A full-on week

2 days left of the Schoolism subscription, and I've done nothing since last Sunday. I watched the last video on finishing touches, but there's a book excerpt at the end I've not found time to listen to yet.

I travelled to Center Parcs at Longleat on Wednesday on a business trip, and had a wicked time :) This was the view from my apartment:

It was a couple of long days though, the traffic on the drive back was horrendous.

I've been back to Center Parcs today (this time to Sherwood Forest) with my friend's family, and had a wicked time, although I didn't feel like we did much. Totally shattered now, watching the Formula 1 before going to bed.

So I've struggled to do any art this week. I'm still keeping in touch with it though, I finished the TV series of Landscape Artist of the Year this morning while doing the week's ironing. I live such an interesting life...
I've added my colour to my dragon a la Bobby Chiu, however I cannot get it to look anything better than washed out. I don't understand his technique enough to fix it, so I'm going to figure out a different way. This is the best I have so far:

Anyway, as is the norm now here is my Pinterest of the Week: http://theultralinx.com/2012/06/art-colour-coordination-infographic/

I've also come across some more relaxing music here for anyone that's interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCYk9CRx0g8

Holidays are coming

Well, I've made it to the last lesson of my Schoolism subscription, although I think it's more of a watch-video than a doing-video. In the last week I've worked on scales, hands and eyes, though I'm the first to admit I've not done a very good job on these things. If I have time at the end of the course I will go back over these videos. So below is what I've been working on. Please note I haven't done the base drawing, only the faint scales, eyes and hands:

I haven't worked on my dragon this week. I'm not really much further into my writing course either.

Yesterday I went on a chocolate-making course and made 24 chocolates for an advent calendar, including a few spares. It was loads of fun!

I've been listening to more relaxing music while I study, I'm still really into classical music, although I have deviated slightly... to Disney classic on the piano, ha! The link is here for anyone that's interested: https://youtu.be/tp5hgjD_Y5g

I was listening to classical music while writing this blog post, but then someone came on singing opera, and I'm more of a fan of instrumental classical music, so now I'm listening to Planet Rock. Old habits die hard.

Last but not least it's my Pinterest of the week, and this time it's not an image, it's a podcast: the Creative Pep Talk podcast. I've only just got into them, and they seem pretty good so far, check them out: http://illustrationage.com/2015/11/17/96761/?utm_source=hootsuite

Scaly things

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)

Here be more dragons!

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

Here be dragons!

As it turns out I did do the first Schoolism video wrong, so I've had to go back and redo it. This week I had to do a 3-tone sketch of my design, and it still has to look recognisable:

I'm going to watch the next video once the Formula 1 is done with, although I got wasted last night, and as a result today has been wholly unproductive, and this blog post will be fairly short. Although we did go and watch the fireworks show at my place of work, the fireworks were pretty spectacular. The even has to be called Guy Fawkes night, they can't call it Bonfire night as they can't have a bonfire in the middle of the forest.

On the walk to the pub yesterday I did manage to get some nice autumnal shots on my phone of our local park:

I've completed week 2 of my writing course, I had to listen to a line from a radio station and build a story on that. The line I had was 'Once you come out of a situation like that, it's like coming up from the sea-bed'. Week 3 starts tomorrow.

I've not watched any interesting videos this week, however I do have a Pin on Pinterest, hope you like: http://www.zeutch.com/graphik/moleskine-doodles-50270#

Becoming a recluse!

I finally knuckled down to do some homework this weekend, and have literally not left the house all weekend. I've completed video 2 and assignment 2 of the Schoolism workshop I'm doing, and just about completed week 2 of the Start Writing Fiction course I'm doing with FutureLearn.

I've just finished watching video 3 of the Schoolism course, and realised I've just been drawing animals, not creatures, as the title of the course suggests 'Painting Creatures', duh! So now I need to go back and create some creatures. That'll be in next week's blog entry. However from video 2 I've been learning all about drapery, and had to sketch a couple of things to learn different drapes:

With hindsight the rhino didn't have that many folds in its skin to study, I should've picked something more wrinkly...

Video 3 is going back to my original creature sketches, but I now need to draw some creatures, not animals that already exist.
Also, for week 2 of my Start Writing Fiction course I need to write the start of (or complete) story, no more than 500 words. I'm finding the course quite interesting, and it's harder than I thought it would be, but I'm getting some good feedback from other people on the course.

I've seen this video before but thought I'd share it, as I particularly like the part about showing up to do your part of something, even if some other part of you struggles: https://youtu.be/86x-u-tz0MA

And, as promised I would do a Pinterest of the week. I spent a fair bit of time yesterday trying to find something, then I happened across something which I knew would be right, as it's so cute. Hope you enjoy! http://www.duitang.com/people/mblog/50764978/detail/

More of the same Schoolism

I've been working on the same ideas as last week, and I've come up with a few more too. I've sketched the ones I thought were better ideas:

Chimp Selfie

Hungry Worm

I quite liked the concept for Chimp Selfie. Children learn to copy their parents behvaiour, it's part of their learning cycle, and it's quite scary how a two year old knows how to work a mobile phone or tablet. I bet chimps would learn from the hoardes of people that go to visit them in the zoo or wildlife parks every day, so I wonder if the zoo keeper gave a chimp a camera on a selfie stick if they would copy the behaviour of the people observing it? Just a thought.
I'm really conscious that we're more than halfway through October now and I still haven't watched any more of the videos I've subscribed to on Schoolism. I've not developed my current ideas too far, as I'm intrigued to see what the next video will bring, and I want to get a move on with the course.

I've also signed up to another course: Start Writing Fiction with FutureLearn in collaboration with the Open University. Talk about burning the candle at both ends! I figured that I struggle to come up with good ideas for my art, so if I do a course on writing it may help. It's free anyway, so I have nothing to lose.

A new feature that I'm going to do on my blog every week is Pinterest of the Week. This will be where I've pinned something on Pinterest that was of interest to me. I have a few boards on Pinterest, fitness and baking to name a few, but I also have a board for Art and another board for Inspiration. So this week's Pinterest of the Week is:

http://www.sheknows.com/living/articles/1003285/25-pinterest-myths-debunked/page:3

I love the idea of melting crayons onto paper to make ink splats, I have an idea for this so I will revisit this project.

That's it for this week, let's see what the next part of my Schoolism subscription brings!


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