Piña Power!

I still have been sketching every day, I just haven't been on the computer in a while. I got out the good old purple pencil to do a picture of a bilby with a baby pineapple. I've almost filled up my watercolor sketchbook. I should get a new one for the new year.

Bilby Time!

Time for bilbies!

Paper malfunction?

My daily sketches have been very boring and scribbly lately. The next time I do something great, I'll update!

This is a weird bear and a camel with a piece of straw in its mouth.

All Hallow's Eve

Here are some not very exciting sketches. I went through the last month or so and picked out all the spookiest ones to haunt you for the rest of your days. There's a creepy demon lady, the Purple People Eater (he's a jogger), and a curly monster that I didn't finish. Boooo!

Calligraphics

I like drawing with this calligraphy pen! It has nice line variation but a bit more control than a brush pen since the tip isn't as flexible. It's pretty blue too.

I'm posting these picture not necessarily because I like them, but they have certain features that I liked. I was going for a 1930s cartoon character with this fellow. I like how his head came out, but his body is ugly. Real people should wear gloves and shorts and giant shoes with no shirt.

I'm pleased with the head feathers on this laughing cockatoo griffiny thing. I can never seem to plan nice flowy lines; they just appear sometimes by themselves. Its little wings are funny too.

The lion came out with some good line variations. I don't know what kind of critter he's getting scolded by. I hope that I can keep trying to get some of the crazy liveliness into my more finished artwork.

Tin Boxes A-Plenty!

Hi-dilly-ho, neglectarinos! I need to put more sketches on here. But I'm too lazy to scan and I don't like doing digital sketches. I even tried to color this sketch digitally but it looked horrid so nuts to that.

This probably needs some explanation (if you already get it, you're a genius!) In India, I guess most office workers like to eat homemade meals, out of tin cylinders. A wife or mom or someone makes the lunch, and a person called a dabbawalla collects a bunch of cylinders and delivers them. I saw a documentary on them once; it's a very complicated system but they almost never make mistakes and are very punctual. So in my world, a double-wattled cassowary got a job as a dabbawalla!

I got a vintage tin recipe box to put stuff in. I think I'll keep my gouache in it and be the coolest person ever.

Here Fishy Fishy Fishy!

I went fishing. It was cold but I found a way to keep warm and look extremely fashionable at the same time. I caught a fish of unknown species. Notice how my nail polish matches it!

Weirdo Fruits

This is a bad sketch of a weird idea that popped into my head. Actually, the dragon fruit bathing suit looks kinda cool.

Sophisticates

Whoops, haven't updated in a bit. All I have are sketches, so here are a proper bulldog, sailor seal, and hillbilly 'possum.

Cuddly Canine

I seem to draw a lot of chihuahuas. I guess because they're easy to make look funny. I ran out of room on the page, so there's no top or bottom to this drawing. But I thought it was funny. Poor doggy.

Actually, that's a pretty big chihuahua. Not-so-fun-fact: I hate drawing shoes.

Pink n Blue

Here are some doodles I did with a pink pen and the blue calligraphy pen. A chihuahua with an electric guitar, my cat noticing something slightly to the right, a dog listening to the radio, and some kind of horse monster. I thought his expression was funny. Horse-demon is not amused!

Fun with Taxidermy

Had a nice visit to the La Sierra University World Museum of Natural History. It has all kinds of taxidermied animals; reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals. Many are very well done, not the weird shrivelly creatures you sometimes see (a lot were prepared by freeze-drying). But since the collection was still being worked on, a lot of animals didn't have labels.

We had some time alone inside to sketch. The guy manning the office came over to see what was going on after I made a bunch of noise ripping paper out of my sketchbook and rattling around my watercolor set. Later, a big bunch of people came in on some kind of campus tour. Since I was sitting on the floor, leaning on another display case, I was either in their way or they'd try to be sneaky about looking at what I was doing. On to the sketches!

The museum said it has the largest collection of Southeast Asian birds in the US. There were many colorful birds of unknown species. The ones I painted had labels: two hornbills (a man said about the Helmeted Hornbill "That's the ugliest thing I've ever seen") and a cuckoo. The coolest birds were up too high to see while sitting and I it's hard to stand and hold all my watercolor stuff. I was kind of lazy with my color mixing on these. It's fun to draw birds that are holding still!

There were strange groupings of mammals; armadillos, monkeys, civets, baby hoofed animals. The bushdog looked a little off, but I liked its curled tail and shocked expression. I think the little armadillo was a six-banded. The capybara looked kind of mad too.

Hilarity Ensues!

Here are some doodles that I thought were funny. When you laugh at your own drawings, you know they're good. Right? RIGHT?!?

The giant mole rat is just hilarious on its own, no explanation necessary. The man makes me laugh because he looks so happy and has tiny skinny legs. The dog was drawn with an old calligraphy pen. Dogs with cones on their heads do not like it when you make fun of them, but you can't help it.

As I think I've said before, about 90% of my sketching results in small (these are each about 2 or 3 inches across) rough scribbles. I hope someone gets a smile from this post.

Dollaridoo

One of my newest booky-wooks is a field guide to Australian birds. How I'd love to to use it in the field, looking at birds, in Australia!

The picture of the Dollar Bird was very cute, so I drew one spending its dollars on street snacks. Note the well-researched, lifelike vendor on the right (I couldn't picture what those cart thingies look like).

They're called dollar birds because of the little white circles on their wings.

Photo Unavailable

I decided I wanted to have a little picture in my Blogspot profile. Since I hate every photograph of me, a drawing it was!

I used my crow quill pen, my Dr. Martin's Bombay Black ink, my Winsor & Newton Artists' watercolours, and my W&N Series 7 brush (number 3). Yup, only the most expensive and high-quality supplies for my drawing of a super-deformed me drawing a bilby.

I <3 the 80's

Quick drawing of a totally radical 80's rocker chick.

I don't think I made her hair big enough.

Name That Tune

Sometimes I watch music videos online. I think up an old video or a song I like, and try to find it. So many memories. Here's a doodle from one of my favorite songs/videos. Can you guess what it's from? Pretty easy, I know. I liked his pose a lot (sorry for the anatomical mushiness, it was a tiny little low quality video after all!). Stupid hard-to-draw human proportions!

World's Largest Rodent

Capybaras like to go swimming. I made a little pen sketch, and decided to paint it. Watercolors for the water pig!

Triskaidekaphobia

Happy Friday the 13th!

Hooray for the Red, White, & Blue (and Green)

Let's celebrate the independence of our nation with a green bipedal uni-goat!

I hadn't inked or colored anything lately, so I got out my Copic Drawing pen and ended up with a goat with one horn. It was going to be a normal color, but I thought, why not make it green?

Oodle-doodle!

All I've been doing lately are crazy little sketches. I need a muse or something. First up are a few pencil drawings. I guess the sulking animal is a bunny. With the fox, I was trying for a different style (for me, at least). I don't know what that is riding the boar, but it's having fun.

I had fun with this picture in red pen. It's Alice and the March Hare; he's in a very weird position (so is she, now that I think about it), but I like the sketchy qualities of it.

The rare and radiant pigeon whom the angels named Lahore

A book of fancy pigeons intrigued me. I thought this type, called a Lahore pigeon, looked like a little Clydesdale horse. Digital coloring is still a mystery; this is supposed to be more sketchy but I'm still frustrated. I used some weird brush and just colored on top of a sketch in Photoshop.

Mmm, split complimentaries

Oh, how I love getting new art supplies in the mail! I had been wanting an orange watercolor for a while, since they're kind of hard for me to mix and not make mud. I decided on perinone orange. I also heard a recommendation for perylene green.

I painted this picture with these 2 colors. It's a very strange-looking maned wolf, but what're ya gonna do? I really like this green, it makes nice shadow colors and browns. The orange is a bit redder than I would've liked, but overall I think I'll be happy with it. Thanks, Daniel Smith!

World's Fastest Dancer

This is another type of sketch I do, animals in weird, anatomically impossible poses. This is supposed to be a cheetah by the way. He likes to boogie.

ETA: I like how one spot seems to have floated off his tail in the frenzy.

Tapejara (Old Being)

I hadn't done any serious computer art in quite some time (and only once did I do something that wasn't for an assignment). For some reason I've forgotten now, I really wanted to draw a pterosaur. I decided on Tapejara, a weird reptile with a big crest. After three evenings of work, I threw in the towel and declared this exercise finished.

Now, being such a digital art newbie, I didn't have any techniques to use, so I just started in. I prefer digital art that doesn't look like it was obviously done digitally. First, I did the preliminary sketch with my tablet, then blocked in areas of color in Photoshop. The majority of the details were done with the size 3 hard-edged brush, set at various degrees of opacity, and lots of tiny scribbly lines. At the end, I put an almost transparent layer of grayish-green over everything to try to bring it together, like I might do with a wash of watercolor to try to tie different areas together.

The hard thing with reconstructions is that you never know if all your hard work is resulting a totally inaccurate creature! I did do some research of course, but not exhaustive research, and all the reconstructions I found of Tapejara looked pretty different. I based its coloring on cassowaries, the king vulture, the casqued lizard, and a cute bird called the crested coua. Many, but not all, resources said that pterosaurs most likely were furry. Next time I do computer art, I'd like to try something with not so many different textures.

Cuteness, defined

The majority of my sketches fall into three categories. In this post, I show some examples of the first thing: overtly cute animals. I went through various sketchbooks and found these images as examples. Looking at them all together, it seems like to me, cute involves something with a big head, most likely with its mouth open, and maybe an arm raised or a hand on its chin. Big eyes are not a necessity, but they do help. Fuzzy is good, as are small legs and feet.

Clockwise from the top, I've drawn a tarantula (who says mammals are the only cute animals?), a confused bilby, a puppy, a kitten with bat wings for ears, a goose, and a kangaroo.

Color Sketches (kind of)

Here are some things taken from my daily sketches. For this first one, I used a red pen. Anyone want to guess what breed of dog it is? I like the cat, it's not my usual style but it has a certain charm. She has a bell on her collar but it looks kind of like a skull, which makes it even cooler!

The little purple goat was a quick sketch, also not really in my usual drawing style. For some reason, I can't stop looking at it. Ah, what a narcissist I am! I think I just like its expression. Why do I like my scribbly things more than the "real" art?

You got me a Taco Hat!

While flipping through a book, I saw a sketch of a character in cowboy gear. I thought the ten-gallon hat looked more like a taco. And so, in the spirit of Homer Simpson's Nacho Hat, I give you the Taco Hat! Watercolor sketch (as if you couldn't tell.)

More things from the sketchbook to come soon.

Puffty Tufty

I found a scrap of wrinkled MiTientes and felt like painting with gouache. I decided to make a bird, and I like the look of black and white on gray, so I searched for a black and white bird. I came upon the Tufted Jay, native to Mexico. I thought its little hairdo was so cute! I didn't feel like making a drawing first, so I just started painting away. It resulted in an awkward-looking bird, but there are things I like about it.

I want to make more birdies now! But I have trouble coming up with natural looking poses.

The Beautiful People, Take 2

I like these caricatures better. Still not perfect but then I guess it's hard since I can't see their features from other angles. I can't get a handle on what their noses look like. Yay, we like Brooks Brothers.

I'm Voguing!

I found the proceeding ad in Vogue magazine and decided to use it as my caricature practice. I thought trying to exaggerate models' features would be challenging. I had never done any caricatures, to my recollection. Drawing people isn't really my bag, baby.

I came up with this drawing. I don't think it works too well as a caricature; usually they're cartoonier, and uglier/meaner, than this. I think the woman was easier. Thank goodness for her far-apart eyes! The man came out pretty generic. I tried to latch on to his uneven eyebrows and kind-of-weird ears. Ah well, not too bad for a first attempt. If anyone else tries this, lemme see!

Monkey Business Casual

Oh yeah, here's the finished painting of the proboscis monkey. Watercolors and inks, about 4 inches wide.

No Gnus is good Gnus

I went to the Getty. I drew a python killing a gnu.

I don't really like sketching paintings, because they don't really look too impressive as some pencil scribbles. But this one is a clay model, so it gave me a 3D form to wrap my head around. And look, my drawing is of the opposite side as the photo of this piece on the Getty website. Ooo, ah, oh! (Poppinfresh dough)

Nasalis Haiku

Proboscis monkey,
Wearing a blue polo shirt,
Chopsticks in pocket.

This is how I start a watercolor painting. I put lightish washes of color all over the picture, usually wet-in-wet. I've been using my Niji waterbrush for small character study type pictures like this. Also Winsor & Newton watercolors, both Cotman and Artist's.

Monkey's Casual Friday

Here's the inked picture of the proboscis monkey. I went right over my pencil sketch, which was pretty messy so no scan of it.

He's thinking about lunch.

Pig ---> Primate

Another doodle, this time of a bald Japanese monkey, sticks in my mind. So does a drawing of a proboscis monkey. The pig has now become a monkey. Tune in next time for the finished line art.

Carousel of Progress

I thought the progression of a picture might be fun. Today, we have a little drawing that inspired a finished picture. This pig showed up on my page of daily doodles. I kind of liked him, and I hadn't done any color in a while so I decided to try to develop it as a painting. Somewhere along the line, he changed into a different animal. Tune in next time to see what!