across a few websites where you design something, and if you upload it to a particular website it can be printed on things like phone cases, cushions, you can earn a commission from it if people buy it! Let me know in the comments below if you're interested and I'll post the links next week.
Anyway, that about wraps it up for this week, I've re-discovered a playlist on youtube, it's called a Study Playlist, but it's good for having as background music while I draw: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx65qkgCWNJIs3FPaj8JZhduXSpQ_ZfvL It's totally not my style of music, but sometimes I don't like listening to someone sing while I'm studying/drawing as I find it off-putting.
And here is my Pinterest of the Week, hope you have a good week everyone! http://lisapace.com/files/2014/07/1601284_802860943081664_2679415269977914934_n.jpg (sorry, I have a thing about rabbits)
I carried on with the Schoolism videos, and I spent quite a lot of time on the 'fur' videos. I quite like drawing straight fur, but curly fur is quite difficult. I also felt like I spent way too much time on fur, so towards the end of the video I glossed over the last points. Then it was back to the dragon.
So I've spent quite a lot of hours refining my dragon. I feel like it was worth it, although I was feeing pretty down about it earlier today. It's nothing spectacular, but I feel it's a pretty good effort on my part:
Please excuse the giant rabbit. I wanted to get the silhouette down before I called it a day with this today. The rabbit won't be that big when this is finished!
I'm not sure if I'm going to get the Schoolism course finished. I have learned some key points already though, even if they're not the ones I'm supposed to be learning! I've learned that:
- Making a small thumbnail as an extra window on your screen helps you see the bigger picture while working on small details
- Use lots of reference
- Try to make sure whatever you're drawing has virality ie is cute/clever, etc
- Make sure you're drawing is clear and concise, the 3-tone drawing is good for this
- Always start with big brushes and work down to small for finer detail. Seriously, I never realised how useful this was
- I can pay for all of the tutorials I want, but unless I learn the basics and use basic techniques I'm never going to get better!
My writing course is going OK, I'm a week behind now, but I'm not stressing too much about it as this course is free, and it restarts in January anyway. If I get behind on this course because of my Schoolism course it's not a big deal.
I follow InPursuitOfArt on youtube, he posts some pretty good videos about being in the art industry, and I've just watched one of his recent ones this weekend, it's driven home a point to me that I don't need a Wacom Cintiq with state-of-the-art computer to be a good artist: https://youtu.be/1rg2c8FPf2E
And my Pinterest of the week is the following, hope you enjoy! https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/164386055/white-rabbit-print-rabbit-time-rabbit?utm_source=Pinterest&utm_medium=PageTools&utm_campaign=Share
Still back in the old habits I'm afraid, but it's not for lack of trying this week. I've watched the first lesson by Bobby Chui, and whilst there wasn't much visually in the video there was a lot said which has given me stuff to think about. He talks about the virality of art, and what makes art viral. So my assignment was to think up 10 creatures. I've thought of 3, and drawn 2. I don't know how far we're supposed to take the drawings, so I've done it quickly in a cartoon style. What feelings do the following inspire, and would you share them to friends or just move on with whatever you were doing at the time?
Something I know I need to work on is perspective, particularly in the top drawing.
The cool thing about signing up to Schoolism is that (if you sign up for the full course) your work is critiqued, but as I've done mine through Kickstarter I don't get that option. However I see feedback videos that Bobby Chiu has recorded, so I'm still learning a lot from those.
Anyway, I've not done, or seen, much else in the art world this week. I've kind of enjoyed the downtime of not having pressure to draw something every day, however trying to think up 10 ideas for creatures that could go viral has been so difficult. I'm thinking maybe the Tea Dogs idea could be one, however it would need a witty quote to go with it to make it truly humorous. I think I'm just going to go for 5 creatures rather than beat myself up over the fact I can't think of 10, otherwise I will probably spend the rest of October trying to think of good creature ideas. I only have until the end of November on my subscription, so I need to get a move on!
