Drapery, sans Figure

I miss school already -- having just moved into our new house, and considering its distance to the campus -- well, there's no way. Short of teleportation.

Anyway, one of the things I've done this summer was to spend about a week studying drapery. I'd much prefer if the drapery were, well, draped around a figure, but one must adapt. Usually, in the figure-drawing class, we only get about twenty minutes per pose (thirty if we're extra-special good!), so I usually end up blocking in the figure and spending the majority of the time trying to capture the folds of the fabric. Twenty minutes just ain't enough to do it, sadly -- this little study took nearly two hours, and is a great deal smaller than what I normally work when I draw the figure.




Derwent Drawing Pencil (Chocolate) on manila paper, 7.75" x 10.5"


Although I must say, it was kinda nice to work with something that didn't need a break.

Update

Well, no new art to post as of yet -- most of the summer was spent *waiting* for our house to be ready to move into, and did I mention the waiting and waiting and waiting? And of course, the waiting was done while most of my art supplies were packed.

But hey! It's all over and done with, and we're all moved. Most of my supplies are unpacked now; I just have to organize things. However it's a little difficult as we have to worry about giant hordes of tiny attack frogs.

Yes. Tiny frogs. A few nights ago, as the husband went outside to smoke, a couple of the itty-bitty little frogs charged him and managed to make their way inside. We were able to capture one of them rather quickly, but the second one eluded us for quite some while. When he reappeared we evicted him as well, but he had been out of sight for long enough to emplace hidden cameras, or *shudder* do things to our computer (just what he did to our computer I dare not imagine!).

Seriously -- they're tiny. About an inch long. And bright green.

And they're so freaking cute!

The first time we saw one, it hopped onto the husband as he walked out the back door, startling him. Here's the culprit, hanging around on our back door:



And here's one I saw this morning, on our kitchen window, backlit by the sun:





And of course, the little blighter pooped on the window while he was there:



And yesterday I saw a frickin' huge moth on our patio door:



He hung out there for quite awhile, even letting me put my hand close enough to him so I could show his scale:



And, since this is really supposed to be an art blog, here's one of my daily sketches I did back in June:



graphite, watercolor, Derwent InkTense pencils, and acrylic.

EDIT: You know those little green frogs? One just attacked my nose. I'd be traumatized if I weren't laughing so damn hard.

Forest Sprite Sketch

One of my daily sketches:




Watercolor, InkTense pencils, graphite and gel pen.

The reference photo is courtesy of magikstock

It's actually the second attempt at this pose. Sometimes my sketches are pretty good. Sometimes they really, really suck. I'll try not to post the sucky ones online *grin* but I had a lot of fun with this sketch, and I can foresee myself working on a more finished version of this sketch in the near future.

Everyday, a Little Something

I try to sketch something everyday, even if I can't get in a good drawing or painting. I started this habit during winter break, and got some pretty nice sketches out of the experience, but it fell by the wayside as soon as school started up again.

Now it's summer time, and I've started up again, in a new book. Some of the sketches are crap, some are "meh", and some are pretty good if I say so myself. I try to get the ones that are decent-looking posted online, either here at this blog, or in the scraps section of my deviantArt site.

Of course, the lack of sketches in today's post meant that everything I've sketched since my last posting is rubbish.

Bellydancer Sketch

I've been busy recently with non-art related stuff, but I've been trying to get in one sketch per day. Usually I spend no more than twenty minutes on a sketch -- sometimes less than ten if it's a simple pencil sketch.




This particular sketch was a bit of a challenge -- partly because I started with a dark, random blotch of watercolor to sort of prime the paper. The reference photo, courtesy of elflands-workshop, was particularly lovely and I wanted to do it justice. As a result, I ended up with one of the most mixed media pieces I've ever done (ink, watercolor pencils, watercolor, graphite, gel pen, colored pencils, and acrylic), and I spent a bit more time than I normally would have on a simple sketch.

But I'm happy, and that's what counts, right?

Male Figural Sketch

Another one of my daily sketches, and this one's not nude!

Erm, not that there's a lot of detail anyway. It's just one of those quick little twenty minute sketches. Graphite, InkTense pencils, India ink, and Prismacolors. The original photoref can be found on this site.

Some of my daily sketches

Uploaded three new sketches to my scraps at deviantArt. They're nudes, otherwise I'd post 'em here.
http://winteryvisions.deviantart.com/art/05122008-sketch-86275178
http://winteryvisions.deviantart.com/art/05132008-sketch-86275374
http://winteryvisions.deviantart.com/art/05202008-sketch-86275625