Artsy Fartsy

Very nice!  I wish I could draw.  Actually I can draw a pretty mean stick figure.

I've got several guitars started right now and just bought 8 student guitars from a Goodwill auction to strip for parts.  These student guitars have built in amps, so I may be able to take them and make cigar box amps out of them too.

alldatndensum wrote:

I drew this last Saturday night out of boredom.

Very cool !!  Love me a lion.  Gonna hafta get out me art supplies and start sketching again... been a LONG time since I did anything serious.  Only time I ever draw is to make something silly, so it's time for a new serious piece.

I wouldn't call anything of mine "serious".  I just get in the mood to whip out some pencils and see where they take me.  This lion piece was a lot of fun but only took about an hour.

So tonight I learned how to weld, thanks to my buddy Daniel (who's on staff with me). The welds are super ugly, except where he showed me what to do, but it's a start. Made a cross out of two bits of what was a Subway table, and used the bolts as nails. The work hangs on my door with my name on it, because of Galatians 2:20. Also, I was wearing a t-shirt when doing it all, so I got a bit of a sunburn.

Fun! (well except for burning yourself).

To make the welds look better, just get you a file and smooth them out.

And now you know why most welders have a long-sleeved shirt on while welding

That looks so nice.

With no feeling in my hands, and at the same time a terrible arthritic type feeling going down my arms to my hands, it's really hard this year to complete our annual window mural.  Plus the weather's been cold and windy (which is rare for this area this time of year) and I'm cold intolerant... sooooo, it's taking a LOT longer than planned... but I plan to finish this sucker if it kills me !

Are you using an airbrush and regular brushes both?

Wow Jim that looks great!  I'm looking forward to seeing it soon. 

Artistic drawing/painting is so far removed from me.  I admire those of you who can do it.

Staybrite wrote:

Are you using an airbrush and regular brushes both?

My compressor for my airbrush bit the dust several years ago and I never got a new one.

I'm just using 3 different sizes of paint brushes.

Thank you all for the kind words 

I do not fancy myself a "painter" as I've never understood color theory and actually hate painting (only reason I'm doing this window painting is cuz Lisa asked me to).
I prefer just a pencil/pen and paper. Maybe some colored pencils like Alldat used in his Santa.  Other than that, and some scratchboards, I don't care for any other medium (though I've tried every type of art from oil painting to sculpting... don't care for any of them)

This was my guide image.  I had a smaller two inch version of this on my phone that I used.

You did a good job of making him look "fuzzy". 

Awesome !!!!! 

Staybrite wrote:

You did a good job of making him look "fuzzy". 

That was the easy part!

I wish I had gotten his face a bit closer in shape.  However, to be working on it in the gym while trying to keep my eyes on 8 special needs kids and using a 2 inch picture on my phone, I think that this turned out fairly well.  I am not disappointed in it at all!

For any budding artists who are interested, this is how I learned to draw accurate likenesses.

This works for any and all images you draw, but especially helpful when trying to get a likeness of someone's face (which is the hardest thing for me as an artist). 
Have you ever seen an artist hold his pencil up, or even his thumb, and shut one eye as he examines that which he's drawing ?  This is legit.  I learned this in Life Drawing 101 in College. What they're doing, and this is a method I use all the time -even with cartoons, is measuring points all over the body and face.  Measuring distances from each eye compared to the distance from the eyes to the nose, from the distance of the nose to the mouth lines, etc.

I use my pencil. I'll start with the eyes. I use my pencil and measure one eye, and take that measurement and see what the distance is between each eye... 

Here, it's easier to demonstrate than to explain in words....

I first sketch out the face lightly as I basically see it, then to get the exact measurements you can start anywhere (I like to start with the eye) -



Using the length of the eye, I figure out how long his nose should be....



I will do this all over the subject's face until I have completely accurate measurements of the entire face.  This is KEY to getting a likeness.  Everyone has 2 eyes, a nose, a mouth, etc... what makes someone LOOK uniquely the way they do is the distances of each facial feature from each other.

It's simple math used in art.  Without measuring as I do, I wouldn't get a likeness if my life counted on it.

Interesting!

I will keep that technique in mind if I try something of this magnitude again.  With the Grinch picture, though, I was literally working off a 2 inch picture on my phone.  I think it turned out fairly nice considering what I was going from to put on paper.  Mostly, I just winged it.