Illustration Friday: Asleep

"Shhh! The Birds Are Sleeping...."

is the name of this week's pic.

Most of the time, I'm very anal and perfectionist about drawing. I always want everything to be just so and will spend hours labouring over every inch or pixel. And then almost always dislike the outcome, because of working so hard and ending up with something other than what I envisaged.

So, this week was an exercise in freedom and simplicity. I came up with a concept which I could draw without worrying with the usual (Is the perspective correct? Does that look like a hand? Does it need shadows? and so on and so on). I wanted something quick, clean and simple.

Well.... turns out, over four hours later, it wasn't as quick and simple as I'd wanted!
I got enormously involved with smoothing out lines, and redrawing shapes so they were a little bit nicer than before, even though I told myself there would be no re-drawing.

When you are a child, you draw something and you know what it is. If you watch a small child draw, they are often so decisive and know exactly which scribble needs to go where. Its a wonderful method. And, whilst I'm not attempting to emulate a child's drawing (because its not possible), I wanted to try and recapture some of that feeling. I took a cue from the way children focus on details rather than overall form or shape - so a bird will have a beak and wings, but might well not be bird-shaped, or have any other features.

I think its easy to see which ones I drew first, and which ones were the later creations, more free and loose.

Illustration Friday: Safari

Initially, I was dead keen on the idea of a balloon full of giraffes with cameras going over a city - which would allow for kooky perspective, plenty of little visual details to explore, and the chance to hang accessories around giraffe's necks at various heights . I knew from the off I'd struggle with that, though. Which isn't really a reason not to do it, but I decided to pour my effort into something which is more 'me'.
And so, this.
The tiger is from the olden days - an IF topic of 'Wilderness' - and I loved drawing it and was pleased with the result. So, I thought I'd revisit it and make a little triptych.

My main complaint is that the crocodile looks much more graphic/cartoony than the zebra or the tiger, due to the heavy dark outlining. I wanted to go for a contrast in texture - from scaly smooth, to short fur, to thick and hairy. I'm super-pleased with each piece individually, but I think old Mr Croc is just a bit too disparate in style.

Oh, and yes I'm aware you wouldn't see a tiger in the same place as the other two........

Illustration Friday: Beginner

Its interesting how often you see people making like harder for themselves, just through not relying on their own ability to overcome the task at hand. I'm definitely one of them.

A very labour-intensive offering for this weeks IF topic. There is a lot wrong with it - the pattern on his pantaloon-thingies, both his hands, his tiny tiny legs, and more besides.
That said, its not very far off from what I ahd in my head and I'm pleased because of that, and because its not a usual sort of drawing for me.

Illustration Friday: Lesson

Today's Lesson

Little Jane she wakes up from a dream
a gun like a jawbone down the waistband of her jeans
Mr. Sandman can recite today's lesson in his sleep
he says
there ought to be a law against me going down on the street

Little Janie pipes up and she says
We're gonna have a real cool time tonight

Down the back of Janie's jeans she had the jawbone of an ass
Mr. Sandman runs around the corner, trying to head her off at the pass
he sticks his head over the fence
and yells something way too fast
it's today's lesson, something about the
corruption of the working class

Little Janie wakes up on the floor and she says
We're gonna have a real cool time tonight

Janie says we are all such a crush of want half mad with loss
we are violated in our sleep and we weep and we toss
and we turn and we burn
we are hypnotised, we are cross-eyed,
we are pimped, we are bitched,
we are told such monstrous lies

Janie wakes up and she says
We're gonna have a real cool time tonight

Mr. Sandman has a certain appetite for Janie in repose
he digs her pretty knees and that she is
completely naked underneath all her clothes
he likes to congregate around the intersection of Janie's jeans
Mr. Sandman the inseminator
opens her up like a love-letter and enters her dreams

Little Janie wakes up and she says
We're gonna have a real good time tonight
Yeah, Little Janie wakes up and she says
We're gonna have a real good time tonight.

Today's Lesson
Nick cave and the Bad Seeds

Illustration Friday: Bottled

This week, I thought I'd upload a photo of one of my paintings. Seeing as I love to paint bottles, this week's topic seemed the perfect reason to do so. I spent one and a half years painting bottles in college, then a further year painting bottles in art college, and ever since then all I've painted is bottles. Bottles are cool.

To upload the photo was a simple process involving my digital camera and then a ninety-minute long search for the correct USB cable. I keep all my USB cables, SCART and AV leads, adaptors and so on and so on in one big drawer. So I know exactly where to look whenever I need one, and then its just a question of sifting until I find what I need. Until today, when out-turning the entire contents of the drawer still didn't bring the correct cable to light. So I checked the drawer where I keep the camera.... but no cigar there either. So I bimbled about with increasing frustration checking drawers, and the bits under drawers, and the places down behind the backs of drawers. Eventually, in exasperation, I stormed up to the attic and whipped out my camera bag, and there it was nestled snugly against my Nikon. A digital SLR which, I might add, uses a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT connecting cable. So my question is: what on earth was the point? What was I thinking when I put the cable there?

It has been suggested that behaviour like this is directly linked to the fact that I'm a man.

Illustration Friday: Duet

Casey and Dorian's karaoke sets are always legnedary.

Its a quarter of the way through already, and this is my first post of 2011. After post-Christmas settled down, I spent weeks battling (and losing!) against a particularly vicious virus on my poor laptop. And then I got made redundant and have subsequently been concentrating on other things.
Not the most auspicious of beginnings to the year, but its bound to get better from here on in!!

I left some of the guys behind to keep the blog warm for me, so thanks to The Robot, the Box Giant and all the squirrels.

Here's to good thing scoming in 2011.