Art After a Year

I hadn't done any art in a year - a frustrating side effect of depression - and then, around Christmas, I was given a few new sketchbooks.  So, one night, I started sketching again.  It was so much fun.  Between Christmas and New Years (around there anyways) I did the following:

It felt great to finally do some art again!!! <3

Nov. 16, 2014

This is what I decided to try to draw at around 12 am last night:

I followed a tutorial that I found on Youtube.  You can find it here.

Nature and other things...

 One of the great things about the above three trees is that, though they may not be very realistic, they span three different art mediums (art mediums are like the materials that you make something out of).  In this case, I used charcoal for the first picture on the left, pastels for the middle picture, and pencil for the third picture (on the right).  It's really fun to try different mediums because each produces its own special effect.

Oil Pastels

"Other stuff"

A landscape done with pen and ink. 

This is the "other things" from the title...

Random Other Art Pieces from the Past

Welcome to Miscellaneous Works of Art!!!  I'll probably come back to all these posts and add dates to the pieces of art when I can dig through my stuff to find them. 

This first piece is done in watercolor, and the cross was inspired by my friend Bekah's tattoo.  It's incredibly similar to her tattoo except for the color of the flower and the number of leaves.  I decided to do the immediate background of the cross in yellows and then darker colors around that to make it really pop out at the viewer.  Around that was a black background.  Later, after everything had dried, I took real leaves from outside and placed them on the page and then "watercolored" the edges.  I still don't entirely know why I decided to put the leaves on there, but I am glad that I did.  It gives something to the right hand side of the paper that otherwise would have been static and boring.

This next piece is also a watercolor (not done on watercolor paper, unfortunately).  It's based off of a modeling picture of my sister, Mary.  I love the way she's standing and the flow of the contours of the body.

 In my Sophomore year of college I was sitting in my friend's room and saw some metal or plastic birds mounted on the wall.  They were beautiful and I decided to draw two of them.  As it turned out, it looks more like one bird with a lighter "shadow" underneath it - I liked the overall effect and so decided to keep it.  I then decided to play with my sharpies for the background, using many vibrant colors in swirly twirly patterns.

Also during my Sophomore year I drew a cross.  The cross itself isn't very sophisticated.  You can see that the "arms" of the cross are different lengths.  However, the background is something more.  The cross, yellow, and inner red sections are done in colored pencils, while the darker red and the black background are done in.... yup! Sharpie again!

This picture (bottom left) is based off of a picture of me modeling on a car for my friend Jessica's art project.  Trust me, the picture is a LOT crazier than this drawing.  If you want to see it, click here.

 I did this final composition (above right) in my Freshman year of college, so in the Fall of 2010.  First I drew the bookshelf and television.  I scanned it onto my computer and then upped the contrast.  Finally I reprinted that off and then drew in Lisa and Bart.  After scanning it back onto the computer, I used the eyedropper tool on Paint to access the actual colors for their skin and clothes, and voila!

Basic Drawing I Class - Junior Year of College 2013

These pieces were created in 2013, during my Basic Drawing I class taught by Bruce McCombs.  All of these were drawn, not only off of pictures, but also of real objects sitting in the room in front of me (Yes, even the rib cage; we had an actual skeleton to work off of). 

This first drawing of the rib cage is incomplete.  I did finish it, but I gave it to my teacher and forgot to capture a picture of the final project.  The rib cage itself and the spine and vertebrae were drawn in pen, with lines and cross hatching to darken certain areas.  The background is... can you guess?  Sharpie!  I love sharpies and decided to do an intricate, somewhat abstract background using multiple colors.  

 This second piece (yes, those are my feel in the picture) is of a tricycle.  The entire tricycle is done in pen and ink, with the background being orange/red chalk (I think my teacher called it "cani chalk" but I can't find that name anywhere online, so.....).  The very bottom is in black, charcoal I believe.  It's basically a drawing of a person doing a drawing of a tricycle.








 This is another drawing of the same tricycle.  I had finished the first one and was sitting in class with nothing to do.  We were supposed to do two drawings of the tricycle, but I had put so much effort into the first one that I just felt completely uninspired.  So, what did I decide to do?  Why I decided to draw with my left hand, of course!  And no, I am NOT left-handed.  The end result actually turned out pretty well.  Who'd have thought I could draw with my left hand?  I certainly never thought I could!  So, next time you're stuck on what to draw, you can always draw the same picture you'd already done, but this time do it with your non-dominant hand.







 The quality of this next photo is not great, but hopefully you get the idea that I drew a skull.  I THINK this piece is in watercolor, with some black gouache for the eyes, nose, mouth, and background.  If you don't know what gouache is, you can find a reasonable definition here on good old Wikipedia.

Hey look, I found some more!  

This is a heroic drawing (which basically means a blown up or larger than life drawing) of a ring I had.  It's done on Newsprint with black and white charcoal.  It's not super sophisticated; it's really just a quick sketch of the ring, really. 

This next drawing is also a heroic drawing.  This one is of a rubber band ball.  I know, you probably didn't guess that, because quite honestly, it doesn't really look like one, now does it?  The answer is no.  BUT, I had a lot of fun with it because I used oil pastels and then smeared the heck out of them.  It made for a pretty sweet effect.  

This next image is clearly a Jack Daniel's bottle.  I don't know, it might be a little hard to read on the computer, but that's definitely what it is!  How funny is it that on a dry campus you can go into the basic drawing room and find an entire table filled with alcohol bottles?  Anyways, I just used graphite pencil for this drawing.  

Finally, the bags.  There are two bags pictured here.  The first is a Hallmark bag that says, "Life is a Special Occasion."  It was done in oil pastels, which allowed me to mix a variety of different colors, such as blues, purples, and whites to create a more dynamic color scheme for the bag, instead of it just being a regular plain purple background.  The second bag (the one on the right) is a plain old jane old brown paper bag.  There was nothing really remarkable about it, but I decided to draw it anyways.  I do like working with monochromatic works, and so this was the perfect opportunity for me!.  The medium is watercolor.  

DeCosta Series

DeCosta Series: 

Done with Prismacolor pencils

Starting in mid July 2011, I started drawing pictures of my brother-in-law, DeCosta.  He had passed away that July 15th, and that is when I really started drawing.  I hadn't done much drawing before that, but I really took off.  I drew all the pictures in 2011, based off of photographs that I had of him or photos I found on Facebook.  

I continued drawing picture after picture of him: 

This picture was drawn with charcoal.  It's the first time I had ever really experimented with it.  

Finally, my pictures started to look a bit more life-like, after I started focusing more on shading, that is:

 Finally, my favorite picture of the bunch, was done with Prismacolor pencils, both graphite and watercolor.

DeCosta was wearing my sister's glasses and making a funny face at me.  I captured this beauty with a cell phone and then drew it from that.