Amidst the November rains...

Some recent fashion illustrations

I may have (or have not?) mentioned a while back that I enrolled in a basic fashion illustration class and I'm so glad I locked myself for 6 weeks (one more for the finals next week) that I think I did improve on my drawings.
Here are some stuff I made recently.

Til next time...

Male face...

Week 2 @ Coursera.Org

here's my art submission to an online art intro class i registered myself in recently:

and this is the artist statement that i made to go with it:

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In this artwork, I have stayed within my relatively familiar means – graphite pencil and watercolor. Although I am still apparently a beginner in watercolor, I thought I will be more comfortable using it (compared to making collage) as long as my pencils are done right. I played with perspective here, something I have learned reading Andrew Loomis’ book and I’m quite happy with how I placed the shapes around each other. For the coloring, I used a cool green to denote stillness and hopefully, a hint of mystery, then gradually added black to make different values of it. I intended to make this a supposedly dark painting because this was based on my frequent and consistent nightmare as a kid. I excluded curvy shapes here so that the sharp edges of the shapes prevail.

I have decided from day 1 that I will do something based on my childhood dreams, and nightmares. And of the most frequent nightmares I would have is falling from the sky into thousands of sharp towers or very sharp stalagmites which will cut me through. I wanted to express my fear for sharp objects and the terror of falling into one. This fear of mine probably started when brutal rape stories were always on the news back in the days. Luckily I was never a victim, but based from what I hear from TV or the radio, I became very defensive and protective of myself. While conceptualizing and creating this artwork, even to the typing of this statement, I could still smell my fear.

I chose this image because I would like to once again face the fear to overcome it. And I would want to finally tell myself that as long as I stay away from situations that may lead to such horrible experiences that was presented to me through TV, and movies, ect., I will be safe. I am hoping that my audience will sense the fear in those sharp objects and the dark, piercing, gloomy towers in my artwork. This artwork will be called Pierce.

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there you go. 'happy to add something here today.

tatah!

the female face...

Men, men, men!

it's time i draw men, right?

and while i was doing my exercises, i realized that the male figure is just as beautiful as the woman's.
go figure.

  

fashion illustration adventures

i've been drawing human figures all my life as this subject fascinated me more than anything else. however, all those years, i have been drawing based on what i see, not minding the frames beneath the flesh and features that i thought were more interesting. now i have started working on creating forms first, then flesh out the details later. i have been checking out youtube tutorials and buying figure drawing and fashion illustration books which i think will help me with this venture. here's some stuff i started out with...

til next week!!!

shasha

Fired up, again...

As I was typing mindlessly at work today, while listening to Summertime by one of my all-time favorite alt-rock bands, The Sundays, I realized a few things.

In just 12 months, I will be sailing the freelance ship as what I have carefully planned out over the last year. From then, I will be supporting my family, myself and my art through my freelance gigs and projects. I imagine myself playing the guitar and writing some songs at the garage. Perhaps, that was because I was listening to Harriet Wheeler’s dreamy voice and the ethereal strums of her hubby and guitarist David Gavurin, that sparked that musician thing again. Oh well. I was basically dreaming away, projecting the things I will do when I have all the time to simply create beautiful things. I was also painting at the other room. Wow, me and my dreamy, multi-tasking mind.

Then an email from the management (I’m currently in a dead-end, 9-5 job) popped saying we were to move locations in the coming months, perhaps sooner. This idea spells B.A.D for the person in me wanting to continue to work for the company. But that person wasn’t there anymore. She has moved on. In fact, she’s already in another place dreamy. She’s in the good hands of the eccentric twin sister now.

I also realized that I’m thankful my hubby has become very supportive of my plans. He is stuck in the corporate world, since he is paid well in a job that gives him the right balance – the right challenges to level your skills up, manageable workload, flexible work time, hefty paycheck, among others. Sounds easy, but really, he makes them look easy - he is an ace at his job. But he also has a creative side; we have collaborated and written some songs together (he plays the guitar so well; dimebag as hero). But so far, he hasn’t found yet the perfect thing to do that will give him both the happiness and the security he wants so much to keep. Actually, he values security more. That explains. It’s not that I am not a security junkie, it’s just that happiness weighs more to me… maybe because I am not the man of the house?

All these thoughts reminded me that I should work harder to stick to my plan, strengthen my execution of the preparation (remaining 12 months here in this dead-end zone), and expand my one-year plan after the exit. Maybe even map-out a 5-year plan. Oh geez, I should have one since hubby confirmed we are gonna have a goal-setting date this coming weekend. I gotta finish my boring tasks soonest!

P.S.

I know my action plans include doing as much art as possible, but it seems this storage bin is rather empty, still. I practiced recently, making fashion illustrations on random sheets. I’d probably make some decent artwork tonight (if my son doesn’t have any urgent stuff for school).

Ta-tah!