Breaking Bad Habits in art

First off, my daily sketch. I did this in the early afternoon. Jean Grey, going for the original X-men costume. Decided to toss her hand out front, because I never play with cool foreshortening/perspective jazz like that. I'd say that was the only thing good about this quicky, I really need to work on longer, bigger, daily sketches... working on it.


As for me, I ended up getting really sick at work yesterday. I started sweating, I felt like my head was in a fog, headache, congestion, and a nasty runny nose. As soon as I was done with my first break, I had to ask to leave, it was getting gross. I was constantly blowing my nose or sniffling, yuck. I went home, took a shower, took some medicine and slept for about five hours. Later that night I was up for maybe four more hours, feeling still sick, I went back to bed.
This morning, I was still feeling pretty bad, called work to tell them I'm still not feeling well enough, and slept until noon.
I hate sleeping, I feel like I'm wasting time that I could be using on art, or doing something important. I also hate to call into work. I feel like I'm letting down my co-workers when I'm sick. Well, I only get sick a few times a year, and I'm getting over this one. A few hours ago, I started feeling less sniffly, less congested, but my head still feels like its in a fog. Hopefully it will be all better by tomorrow. Tomorrow I am supposed to be off work, but if I'm feeling better, I'll call to see if they need me.

As for my art, I feel like I am hitting a wall at times. I have a bunch of bad drawing habits from my youth that just need to be broken. I'm reading Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Figure Drawing, Andrew Loomis' Figure Drawing For All Its Worth, and watching a Glenn Vilppu dvd, hoping to find some techniques to break my bad habits. This is really frustrating me right now, if anyone has any good art books to check out, please let me know! I sometimes feel like I am drawing with the wrong mindset, and there is an easier way, but I'm just forcing my work. I don't know. I think in part, I need to loosen up, work on bigger paper, try more dynamic poses, and be more comfortable with anatomy. Long winded blog, I'm just trying to vent and mentally sort out some thoughts here.

The Joker - Daily Sketch

I'm really wimping out on these daily sketches! I haven't had enough time to put into something really cool. I spent about 15 minutes at work, and came up with this Joker:

It could be better, but the little sketchbook I have is so small, I get timid about drawing full bodies because there is little room for detail. I need to get over my stupid ocds about drawing, and just draw til my pencil falls off the page.
Anyway, my Joker is taking a lot from the cartoon series, then I also added the Chelsea smile, just like from the newest movie, which I saw again!!! Just as amazing on round two.

Other than my daily sketch, I bought I new t-shirt today. Its a Comic Book Shop t-shirt, but it has the Danzig logo on it, pretty impressive stuff. The CBS shirt was $8.00, if I were to buy the Danzig shirt at Hot Topic, it would have been $25.00, the CBS shirt could not be passed up.
I also went to the annual Baroque festival in Riverfront Park yesterday... For some reason, many women were confusing baroque with Civil War southern belle. What the hell?! They needed to be beaten, but not as badly as the people trying to do an accent, announcing the events on the mic. They were speaking softly, or gently, hard to describe, but in their mind that equates to a European 17th century accent. It sounded a little closer to gay than baroque to me, but I never lived in the 17th century so what do I know?

Oh, I also bought a few used books a couple days ago from abebooks.com, for those that don't know, its a network of used bookstores across the globe, and you can find anything you want at great deals. I picked up two Burne Hogarth books (Dynamic Figure Drawing, Dynamic Anatomy), Drawing a Likeness, and Drawing Animals. Hoping these might add to my arsenaul of art skills.
Well, that's about it for today. I'm seriously trying to put together some nicer stuff for a daily sketch, just you wait!

Más sobre mi hermano y pintura de hoy

First off, my brother had his heart shocked to try to reset it to a sinus rhythm. It worked but only for a while, and he's back in a fib. He's on some medication and was sent home, but they are going to be talking with the doctor to see what to do next. Hopefully all will go well for him, he's really healthy, so I don't know why he's having this happen to him.


Secondly, I stayed up most the night, after I left the hospital, working on this:



I did this in one friggin night. My friend Jessie asked if I could have the painting of this done for her so she could give it to her husband today. So I worked my ass off through the night to paint that, and then I get a call while heading over that she was out to eat with the family, and to bring it over maybe tomorrow... Yeah, a little irritated after burning the candle at both ends.. Oh well, life moves on. Now that it's sitting around, I might add the detail to the shell that I wanted originally.

No Daily Sketches, and my brother

Sorry there hasn't been any frequent daily sketches this week. I have been drawing a little, but my mind has been preoccupied lately. My brother had surgery yesterday to remove bone spurs from his neck. That all went fine, but last night his heart went into Atrial Fibrillation. For those who don't know, basically it means he's having irregular fibrillations between heart beats. Here's an example:


Wow.. I've worked way too long in a hospital... I worked five years in the kitchen, and three months as a transporter, and I know all this info from dealing with patients and staff, that's sad!

Anyway.. Tomorrow, the doctor is going to stop his heart and start it back up again to hopefully reset it back to a normal sinus rhythm. Again with the stupid nurse jargon, I sound geeky. So, that's what is holding me up from doing a lot of work. I have some pages I'm going to be doing as daily sketches for sequential art practice coming up. I'm also doing two paintings, those should be done soon enough and up in the gallery and here. I'm going to take a shower now, I've been at work all day, and spent all my breaks and a lot of time after work in my brother's room at the hospital.

Shouting into the void known as the Internet

Sometimes I feel like my blog is me just talking to a wall. Anyone out there? First three people to respond with an idea (some restrictions apply), I'll sketch it up for a daily sketch.

Dark Knight and THREE Daily Sketches

I saw The Dark Knight today, it was the best movie this summer! I was kind of grumpy that people were suspecting Heath Ledger to be receiving awards for his role before the movie was released, but now I say he deserves everything he can obtain for that role. I feel bad for his passing because he deserves the hype. The film was phenomenal, the movie is like a great crime drama plus Batman... Amazing, watch it again and again!

Secondly, at work I put together a couple daily sketches. First two about 30 minutes each, the last about an hour and a half.


This is some crazy dude staring in the sky while smoking. I was thinking of awful office jobs while drawing this.



Someone said something about Dead Pool, so I drew a shaved headed zombie with goggles and a gun.. makes sense, right?


Lastly, I tried imitating Mystique's pose from an X-Men cover by Humberto Ramos, from memory. I did pretty well if i do say so myself. The arms are slightly funky, but the overall piece contains a sense of attitude.

Its hard to put together daily sketches, since some days I don't sketch at work or home due to just being busy. So I feel these three made up for some missed days. Also, I'm trying to work my way up to longer sketches. Its just hard, because most of my free time is only during my breaks at work, so I'm just drawing on my little pocket sketchbook which is hard to render details on.

Hellboy 2 & Daily Sketch

First off, the daily sketch. I spent about a half hour tops on this. Its in my pocket sized sketch book, I sketched it at work:




I've been having problems recently drawing decent profile faces, so I did this to get back into the swing of it. I might have a few more of these as daily sketches for practice.

Okay, now onto more movie talk. I saw Hellboy 2 last night, it was a lot of fun. I like how the sequel got into the world and lives of the non-humans, and we saw the bonds between all the characters since time wasn't wasted in having to introduce each character.
As always, Selma Blair is gorgeous as ever. I think the Princess in the movie may have been Gweneth Paltrow, she looked an awful lot like her, but she was heavily covered in elf makeup... or at least I assume her race was elvish. If you want a silly action movie, Hellboy 2 might be for you.

Second Daily Sketch in one day?!

I felt since I skipped a day or two, trying to keep the daily sketch going, I'd double up for today. This took about 45 minutes as well, again, its a friend's character, but my own take on it. My friend, Heather, draws with a heavy manga influence, I thought I might try to introduce that a bit more this time.

Daily Sketch, and some thoughts

So I sat myself down at a local cafe for close to an hour today to draw a friend's character my own way. By actually noting start and end times for the drawing session, I realized I am the sloth of illustration. This is what I came up with:



I think a lot of it has to do with confidence with pencil strokes and the capability to move on.. I spend a lot of time loosely sketching, erasing, redrawing, erasing, redrawing.. I also noticed certain things I hate to draw, namely foreshortened limbs (the hand and arm coming up front), bars of a bird cage (I think in part because I had no reference to a bird cage), and female clothing. I think I grew too comfortable with comic book women who just wear lycra.

How does one speed up their drawing? Is it by just drawing religiously, or forcing to move faster?

Daily Doodle for Tuesday July 15

So, to honor my word about trying to do daily sketches, I have uploaded my first sketch for the blog project. I did this while on break at work. Its no 90 minute sketch, but it is a start!

Tried to draw someone, I did it from memory, so likeness went out the window, in my opinion!!

My left arm has a "driver's tan"

I started listening to Sidebar Nation, a really great podcast that interviews some great people in the comic world. I love to hear the artists' ups and downs, gems of knowledge, how they broke in, and how they work. Its really inspiring!
For those who know, I'm trying to put together a couple comics, so I'm trying to collect as much information I can. I thought I could draw, but a pinup or portrait is so different than telling a story through sequential art. I'm fighting to find my voice in telling a story, so to practice, I'm going to try to share 90 minute sketches when I have time. One of the artists on Sidebar Nation, Eric Canete, actually is doing this daily, and he feels its a great exercise.
As a second exercise, I bought a sketchbook small enough to fit in my cargo pockets of my scrubs. This way I can sketch on my downtime at work. Usually just on my breaks and lunch since we are so busy, but its added minutes to my drawing.

Anyway, these are just some thoughts after going for a long hot walk with my dog. I'll be hitting the sketchbook momentarily!

Dreams, Summer Movies, and the new Ferris Beuller

So, since I can't sleep because I took a long nap in the evening, I figured I'd post about the movies I have seen so far this summer, and about a movie I just watched called Charlie Bartlett. But first, I just want to say how weird my dreams are.
That nap I had earlier was just crazy. In dream world, an ex of mine left me with our dream-world baby and ran off into the desert in a corvette. Yeah, so where does my head get these bizarre ideas anyway? Ever have those feelings in dreams that feel so real, they cling to you for sometime after you have woken up, even lasting through the whole day? Well after waking up, for at least an hour or two I had to shake the feeling of having my imaginary child taken from me and breaking up. I'm a firm believer in dreams have no meaning and its just random bits of information flying through the blender to let off steam from the day. I think this recent dream is a perfect example of random crap.
Now, to the summer movies. First off, for those who don't know, I'm not big on seeing movies in the theater. To begin with, I'm generally frugal in some aspects of my life, such as seeing movies in the theater, and haircuts. I'll wait several months before getting a haircut because I hate wasting the money, and wasting my time. I finally break down to get a haircut at one of two options: either I'm trying to impress someone, or my hair has gotten to a point that I don't care to deal with it again and must get a haircut. A couple days ago, it was the latter option. I've also been tempted to grow out my hair again, I liked it long, others didn't. But all this is for another blog...
So back to the movies and why I don't go. The second reason I don't see movies in the theater is because a few years ago I was in a car accident and it really threw my hip out of alignment for some time. Things like sitting for two hours or more are not on my feel-good list of things to do. But over the last year, my hip has felt much better, goes out of whack less often, and I'm able to enjoy a movie with more comfort.
Onto the movies!
So far, I have seen Indiana Jones, Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, and Hancock. It was like my summer for movies for once. I'm a comic fan since childhood, as well as a big Indiana Jones fan. All the movies were a lot of fun, well worth money spent. If I were to rank them in order, favorite to least favorite, it would be:
Incredible Hulk
Iron Man
Hancock
Indiana Jones
Not that Indiana Jones was bad, it was a fun movie. It just felt like a stretch from the previous Indiana Jones movies. Aliens was a weird and unexpected direction. I'm a fan for scifi, but little green men with big heads is uncool, one of the main reasons I vomit when I hear the X-Files theme song. By the way, I won't be seeing that, no matter how much I think Billy Connelly is awesome.
As for Hancock in the #3 spot, its only because Hulk and Iron Man have a spot in my cold cold heart. I also think Robert Downey Jr played an amazingly perfect Tony Stark/Iron Man, probably the best match-up for a celebrity yet. Edward Norton was also really great as Bruce Banner. Just to let you know, I think Liv Tyler is probably one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood. I'm a sucker for dark haired girls.
Fortunately, the summer is yet to be over, I have plans to see Hellboy 2 and Batman Dark Knight. I also saw a preview for a remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still, I might just need to see that come Christmas.
Happy 4th everyone, be safe. I see too many idiots fucked up at work, unless you work at a hospital like me, you don't belong there. I like job security and all, but I prefer healthy friends.
Okay, now onto Charlie Bartlett. I think this movie came out last year, but it somehow snuck past everyone. I remember the preview, thinking it looked good, then promptly quit hearing about it and forgot until I saw the title by chance on Netflix. How did this get by unnoticed? In a way, it reminded me of Ferris Beuller. Ferris Beuller is one movie I could watch over and over. I used to believe that was what highschool life would be all about. Sadly to report, I had no friends my senior year with parents who owned a 1961 Ferrari 250 that we could borrow for a day of baseball, fine dining, and parades. Anyway, everyone who likes highschool movies should check out Charlie Bartlett, it kind of feels timeless, unlike many highschool movies that feel dated or childish because I am distanced from today's highschoolers. I will never understand the faux-hawk. Either man up and get a real mohawk, or get a normal haircut, that's what we did in my day. The fuax-hawk is only for when you are bored in the shower, just like Ferris Bueller. Whoever had the stupidity to walk out of the house with the first fauxhawk should be shot, and the lemmings who followed suit should be castrated.
Okay, nuff said. Let's see if I can actually fall asleep. I'm sure you did after reading my ramblings of a crazy man.