Watercolor Wednesday 2016 - Some Archived Work

Being an artist as a student is very different than being an artist as a professional....particularly when it is not your full time job. As much as I try to believe that I will make art spontaneously while working full time and going to school, it doesn't happen. I'm not that perfect.

Instead, I have to be intentional about my work. This means actually setting a reminder on my phone to paint/draw/whatever. Last year I did a semi-weekly thing where I did watercolor paintings every week. Thankfully, my busy summer month (June) has ended, leaving 6 glorious weeks of nothing to really do...I may even try to paint while on vacation in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, I've actually been able to do some watercolors before starting up on my blog again. In addition to today's watercolor, I have included a couple that I've done over the past couple of weeks. Enjoy!

I'm looking forward to continuing with this series over Winter Break!

InkTober 2016 - Finding Inspiration

Last year's InkTober sort of crashed and burned for me. In fact, upon taking a job as an art teacher, I have found that with all the other stuff that is going on in my life, I have very little time for making art...but I've already talked about that before on this blog.

This year, I'm hoping to start breaking my habit of not sketching as much as I should. After all, I want to keep my skills sharp so I can teach my students in the best way possible, don't I?

So, tomorrow starts another InkTober. I spent my morning pondering over topics I could do...knowing my own weaknesses, I wanted to keep some simple guidelines in place in the hopes that over the next month I'll be able to keep up.

Here's what I'm hoping to do:
1) Keep my drawings simple - the idea is to keep myself drawing, not to create elaborate works of art this year.
2)Carve out a specific time each day to draw - I have thought about drawing for exactly 31 minutes a day or starting to draw at the 31st minute of some hour...still thinking about that though.
3) Have fun! It sounds cheesy, I know, but that's one of the reasons that I got into art in the first place...I enjoy it.

I'm also hoping to not let my panic show through my drawings. I've been looking back at some of my artwork and notice that I go between trying to get fine detail, and panicking about not being able to get it. I want my drawings to be more relaxed this year.

So, here's to a successful #InkTober2016!

An Unexpected Retreat

This weekend, my parents and I took an overnight trip to Southern California. As usual, we can't go by the Magic Kingdom without making a stop on property (even if it only means going to Downtown Disney). 

My parents had to go help my sister move back in (she goes to school nearby) and there wasn't going to be enough room to have four people, groceries, and a whole lot of luggage in the car, so I opted to stay at Downtown Disney (which was a reeealllly big sacrifice for me, I know). I had planned on shopping, looking at the hotels, and maybe sketching. But my original plans turned into a half a day of sketching in one of my favorite places and a lesson in the art of slowing down and loosening up.

I started at the new(ish)ly renovated Disneyland Hotel. I got to sit in a giant teacup and sketch the lobby. One of the more unique drawing experiences I've ever had. This sketch is also something that I would categorize as my "normal" way of sketching: trying to be exact, feeling nervous and having everything look a bit stiff.

I continue wandering around the hotel and came across the perfect place to have my wedding (someday). It was also at this point that a Cast Member came up and complimented me on what I was doing. Now, at that point, I was just working on proportion, and there wasn't much on the page, so I took that compliment as a Disney employee trying to make my day more "magical". And yet, even though she was probably just doing her job, there's always something about interacting with Cast Members that puts me in a really good mood. I spent the rest of this drawing smiling and humming Disney music, which caused me to loosen up a bit.

Sitting at an outdoor fireplace and sketching? Awesome!

I moved over to the most beautiful hotel on the property, the Grand Californian. This hotel is inspired by "the famed arts and crafts movement" and the ceiling was beautiful...but painful to draw.

I ended with drawing the "main attraction" of the lobby; the fireplace. Although I can't say for sure, I THINK this was inspired by the fireplace in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, so it was especially enjoyable to hear the player piano playing HBOND music. That, combined with the other Disney music, made this my favorite place to draw.

So...what I loved about this was getting the opportunity to slow down and enjoy my art. With all of our busy schedules, it can be hard to enjoy the things we were once passionate about. But we must make that time. 

On a side note. This is my 50th blog post! I have really enjoyed sharing my work with you guys and hope you have enjoyed looking at it.

A quick sketch

I'm really enjoying taking my sketchbook to unique places/historical reenactments and drawing from there!

From the Dickens Fair.

Poster Parody

This week my students have been learning more techniques in Photoshop using Shepard Fairey's "Hope" poster from 2009. To help them get the idea of how this was done (and also teach them a bit about parody, I created a few demos)

And if I could use characters from one of the best shows created recently, so much the better!

Inktober: Why It Didn't Happen...and Why I'm Posting About It Anyway

I was very eager to participate in Inktober this year. For those of you who don't know, Inktober is a chance for artists to do 31 days of ink drawings in October. I was able to partcipate in it last year, all 31 days (which if you understand how difficult it can be for me to make time to sketch, was a great accomplishment), and couldn't wait to work on it this year.

The plan was to pick a theme, which would make it easier for me to focus each day on what to draw. Since I love location sketching, my theme was 31 Day, 31 Places. I was off to a good start...and then life happened. The reality is that I have a very busy life outside of my art. It was perhaps easier (or more convenient at least) for me to participate in Inktober last year.

One of my mentors has mentioned to me that there are seasons of life that we go through. Right now, I am going through the season of teaching, which does not always allow for time for my own art. It reminds me of one of my favorite lines from Rise of the Guardians:

"We are very busy bringing joy to children, we don't have time....for children"

I've often modified that when it comes to my own work:

"I am very busy working on making art, I don't have time...for art"

As odd as it may seem (after all, my occupation is to be an art teacher), I don't make a ton of time for my own work. Which is not necessarily something to feel guilty over because it just may not be the focus of this season of life; this brings me to why I'm still posting on this.

I want my students (and everyone else reading this blog) to know the importance of working on your own art, if that is something you are passionate about. School project take a LOT of your time, but if you don't have your own work, it can be very draining. So, I'm posting my limited participation in Inktober because I am proud that I made some effort to work on my own work and did what I could. I hope that I will be able to make more opportunities to do my own work as soon as possible!

 

A Bit of Portraiture...

This week, my Computer Graphics students are working on making typography portraits in Photoshop. As I was creating demos for them, I remembered how enjoyable it is to work on these projects, so in whatever spare time I could get, I continued working on the demos that I had started and turned them into some new pieces.

As my students probably know by now, I'm quite and Old Hollywood fan. So, naturally, I wanted to select photos from that era. What resulted were portraits of three of the greats: Claude Rains (who I can't help but always return to as a subject), Katherine Hepburn, and Bette Davis.