Autumn & feather boas

Here it is, finally, for your viewing pleasure, the painted-in-colour sketch for 'Autumn'.  (So, in my mind, apparently, autumn is blood-red and wine coloured [and pomegranates look rather like beets], while summer is black and orange and spring is bright yellow and green.)  Still, on the whole I'm mostly pleased with these...I'll get to making 'good' drawings of summer at the very least (a bit of a mess) and perhaps others too (I used cheapo paper and it is quite buckled...not the best for a high-res scan even if I decide that the sketch IS acceptable- that's a big IF-) sometime soon.  'Winter' I might redo.  I quite like the pose but the pseudo-crystalline formation?  Ugh...not quite what I had in mind.  Surely something better can be done with the idea.  Well, in any case you'll see updates on this at some point in the near future.


What else?  Well, I went to another burlesque-themed drawing session yesterday; here are  a few sketches that are okay- no more, no less.  Not a spectacular session for me but fun nonetheless...:

 

No, she did not have (or wear) wings....this was for one of the contests, which involves adding something to the drawing, usually.  This one was- give her wings.  Hence the wings.

 Again, no...although props might not be out of the question, there was no giant bottle- it was another contest; this time the assignment was to give the drawing the appearance of a (presumably Art Nouveau!) poster or label.  I didn't really give it much thought until the last few minutes and gave up on the idea quickly...I decided that this was NOT on its way to looking Art Nouveau in the least...

 

Here, more use of the ubiquitous BOA.  Yes, I've officially had enough feather boa....I know, I know, I suppose that it's to be expected at these sessions, it's one of THE burlesque accoutrements, it's coy and flirty and sexy and all that....but I have found it very annoying the last couple of times I've encountered it.  Here, and in the previous sketch, it isn't bad...but there always seem to be a couple of poses in which there seems to be very little to draw BUT the boa- which I don't find to be either terribly amusing or otherwise helpful to me drawing-practice-wise  (I, for one, don't feel the urge to incorporate feather boas into my work very frequently).  Ok, ok, enough about that.  I'm sure that I'll see them again if I continue attending these drawing sessions, so I'll try to think positively about the whole thing.   Perhaps drawing feather boas will turn out to be a highly useful skill at some point, for some reason that I am now unable to foresee.

I'll be back with further news and remarks soon.

Autumn- sketch in black & white

This is just a quick update, a tiny little post before I go away for a couple of days.  Here is a sketch for 'autumn', the final season-  I'm not yet sure whether I'm satisfied with this idea.  Something about the woman's expression, combined with a certain other something about the way she's holding the glass reminds me of Aubrey Beardsley- this pleases and amuses me (although I hope that I'm not copying one of his drawings without realizing it!).  I'll finish painting it when I return; in the meantime some sketching may transpire, and I'll consider a colour scheme- but I'm not bringing my paints, not for three (likely very busy) days away.  I'll be back soon enough...!

IF: bottled

Here is my entry for IF this week; the theme was 'bottled'.  This is obviously just a quick sketch, nothing more than silliness and the first thing that came to my mind (they're not even in a BOTTLE, it's clearly more of a JAR).  This fast and associative idea-generation seems to be the best way for me to get something done for Illustration Friday these days instead of agonizing over it- I mean, it's really just for fun- if I do indeed come up with something that I like- e.g. 'cultivate' a couple of weeks ago (which prompted me to rename it 'summer' and do a 'seasons' series), all the better.  Back with more soon- the final season still to come.

Winter

Well, here I am, fully a week later, and yes, once more I have completed a rough drawing for another season and little else besides- general busy-ness being once again the excuse.  Ah well.  By this time next week I want to have finished not only the final season (several sketches/ideas for it, at least, if not a reasonably completed drawing-sketch) as well as an entry for this week's Illustration Friday. 

This week's season is Winter.  I'm reasonably pleased with it- particularly because the 'annoying' sketches that I mentioned last week were 'winter'.  (They are still too annoying to post- but I will mention that I was thinking more along the lines of a woman curled up, rather than stretched out.)  I'm still not sure about my attempts at a 'crystalline' formation around her- this could be better executed. 

Well, that leaves Autumn....I have some thoughts.

Spring

I always intend to post more frequently.  I recently realized that one of the factors in my failing to do so is my tendency to put it off until I have 'more' or 'enough' material- be it  news, sketches or interesting thoughts.  The past couple of weeks have been extremely busy, and I haven't had a lot of time to work on projects, alas.  I did do some more sketches, though, developing the idea of depicting the four seasons symbolically (inspired by the IF drawing in the last post, which suggested to me an interesting embodiment of 'summer').  I completed a sketch of 'spring' that I'm quite happy with, and did a few for 'winter' that I'm completely annoyed with.  Typically, I am tempted to wait to post an entry until I have that elusive 'more'- in this case, another sketch that I like.  I am not, however, going to wait as I so often do- in spite of the nagging inner voice that says 'that's not enough, only one drawing? that's not very interesting' etc., I'm going to post the one thing that I'm willing to show.  Here it is, 'spring':

Winter and autumn soon to come (perhaps one at a time, even)!

IF: cultivate

I quite like this idea that I came up with for this week's IF; it's very quickly executed in my terribly swollen (and quite difficult to make scans from) sketchbook, but I'm thinking of doing a better version of it.  It might not be a bad idea to make this into a series of four seasons- this being the summer.  I like the strangeness of it. 
Speaking of strangeness...sometimes I wonder whether I'm just kidding myself. Is there really a place in kiddie lit for me?  Is that, in any case, what I'd really like to do?  Ideally, I know that I'd rather illustrate picture books for teenagers and adults...yeah, that's a lucrative market- lots of THAT kind of stuff around... I often feel as though my style is unfortunately between markets- too weird/creepy/non kiddie for the kiddie market, too naive,not slick (or sophisticated or collage-y or urbane or whatever, depends on the moment) for the editorial market.  It seems as though I'm just missing the mark everywhere... but what to do? What I do is what I do...and it seems to me that to be myself is the only way to proceed.  Some people will like it- it's just a matter of finding those people. 

My focus for the next little while is going to be developing new pieces for my portfolio.  I feel as though I haven't changed things around for a while- not that I haven't been doing anything, it's just that so few things have, shall we say, 'made the cut'.  I'm pretty happy with a number of the ideas that I've come up with recently just playing around and sketching (this IF being a good example).  Here is another recent sketch:

...which I developed further into:

(not sure that I'm happy with this, though...)

Another that I'm considering doing a 'good' version of:

 Well, that's all the news of note for the moment.  I am continuing my valiant (if insufficient) attempts to augment my online presence- I'm considering joining either lunarize (their winter 'publisher' gallery was sold out) or hire an illustrator (in order to further the aforementioned presence online).  I must follow up on mailings.  Oh, and do some more DRAWING, too... further sketching for client, pencils for dummy, pieces for portfolio.  Bonne semaine!

IF 'warning', new commission, a few 'yuks'

...And so I have returned from a short trip to Florida, rested, relaxed and more ready than ever for spring.  My 'perruche' postcards have arrived, and I'm very pleased...tomorrow, the mailing will commence...

I haven't participated in Illustration Friday for a while now, much to my chagrin.  Yesterday, though, I began to make amends.  Here is my take on 'warning':

I'm also starting work on a new private commission that seems as though it will be fun- I've just done several VERY rough sketches (really to rough to show, sorry, although I may change my mind later), too rough to show the client at this point.  I'm going to do some more passable sketches to email to her tonight.  I'm really looking forward to this project- she seems very open to ANYTHING, but has given a few guidelines ('anything' without ANY guidelines can be hard).  I will be posting more on this at a later date... and work continues on completing my book in book-dummy form.  Lots to do...

Oh yes, I'm still doodling pointlessly for my own amusement.  For your perusal: