okay.
this one is my favorite.
iggy & i both spotted the baby. i saw a mer-baby. he said he didn’t picture it with so much hair.
the picture grew from there.
have i told you how much fun i am having?
i worked on this one a lot. looking for the images. researching sea life that matched what i saw. i spotted the manatee’s eye and thought, “what is a cow doing under water?” then remembered, hey–yeah, “sea cow.” i wasn’t sure i could pull off actually drawing a manatee. there isn’t a lot of..um..how do i put this nicely..well, there is an absence of lines in a manatee. an excess of bulk & space. as a minimalist artist, i need to have enough detail to pull of what i am drawing. but i think i did it! i am very proud of the manatee.
i thought of quitting before putting in the sea turtle…then as i was drawing it, i was like, “crap! i should have quit while i was ahead. but, like with the shark, with enough ink & enough line & shading…i think it turned out okay despite my fuck-ups.
man, this one was fun to do.
i like it when what i see in my head
and in the ink
i am able to make come alive
in its way
on the paper.
Tag: colored ink
INKtober day twenty-three–wishes
crap. i forgot to send my mom a card. you would think counting every day of october in an ink drawing i would remember the 23rd is her birthday…crap. happy birthday, mom! you are probably getting a homemade card!! of course, it was my mom who always told me homemade presents mean the most….
today is another ink blot test. i think the rest of the month will be so as well. maybe the rest of my life because they are so much fun to do. i found another ape & another goddamned unicorn ( i so don’t want to be the kind of artist who does unicorn pictures–no offense to artists who do unicorn pictures!! different strokes and all that )
i get impatient with waiting for ink to dry. and this is on a journal page, not paper intended for a lot of water–so there is smudges & musses. by the way–this is the last page of my journal!! i did go ahead and order 3 more journals from artists & craftsmen (they were a really good price & i keep worrying that life as we know it is going to come to a standstill & i will be trapped in the country with no art supplies…i don’t want to have to kill trees to make paper…crap, i forgot to make sure i was getting recycled paper…arrrgh!)
but, as i was saying, this is the last page of a journal i started on the 4th of november, 2014. i used it for my water color class. remember that? gertrude buttons? good times! so i have been piddling in this thing for almost 2 years. wow. i need to fill the new ones up a bit faster…unless life as we know it ends & i am forced to conserve paper….
INKtober day eighteen–not alone
i used green for my shading instead of grey/black. shades of green. i like it.
i have always been fascinated by the world turtles. the idea that we are just flying around on the back of a sea turtle. usually on top of four elephants as well, but i just wanted the sea turtles.
every day my posts seem to get later & later. i haven’t been getting enough sleep and think i am going through some personal growth or avoidance of said growth or flirting around/dancing with the idea of growing.
almost there. almost there….
despite trying to grow, i have gotten an inking done for every day of inktober. i think that is impressive. i have four kids that i am ignoring to get these done! that’s challenging.
sorry. i’m a bit tired. and my blog isn’t getting a lot of action so i might just be writing this for myself. but if you are still out there. enjoy my latest inking.
it’s green.
INKtober day nine–hereafter
i have started reading the obituaries. i know. it is a dark habit. the thing is, i am living back where i grew up, so it’s like i’m searching the crowd for a familiar face. except they’re dead faces. but that’s the thing. the pictures were taken when they were still alive. that’s the part that fascinates me. some of the pictures are from the 80’s or even older. some are recent. whenever i look at them, i wonder if there was any inkling at all, that this would be the picture put in their obituary. did they pick the picture? some maybe, the ones who knew it was coming. others didn’t know. like the car crashes, shootings, house fires. who picks their picture? why did they pick that one? out of spite? because they sincerely thought it was a good picture?
i told dusty not to use a picture from when i was younger. it’s just confusing and weird to me. he agreed–except he said he would use this one:
because i always joke that i look like mike myers (actor not fictitious serial killer) in it. so he is saying he would use this picture & say that mike myers died.
also! today’s picture was a shout out to my series “old people with animal parts.” you can click on my page called “art by em” and see them. i love that series. old people faces are very artistic. i’m not sure why i added the animal parts, but i felt like it worked. so i decided to try it again and picked a face out of the obituaries and started. i might have picked too happy of a face. wow, he looks happy. i do better with somber faces, i think. and it turned into some sort of pagan hereafter picture. i’m not sure (once again) what my picture is about. youse all can decide for yourselves. i just draws ’em.
i like that inktober is giving me a chance to try new things. i don’t know if this one was successful, but i finished it. i’m hoping i will find new directions & new inspirations by the end of the month.
so much done…so much more to do
this is what i worked on last night while my children slept and gotham played on my laptop. i may have missed a few plot turns in gotham…but i got more of this project developed.
this project?
a large panel of stark raving whimsy. here is a few shots of my progress:
these large pieces take a whole lot of time! i am used to just getting a page done in one or two sittings. i have spent several hours on this already. i hope to get a second one of these done before the end of the semester. plus! i really want to do a paper mache of my face & arm & upper chest to turn into a 3D bluejean casting that i can then make to look like bluejean but also draw a story onto.
progress depends on the sleep schedules of my children.
sleep. sleep, my little lovelies….
less heartache…more art
i am keeping busy with art, which lifts my heart out of its sad place and gives me a feeling of purpose…and a way to express myself that is more widely accepted (though not necessarily understood) than me just shouting profanity at the top of my lungs.
i have a critique on tuesday and need to finish a couple of more pieces. but i have finished the picture of bluejean & moonfish where i used masking fluid to create white areas before splattering the fuck out of the paper. i am not thrilled with how the dog looks…but i like it overall.
also! i colored lincoln tree the same night, dripping colored ink onto a wet piece of paper. i like how it turned out as well. i just like my art messy!
i am still working on the “epic” moses jones…here is a sneak peek at my progress/process there:
and i am working on a picture of moses jones as the archangel michael banishing satan…. okay. so when i first created moses jones, dusty lamented that he was not in my comic. so i tried to include him, but my subconscious turned him into a bit of an unsavory character. dusty is not evil. but he is a thorn in mojo’s ass. she has a lot of angst she needs to work out. this is just one representation of that angst (first inking using a calligraphy pen):
and, finally, a request from fidgit…first draft…the wooly bear mammoth:
moses jones: apocalyptic mama 