Cretacolor on Canson

i just realized i haven't posted any life drawings in ages!  i still find these studies to be immensely helpful, but they're such a pain to scan... anyway, here are my best sketches from yesterday's session.  same model as the last post, woo~

sketched these with a Cretacolor "Monolith" pencil (6B) in a Canson XL mixed media pad.  this paper has a really great tooth/texture for taking extra-soft lead! i received a sample of it a while ago, now it's my favorite sketchbook~ :)

inkity ink ink

threw some photoshop colors over that previous sketch ... also, have some nude ink studies! that left pic is one of my best freehand figures, so i uploaded it in high-res :)

figure studies

here are some contour studies from a while ago that i forgot to post... sketched at an open studio life drawing group i go to on fridays~

i find that if i don't keep up with regular observational studies, then my drawing skills deteriorate quickly... life has been stressful lately, hopefully this month will be better T__T

Conté on Canson

... is my new favorite drawing medium! :p started drawing w/ Parisian conté in late '09, thanks to a tip from an artist at life drawing. it's a very challenging medium, because unlike vine/compressed charcoal, conté is wax-based and nigh unerasable. definitely makes you slow down and think harder!

finally got back on track w/ life drawing after being out of it for so many months... now i'm really close to having a full sketchbook, woo! will try to photograph it soon, digitizing artwork is just so tedious to me :/

also, here are some corel painter brushwork studies... gotta keep up with this stuff or else i'll forget how it works. now if only i could figure out how to get corel brushes to work in high-res...

one more because i'm forgetful

ack, forgot about this one! finished this when i got back home to the States... added some vague shading this time, although it's still meant to be a contour line study.

i started doing these observational contour studies thanks to a tip from an artist i admire, and it really does help train your eyes!! plus i think my lines feel a bit more fluid now...

from Beijing to Yueyang: train sketches

greetings all!! just got home a few days ago from my 3-month sojourn to China, visiting my entire extended family over Christmas, New Years', and Chinese New Year (Feb 14)! it was a pretty sweet trip overall, although the internet censorship thing got kind of infuriating by the end... Blogger, Youtube, Livejournal, and pretty much every website i use regularly were ALL blocked - which is why i've been MIA for so long! @_@

that being said, i think i set off a lifetime's worth of fireworks with my cousins over the last few weeks, heh~ ;D gotta admit, it was pretty incredible to see the entire city skyline lit up with fireworks!! i hope everyone is having an AWESOME Year of the Tiger; may all your hopes and goals for 2010 come true!

i've got plenty of backlogged art, so i'll start by posting this batch of contour sketches i did during a 19-hour train ride from Beijing (mom's hometown) to Yueyang (dad's hometown) ... been doing observational studies for many months now, so it's about time to post a few!


first sketch i made when i got off the train, this is my pretty cousin BeiBei~

i got these kids to sit still long enough to draw them... their mother was very impressed, haha ;p

man, you have no idea how happy i am to be able to browse art blogs again!! :) more stuff is on the way...

Life Drawings (pt.1)

so my Uni hosts a free "open studio" life drawing session every weekend at the art school, and I've made it a point to attend every single time for past few weeks.  and as a result my contour line drawing skills have improved A LOT!  all of these are made with a Cretacolor charcoal set in a 18"x24" sketchbook~ working at that size really helps you control your arm and wrist movements!

All of these are 20 min poses:
The proportions were HARD so this is all I could do in 20 minutes. normally my drawings look a little more complete.

This is the first time I've ever drawn a pregnant woman - and I swear, she was positively glowing. So I tried to capture her likeness in the last 10 minutes instead of working on the rest of the figure.

I really liked this guy's dreads, they were fun to draw. :p I worked on this for a few minutes after time was up b/c it wasn't dark enough.

Anyway, it always feels great to make big strides in just a few weeks, so I'll keep attending these sessions. =) Hopefully I'll have some real art to post soon, though...

first art post

so I've decided to start an artblog! i'm gonna try to update this thing as regularly as possible so that I can gauge my progress over the next couple months. I'll start with posting these sketches I made a few weeks ago in ArtRage, this nifty new program I bought 'cause my Painter trial ran out (NOOOO D=). i'm still trying to get the hang of it, but from what i've seen it's a fairly decent program to use until i can shell out the money for Painter~
this one is my take on a famous chinese love story, was trying to go for a "sad" mood because he's waiting for someone who's not showing up. gonna make a whole series of illustrations on this idea that i have, so more to come later!

here's a warm-up piece i did when i was trying to learn ArtRage... i need to do a LOT of anatomy studies before i'm up to speed. the proportions are ok for the most part, but i got really lazy and didn't finish her hands, sorry!