An elven girl searches a cave looking for a special flower to heal her ailing brother and in using her powers to illuminate the cave awakens a sleeping dragon that has made it his resting place.
Dessert closeup
This has been the one of the most challenging pieces I’ve ever done but I think the effort and time was worth it because of all that I’ve learned through the process. Hopefully it will make future pieces a little less painful. 
This piece has gone through a quite a few revisions to make it to this stage but I think I am finally starting to feel better about the results…or maybe I just want this to be finished so I that can move on to the next piece and in the process save my poor hubby from any more of my outbursts. I think it’s about time to start on colour. Did I mention that I don’t like working in greyscale? 
Click to view larger version
It’s been a while since I’ve posted something and so I thought I would share some closeups of a digital painting that I’ve been working on, both on and off during my moments of freedom between work and errands for the last few weeks.
After watching the movie, Avatar – gorgeous movie, by the way – I was inspired to drop my study of anatomy and lighting for a while to do a piece just for fun! Little did I know that this would become a frustrating yet educational journey into exactly what I planned to avoid: anatomy of a creature (fashioned after a mix of animals) and an elf; and lighting (low light source, argh!). To make it unknowingly more difficult I thought, “Why not do it in greyscale and apply colour afterwards?” At this point I’m not entirely certain how I’m going to introduce colour or what colours I’m going to use but, hey, it’s all part of the journey. I do think the piece is starting to come together though.
Feet are one of the top problem areas for me, so I decided to tackle them head-on by drawing a lot of well…feet. I decided to start from the inside out but aside from the model skull I own, I don’t yet have an actual skeleton on hand to help me gain a better understanding of what I’m drawing.
In the meanwhile, I’ve used the following references to aid me: Artistic Anatomy by Dr. Paul Richer, Figure Drawing – Design and Invention by Michael Hampton and Anatomy for the Artist by Sarah Simblet – all excellent books. Some of the studies are copies from these sources while the rest use my feet or photographs of feet as reference. There’s something about copying something over and over again that commits it to memory – I now know the names of all the bones in the feet!
I have also included some more of my life drawings (5-10 minute poses).
For this drawing I used 60 lb medium-tooth paper and a range and Staedtler pencils ranging from F through 8B. This is the first time I included a hard charcoal for the darkest areas, used various tortillons (blending stumps) and wore cotton gloves to prevent accidental smudging. On another note, I am dreaming of skulls – I don’t know if I should be worried.
Recently, I came across a posting at www.conceptart.org via an email from Jason Manley. A user had put out a request – a creative challenge to see some interpretations of his beloved character, the Divine Nibru. What followed was some impressive responses from various artists, including none other than Wesley Burt, Justin “Coro” Kaufman, and Andrew Jones, to name a few. It was epic.
My week at work had been unbelievably busy so I wasn’t sure if I would have the time or energy to work on my version before the thread lost momentum but I couldn’t get this character out of my head and I would check back often to see so many great follow-up posts. The weekend rolled around and I finally found some time to work on it so I decided to contribute a version of my own. I noticed that most people posted theirs in greyscale and I decided to do the same even though it’s an area in which I’m a little weak especially when working from imagination. Although I felt it wasn’t complete, I just wanted to get it posted. I learned a lot and, taking a step back, have a better idea of my shortcomings in this area and what I need to improve on. This was an excellent exercise in being given an assignment that both restricted and challenged my creativity and, most importantly, it was a lot of fun!
For any beginning artists these challenges are great in showing ourselves our limitations and pushing beyond them or figuring something out to achieve the creative objective. In a real working project you would have an art director to give you feedback and opportunity to make improvements. In the meantime, communities such as ConceptArt have thriving memberships that do fill that role while we are still learning.
This is the author’s thread. My contribution is below and here is my entry in the thread.
Yesterday I finally got around to making use of the skull I bought a short while ago and I decided to begin with a lateral view study. I used a mechanical HB pencil of which I’m not accustomed for my drawings (except when drafting), often preferring to use a combination of woodless pencils instead. It allowed me to get in some fine detail that I may not have been able to achieve with a typical graphite pencil but the work was slower and the drawback was not being able to get in the level of blacks I would have liked. In the future, I would use a paper with a smaller tooth because this paper wore down more easily.
Often when I’m sick and feeling restless, I’ll dig out an animation show or movie to watch and it usually makes me feel better. Last weekend was no exception and after watching Laputa: Castle in the Sky, I was inspired to do this piece.
The girl is a model I drew from one of my life drawing sessions and all I knew when I began the piece was that I wanted to evoke the same sense of joy I got when I watched the movie. Mind you, a picture of a sexy girl is bound to make someone happy. *wink*
I have included some snapshots of the progression.
Remember when you were a kid and loved to draw—just for the pure enjoyment of it? When you didn’t have a care in the world and time would slip away without you being aware of it? Ah, to have those days again!
When our right brain takes over, drawing can seem effortless but sometimes it is difficult to get into that mode when things like responsibilities get in the way. These other times can seem like a chore when the left brain is telling you, “You suck! Why even bother?” or you can’t figure out why the feet or hands you’ve drawn don’t look right. I’m sure we’ve all been there at one time or another. It’s important to push through because, believe it or not, you are learning and that knowledge is at your right brain’s disposal when you are in the mood to play. Keep at it!
I’ve learned from experience that when I stop for too long, I get rusty. So I try to draw even when I don’t feel like it.
Here are some ways I try to keep myself motivated:
Do you have a technique to keep yourself motivated? If so, feel free to share in the comments below.
Some sketches from this weekend:
Just having fun
I recently had a request to create a dragon tattoo for a co-worker of my husband’s and in order to get into the swing of things, I decided to warm up with some anatomy exercises. Well, I got a little side-tracked and started working on this…ah, I should get back to business. I’ll revisit this later.