3-4/29 Faces

I hate to start at the end, but once I post, this will be the thumbnail.
This image started as a stock photo image from a mailer I received. When I drew this and Face #4- Burt Reynolds in my sketchbook, I wanted to throw a watercolor wash, but I noticed the paper was already warped from a wash I did on the other side of the page. If I attempted it, the pigment would just pool in the valleys. So I scanned the page and isolated the pencil scratches.

See the dark waves across the paper? All the color was gonna pool there if I painted it.

I had no idea what I was doing in Photoshop. I've looked at a few Ctrl+Paint videos and sorta have the idea, but I have a LOT of practice ahead of me. I'm rather pleased with the results, but I also know it mostly works because of my understanding of value. My painting technique is pretty meh. LOL!

2/29Faces

I was watching "Better Call Saul" the other night.

I can see that I'm still a bit rusty. I'm annoyed that I can't seem to get eyes down right now, which is weird because it used to be all I did. On the other hand, the planes on the cheeks and jowls were fun to work on and I really wanted to keep rendering. It's like not paying attention to drawing, but wanting to color.

Sketchbook primed with acrylic wash, mechanical pencil, white gel pen and a whole lot of twiddling around with curves in photoshop.

I also did a little bit of gel pen correction in PShop. I kinda scribbled in the hi-lights on the top rim of the glasses and it was too thick and scribbly (and made it really contrasty), so I patched it a little to make it thinner.

29Faces in September

I've been suuuper scarce here. It's hard to keep current with posting when there's so many social media sites. But at the end of the day, I haven't actually been doing anything that I thought was worth sharing.

OTOH, it IS time for 29Faces again. I may as well try to stay on top of that here. But if you're wondering what else I've been up to, head over to my Instagram. It's way simpler for me to post quick images there.

29Faces is a challenge created by Ayala Art. A human(ish) face a day, every day for an entire month. Last night the prompt "Aretha Franklin" was given. I'm not real happy with how it came out, but I'm also trying to accept what happens, finish and move on. I didn't think I was this rusty.

 

Acrylic wash in sketchbook, colored pencil, white gel pen.

Face 2!

Starting late and not catching up is rather inauspicious, but dammit, it's gonna get done.

A month ago my hard drive wouldn't boot and I had to get a new one. I loaded Clip Studio on it and didn't give it another thought until today. If I'm gonna do the things I plan on doing, I may as well launch it and play around with it. But then CS wanted me to enter the license and it failed! Turns out that I had to deactivate and then reactivate it with the current hard drive. Talk about momentum killer.

I still feel rusty. I hope I can feel a bit more comfortable soon.

This face was grabbed from the internet. The girl is actually younger, but I tend to age children. I don't know how it happens.

29Faces!

I've been seriously neglecting this blog in favor of Instagram, but I've also been neglecting a lot of other stuff too! I guess 29 Faces keeps me coming back if only for a little while.

Today is a warmup inspired by Ayala Art's prompt: Princess Diana. I never thought I'd draw her because I'm not so much a fan of the hype, but since I was completely unprepared for 29 Faces September (see: neglect), it seemed as good a face to tackle as any.

Looking at her photos, she was the Queen of Side Eye and Serious Shade. Maybe that was part of her allure. I don't think I made her snarky-looking enough here, but you get the idea. I originally wanted to do this in ink, but I saw the crown and noped outta that.
Sketchbook paper, acrylic wash, mechanical pencil. Scanned and adjusted to Hell.

My Big Fat 29 Faces photo dump

Not only have I neglected the blog, but I've also missed a couple days when my mother got sick. She's feeling fine now, but now I have to catch up with the Faces and dayjob stuff.

And so...

 Anne Bonny from "Black Sails". Dylusions spray ink on sketchbook, sketched in pencil and inked with a Tombow fudenosuke pen.

 Face 8 was from a stock photo. My sketchbook was gel printed on and I just drew the face on top.

 Face #9 was also from stock photo. I had washed over this sketchbook page with acrylic and then I had a dabber with Copper Distress paint on it. I think I wiped the dabber on the page trying to get all of it off. Months later I drew this face on it.

 Face #10 was also a stock photo. Sketchbook, gel print, acrylic wash. Then drawn in pencil, inked with a Tombow Fude pen and I then added a little color to her face and hair with Koi watercolors. It was about here when I started to seriously wonder if i could keep this up.

 Face #11 was supposed to be Eleanor Guthrie from "Black Sails", but it really didn't come out. Which is a shame because the splatter from the Distress ink sprays are really nice here. Ah well.

Face #12 is max from "Black Sails" I rushed this and the previous face in a rush to catch up. I was really unhappy with both of them though. I use my sketchbook as a blotter for other projects, so the color is the ink from that. Penciled, then inked with Fude.

 So there I was, kinda beating up on myself for doing a coupla lousy drawings and then my mom got sick and I had to look after her for the weekend. I saw it as a sign from the universe to take a small break.Maybe recharge or reboot or something. As soon as Mom felt better, I drew Alison from "Orphan Black". Random ink on sketchbook, drawn in pencil. Recognize the circles? That's me trying to clean off a dabber.

 #14 Krystal from "Orphan Black". At first I tried drawing from a different photo, where she was kinda making a face, but it just wasn't working for me. So I changed photos and this one just clicked. Too bad it looks like she was some sort of reptilian skin condition.

I must say, I'm rather pleased with myself for having gotten this far. I'm also trying to get over my need for perfectionism, so posting a few of the drawings that are a little off is a rather big step for me. I feel like I've wasted a lot of time trying to make perfect drawings when I should just share and move on to the next thing.

And I've also just realized that as I'm typing up this post I'm kinda putting off doing my next sketch.

Catching up

I've barely kept up with the daily drawing, but I haven't found the time to post them. I feel like I can only get two things done a day and making blog posts isn't high on my priority list right now.

But look! I have faces!

 #3. Scribbled right before bed because time was running out on the clock. LOL I can't be happy with everything I do. I'm also learning that getting it done is way more important than having perfection.
Tombow Fude over acrylic gel printed into my sketchbook.

#4. I was lamenting over where one finds images to feed the 29 day beast and my friend came through with stock photos! This was acrylic wash in my sketchbook. The orange dot is that leftover Distress ink you get from the blending tool. Drawn in mechanical pencil, colored with watercolor and then highlighted with white gel pen.

#5. More acrylic wash, drawn in pencil, inked with Tombow Fude and white gel pen.

#6. Acrylic wash, gel print background, mechanical pencil, watercolor. Then it looked terrible and I inked it with the Tombow Fudenosuke pen, and put more washes on it. When I scanned it and posted it in Facebook, I then realized that I couldn't get the angle of the face right because the eyes didn't line up to begin with. :shrug: Oh well.

Is it that time again?

Why yes, yes it is!
It seems like I only post stuff here when the 29 Faces Challenge is going on.

So okay. Day #1

I didn't mean to get those eyebrows so dark. Watercolor isn't really my thing and I forgot how opaque the Koi paint can get.

The background is a page from my sketchbook. I was doing something else with Dylusions spray ink and used the sketchbook to catch the stray ink. Photo grabbed from the internet, sketched in pencil, then painted in watercolor. Then I tightened up the drawing a little more in pencil. Hot spots were dotted in with a white Gelly Roll pen.

 And here's Day #2

Background is acrylic wash with a random gel plate thing on it. Photo grabbed from the 'net - it's a vintage mug shot. Sketched in pencil, inked with Tombow Fudenosuke pen. The white is Gelly Roll pen. This guy had the most amazing finger wave that I just couldn't capture. Oh well.

29Faces: Faces #2 and 3

But where are Faces 4 and 5? They're comin'.

The past few days have been rather busy with much going out. This delights me because I get to play Pokemon Go. Everyone else has leveled up way past me and thousands have stopped playing altogether, but I'm still amused by the game. This also puts a crimper on my location drawing because I'd rather be catching 'mon, but oh well, I'm sure it'll stop be amusing after a while.

For Face #3 I tuned in to "Sling Blade" and did a not-very good likeness of Carl.

Then a friend invited me over late night and I drank a little bourbon and chatted. We were both supposed to draw, and actually we did get some sketching, but we got even more chatting done. Which is okay, I haven't done that in a while and it was a delight to catch up with a friend. She's Face #4. I was pretty drunk when I was drawing and thought I did a horrible job, but looking at it now, it's not too bad. However I DO want to work over it to "fix" it.


Today I just came back from tabling at a yard sale at Guardian Games' parking lot. It was a really nice day for it until the clouds burned off. My husband is totally burnt and my forehead and nose is a bit singed.

So after I post this, I'll be priming more pages in my sketchbook for more Faces, hopefully sketch two more faces and then pass out until tomorrow. Man, that sun just sucks the energy right outta ya.

29Faces September 2016 Edition, Face #1

 

 Tom Hanks in "The Ladykillers". Fudenosuke Fine Tip pen over acrylic paint that was gelli printed onto my sketchbook.

I was excited to start this challenge. I started gathering reference so I could bang out a face a day without effort. I was planning to stretch my abilities a bit and try a more cartoony, caricature style. I was gonna do ACEOs...I had such plans! But when the 30th rolled around, I didn't start. Then it was Sept 1st and I was continually distracting myself. I even laid down some marks in colored pencil and suddenly decided I had to do some bookkeeping. By 11pm, I was having a mild anxious episode and had to walk away from the computer, have a snack and watch TV. I had would myself so tight, I couldn't do anything. Later at 1am I curled up on my bed with my sketchbook open, telling myself to just get SOMEthing down and banged this out.

In the past couple months, I've been working on an artist's block that I've had for half my lifetime and I didn't realize that I could make myself physically ill trying to lunge at it. Note to self: whatever I was doing wrong at my desk, don't do that!  So holy cow, it's going to be a lot harder to break this block than I thought!

My adjusted expectation is to get through the challenge with more than 5 entries (which is how many I did earlier this year), preferably with all 29.

Faces #8 and #9

 

Compared to Face #1, I can feel myself loosening up.
I feel like I cheated a bit for this challenge because 1) Not a face a day and 2)Not so experimental. On the other hand, I'm regaining my confidence and I'm seeing now that if I just draw more often (and preferably on a consistent basis), I'll see improvement.

So wasn't really up for the Challenge, but I'm really happy that I participated!

Face #7 (29 faces challenge)

I think this now puts me ahead of the whopping three entries from last year. But I still have some catching up to do!

Face #6 (29Faces Challenge)

I don't know why, but I really like this one.

.05 Micron pen on gesso/acrylic paint on sketchbook paper.

Face #5

They can't all be winners. I had a really tough time seeing what I was doing from the gold paint. Then I got frustrated and walked away. Came back a coupla days later and decided to just finish it and move on.

Faces 3 and 4

 

Happy President's Day! I had big plans for catching up and getting maybe six more faces done, but the best-laid plans...

Meanwhile, the comic fest went well for me. I managed to sell a buncha necklaces with my handmade Totoro charms on them. I now have money burning a hole in my pocket for more craft supplies (and there are sales going on today only)!

29 Faces 2016 (the first)

 

This was my first face for February. So yeah, super-behind.

Tomorrow I'll be tabling at Fanaticon. I'll have a bunch of Dark Horse manga I've lettered and a few Totoro necklaces I've made. It'll be my first time tabling selling my own stuff. I've been told that I'll have lots of downtime, so hopefully I can get another face or done during the event.

Starting 29 Faces again

Trying again. This time I'm not as late as last year, but I still have to catch up.

Face #1 has yet to be photographed or scanned, so this is Face #2.

 

I'm not happy with it at all and halfway I lost interest in it, but I'm going to own it. I have a feeling that there'll be a bunch more drawings I won't be happy with, but it's important to not let them bother me and keep going.

So..umm..Day 3 of 29 Faces. LOL

I just finished a really tight deadline a couple of days ago and needed to decompress. I haven't heard from the client about it, but I *think* I made the deadline.

Anyway this young lady is a member of the "Radical Brownies" in Oakland. I was excited for this group and then found out that they weren't associated with the Girl Scouts of America and needed to change their group name. It kinda took a little polish off of my excitement, but on the other hand, I'm still a fan of what the group's mission statement. Hopefully they'll be around a long time to empower young girls. Here's their Facebook page, if they have an official site with a new name later on, I'll try to post that too.

Meanwhile about 29 Faces... the month is near-over, but I'm going to try to continue. I envy the other people in the challenge who can just DO this. I need to channel more discipline and drive to do a drawing every day. Go to the 29 Faces badge on the column and check out the work of people more dedicated to their art than I am!

29 Faces, Day 2

Three times a week I sit with my mother-in-law while she has breakfast. I tried to sneak in a sketch while she was reading the comics. I missed her smiling and after a while, I think she felt me gazing at her and moved around a bit. I may end up doing several of these during the course of this challenge.

Mechanical pencil and watercolor in my sketchbook. You can see the previous page's sketch bleeding through the paper. It was in ballpoint, but for some reason everything I did that day bled through. Watercolor isn't my medium and this totally didn't come out the way I thought it would, but that's okay. Note to self: unlike acrylics, watercolors dry lighter.

29 Faces, Day 1

Starting late on the "29 Faces" thing, but I'll give it a small shot. Deadlines are breathing down my neck and I've been nursing a cold, so I may as well get SOMEthing done.

This is Avery Brooks from "American History X" (yes, I have a perverse sense of what's good to watch when you're in bed with a cold). The page was pre-primed with gesso and then washed with acrylic. The drawing was done with Pigma Micron .03 and then I threw watercolors on it. I forgot how watercolors react on gesso!