The past 3 days have been full of art but not a lot of visuals to share until I get the ok from finished commissions.
Commissions and Projects
I worked on a portrait and a logo commission
I also worked on a narrative project and spent hours ranting on the difficulty finding the correct references to match my visions. Along with this struggle, I also had the revelation (again) that I need to do more studies... of everything! I sometimes curse my fine art training for not teaching us specifically how to draw cloths, technology, buildings, cars, etc. Granted, they did teach me how to paint from life and how to mix colors like a pro. Technically, if I know how to paint and draw from life, I should be able to draw anything right? Well, sorta. I feel like I am beginning my training from scratch and on my own when it comes to illustrative works.
bat ears
On one of those days, I went home to bury Leo. Dad, Dave and I gave him a proper funeral and I did a little drawing to bury with him. I drew a picture of him with large ears and a pic of me (with long hair) and him eating my hair. I wrote "You always did have bat ears. Love, Always." Leo was a cat that never went in for sappy stuff, so that was appropriate. While dad covered the grave with dirt, I read from the 'good book' (the sketchbook that was in my hand anyway) - I found a random passage about Horace Walpole coining the term 'Serendipity' and creating the quote "The world is a comedy to those that think, and a tragedy to those that feel"
Inspirations
I looked at a cocophony of things to help inspired me...
2 books by Patrick Woodroffe, "Arkham Asylum" comic illustrated by Dave McKean (awesome!), The Etsy site of Sandra Arteaga, a host of people I watch at deviant art (but no specifics this time), PES animations (western spaghetti is my fave, and 'the deep' is pretty awesome too.), Concept art from "The Time Machine" (more recent version movie)
business
worked out my art MILEAGE for my taxes! woohoo!! roughly 4633.2 miles were traveled in the name of art last year. (and only 50 of that is misc stuff I didn't really have a record for)
UNDERWEAR
Who designs this stuff? I will just repost what I said on facebook yesterday:
"Dear Hanes and Fruit of the Loom art department: I find the graphics on walmart napkins more appealing than the horrid designs you put on your women's underwear. Just because they are the cheap packs of underwear does not mean you have to make us feel embarrased to even look at them."
How does one go about designing underwear? I'd like to see some of MY designs on underwear!
This is Lydia Burris. This is my blog. This is where I ramble about my art, travel, inspirations, and stuff.
Showing posts with label references. Show all posts
Showing posts with label references. Show all posts
Friday, January 28, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Day 21 - oil study and more focus on hair changes
The day was actually quite productive, but most of it, I'm not sharing yet visually, so here's what I am sharing - an oil study of myself with the new doo. Freshly washed and softly settled onto my head. I do have terribly straight hair.

No, I'm not depressed, I just don't make any facial expressions when doing a self portrait study.
I found some old paper thick paper I had previously painted on, but the texture was going nowhere, so I decided to use it for a study. I already had my oils out for another project.
Ok. Most of the time, my colors are vibrant and drastic. Especially when I work with mixed media on Yupo or something. But when I was learning how to paint at school, I was using oils for the first time, and I was trained to paint from life. I have a very hard taking oils out for a walk in my own recent styles. This was just a study, so I'm not critiquing this little piece as being 'DULL', but it makes me want to try a few more experiments in steering oils toward my own current visual standards. I have tried this a few times, - I've had ~some~ success... but Of course, my training comes in very handy when I need to paint a portrait!
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More sketchbook ponderings

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Other work
*I am finishing up a commission right now - made a few changes and it is looking pretty good.
*Also, I did some work on the ~comic~ thing I'm doing - I watched the movie "Brooklyn's Finest" to get some references on how police outfits are formed, and that was a much better idea than scraping the images from google search. Granted, I also got stuck for 2 hours getting sucked into the movie, and doing random sketches from it for my own good.
Netflix + printscreen is a very useful tool for getting references and ideas for images!
I stuck together drawings, sketches and my own photo references to formulate how I'm going to lay out the panels on a page. This method seems to make me feel less overwhelmed at the prospect. Why am I having such a hard time doing narrative?! its getting easier. I have to put my perfectionist and anxious thoughts aside like "what if people see this and say 'this girl has no idea what a car, or a police outfit or a building really looks like, she sucks!'" OUT DAMN THOUGHTS! that's what study is for!!
No, I'm not depressed, I just don't make any facial expressions when doing a self portrait study.
I found some old paper thick paper I had previously painted on, but the texture was going nowhere, so I decided to use it for a study. I already had my oils out for another project.
Ok. Most of the time, my colors are vibrant and drastic. Especially when I work with mixed media on Yupo or something. But when I was learning how to paint at school, I was using oils for the first time, and I was trained to paint from life. I have a very hard taking oils out for a walk in my own recent styles. This was just a study, so I'm not critiquing this little piece as being 'DULL', but it makes me want to try a few more experiments in steering oils toward my own current visual standards. I have tried this a few times, - I've had ~some~ success... but Of course, my training comes in very handy when I need to paint a portrait!
---
More sketchbook ponderings
--
Other work
*I am finishing up a commission right now - made a few changes and it is looking pretty good.
*Also, I did some work on the ~comic~ thing I'm doing - I watched the movie "Brooklyn's Finest" to get some references on how police outfits are formed, and that was a much better idea than scraping the images from google search. Granted, I also got stuck for 2 hours getting sucked into the movie, and doing random sketches from it for my own good.
Netflix + printscreen is a very useful tool for getting references and ideas for images!
I stuck together drawings, sketches and my own photo references to formulate how I'm going to lay out the panels on a page. This method seems to make me feel less overwhelmed at the prospect. Why am I having such a hard time doing narrative?! its getting easier. I have to put my perfectionist and anxious thoughts aside like "what if people see this and say 'this girl has no idea what a car, or a police outfit or a building really looks like, she sucks!'" OUT DAMN THOUGHTS! that's what study is for!!
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