Finally, a drawing update!

Two of the better pen sketches I've done lately.

When I have the odd day off....

One of my houseplants. An exercise in procrastination....

I will say that this was a practice is composition and some other fundamental rules. (Art has rules and formulas like anything else.) 

Saturday's activites.

On Saturday I biked to a conservation area located near my apartment. My main goal was photos of birds, but I ended up leaving with this as my only picture. It's a Wooly Bear Caterpillar.

I adore these little guys and move them to safety if I discover them in a place where they can be squashed.

While walking the trail, my companion and I heard a strange call. I thought of a list of birds that were spotted in the area and exclaimed "it's a gray catbird". He thought that I was making it up until I pulled out my birding app and showed him. We never got a clear look at the bird but the area it was found in matched and the call was unmistakable. (It sounded like a Siamese cat.)

The total distance biked that day was about 15 miles plus all the walking we did in the conservation area. Not too bad.

Buttons!

 (My cat "Buttons")

I'm not dead. I'm just very busy.

In the past two months I've :

• Found a new job that's actually tolerable. 
• Been trying to improve my photography skills.
• Been chillaxing in spare time reading various books. So far, all non-fiction. I'm not big on fiction.

Zoo Drawing Dump

I made two 2 1/2 hour trips to the Toronto Zoo over the weekend and came out with more sketches than I do when I visit for the whole day.

Apologies for the lack of posts lately. I've been busy adjusting to the new job.

My last two figure-drawing classes.

These are from a previous class. The earlier week was a male portrait  and the study of facial expressions. The teacher and the model posed for the facial expressions.

(I apologize for the blurriness of the top image.) 

The portraits above were the later week when we had a female model.

The top portrait is the more accurate of the two. (It is actually pretty dead on, give or take a few minor details.) The bottom one....something went wrong. I'm still trying to figure out what. (Besides the fact that the eyes sizes are bit off.) Her face seems too long. I did measure the length three or 4 times to make sure it was accurate (the width too).... If I had to bet on what it was throwing the whole thing off, it would be the nose. (I had some issues with it.)

This portrait class actually turned out to be a lot of fun. We were working with pastels. I am not a fan of pastels. They seem too dusty and there's something about the texture that I don't like.  (I will give them a bit more of a chance in future life-drawing. I'll experiment with different paper and see if I find a combination that works for me.)

Anyway, I was dreading this class because my pastel renders tend to turn out hideous. I also had to be crafty with the shading as I'm a cheap bastard and only had a few basic colors. :)  I grudgingly started working and had a very happy turn of events.

On a funny note. The model loved my shirt.

6/29/12 - Random sketchbook pages.