Last Week! (The longest post EVER)

I kept my promise to myself and took pictures of every caricature I did this week, and saved them all for a giant post. So here they are, the good, the bad, and the mediocre.

First off, here's two I did on my last day of a couple coworkers.

Jared Stokes


John Simpson

And the mess of the rest.


These I didn't get reference photos of the people.

Today's Sketches

Since it's my last week at Kaman's, I've decided to take pictures of all my sketches. This means my terrible ones too.

So, in order, here's the five sketches I did today.




Mermaid bodies are one of my favorites to draw.





Spot the Jared. Also note the way his goatee only connects on one side. Apparently it just grows that way.



My favorite of the day. The girl wanted to make it very clear to me that she was pregnant, not fat, hence the "baby in here."



Last minute sketch. Rushed it too much, don't really like it. Her eye's all wonky.

A few sketchy things

These are just a few things I've done (fairly) recently that I like.


There's a rhino habitat right behind one of our stands. Unfortunately, you might see the rhino like ten minutes out of a day, so had reference for the habitat, but not for the rhino. One of the first things I colored with my prismacolor marker set.

Just a really sketchy owl.

I've been working text into images lately. I like drawing jellyfish. I'm sad this one is slightly crumpled though.

Christine from the movie of Phantom of the Opera. I was going for cleavage and confusion, which is about all the character ever seems to have.


This post is brought to you by my dad, who gave me his old camera so I can take pictures again.

Ben Bloss = Hades

Did this for Ben before he left to go home to KC. Kara and I were thinking about going to a show he was playing in Orlando the day before he left, but it turned out to be much later and much further away than we thought we could handle.

We ended up watching Disney movies instead, and well...



I find the resemblance uncanny.

Just two more.

I think I missed on the nose a little, but I really like the rest.



Spent a little more time than usual on the coloring of this one. I think it paid off.

More live caricatures

Sisters.



This girl's family was super nice. I drew all three of them, but this one turned out the best for likeness and exaggeration.




These two had great faces.

Live Caricatures! Plus long promised prints! AND MORE!

Yes, after a long time, I've started taking pictures of caricatures I've drawn in the park again. I've been feeling a little unmotivated to improve art at work, so maybe if I take pictures more, I'll start feeling like I need to progress.



Pros: I actually like this one. I think it looks like the kid, especially around the eyes.

Cons: One of the eyebrows looks like it's about to float off somewhere. I don't know why I did that.



I drew this girl today. She wanted me to draw her striking a pose, but I don't do that stuff (poses/making faces suck. The people go all bug-eyed trying to keep them, and it makes it so I don't have the freedom to do what I want with their features.) She seemed a little sulky, and when I asked to take her photo for my blog, she just sat like that and didn't respond, so I took it for a yes. I'm really not sure if she liked it - but her friends thought it was hilarious, so I'm happy.

Pros: I like the glasses and the lips.

Cons: Messy coloring and I fudged the jawline a little.



This one I'm just including because it's probably the most adorable thing I've ever drawn. The girl had fallen asleep by the time I finished it, so I don't have a reference, but she was just as cute as it looks.

Pros: It's so CUTE. Look at the bee - LOOK AT IT.

Cons: The feet were not planned well.


I'm going to tack on the two prints I've mentioned but kept forgetting to post. They aren't photographing well, so I've given up and here's the best you're getting. Deal with it.



Believe it or not, the colors are a little more florescent on the original.



Another take on a favorite theme of mine. My first print.



And, just to make this post even longer, I'm throwing in a caricature of Demetri Martin I did but never got a background on.

I hate acrylics

I temporarily forgot I can't use acrylic paint to save my life. After a week of trying to work with it(with mostly disastrous results) I painted this of Ben Bloss at art night a week ago.



I like it. I still hate acrylics.

Didn't decide to take a picture of this one until after they had left (hence why it's in the bag, waiting for package pick-up.) I just haven't posted any black and whites, and this one was the first in-park drawing I really got to use the gray copic on.



The picture I snapped of this couple really doesn't do justice to his crazy blue fish-eyes. Hers is pretty meh, but I really liked how I drew the expression he had (which of course changed when I got a picture of him.)

That's all for now.

FINISHED

So I'm sure everyone else is as sick of this picture as I am, but it's FINALLY DONE. I am NOT working on it anymore. I am done. Even though I'm not happy with the hair and there's some weird kind of shadow next to the head on the right, I am done. Mostly because I've gotten to that point where I absolutely hate it and feel like I have to fix everything, and I know from experience if I touch it now I'll end up ruining it.

Gouache has been weird to work with - at first I loved it, and then I started to realize some of its limitations and hated certain elements of it. I simultaneously feel like I overworked it, and didn't work it enough.

I also kinda regret the background choice, and had a really hard time finding a color to paint the frame that would go with it - the yellow I chose is slightly less mustardy than the picture makes it look (I played with the contrast and color levels in photoshop a lot, but the colors are still a little off) and it kinda looks good, but at the same time I think it's probably too bright. But the only other colors I could seem to find that didn't outright clash was a dark maroon red (which made the background look like the fires of hell) and dark blue (but I couldn't find spray paint in the right shade.)

But, the important thing is I finished my first studio-caricature, and I have it done in time for the show. Now I should go to bed before I give in to the temptation to redo the entire thing.

Yet again instead of finishing House, I started something else. This is just a quick sketch of Stephen Fry that I did with my latest favorite toy, some gray Copic markers.