thumbnails from a crowded room

experimenting with compositions and stuff

Hey Man, Slow Down

I've recently rediscovered the joys of taking your time when drawing. I decided to stop trying to work stylized for a while and just try to get good likenesses.

Sunday Painting: Ugly Christmas Tree Ornament

Last year, I was at Hobby Lobby with my mom, looking through the clearance isles and laughing at the failures of interior decoration, when we found the grand daddy of bad design, a Christmas ornament of an unusually dark-skinned Indian with green and red war paint who was fondly caressing his horse, who had a large red circle painted around each eye. We had a good laugh at it and were about to buy it, but then the lines were too long, so we just put it back.
I went back to the store later and bought it as a cheap gag gift for my mom, who later took it to work and showed it off to her coworkers, who smiled and nodded.
When I went off to school, my parents started playing a little game with the Indian. My mom wants to hang it on the fridge, but my dad hates it and thinks it's the ugliest thing ever, so anytime my dad sees it on the fridge, he hides it somewhere where it will get found several weeks later.
I decided upon a great way to settle this: I would make an actual-sized painting of it on a postcard. That way, my dad would still have to look at the indian, even when the original was hidden away under a car seat or in a less-used pocket of my mother's purse.

the front side was done in gauche, and the back was prismacolor.

People tell me they like my landscapes.

And I usually smile and nod. I think it's really rude/insulting to tell someone they're wrong when they give you a compliment, but seriously, landscapes don't have overbites, facial hair, funny-shaped faces, or any of the other elements from my sketchbooks that I think is fun. Yeah, I don't get it, but I'm glad you like them.

Figure Drawing, again.

Sketchbook

One of the things I really enjoy doing is finding someone at church with an interesting face and then drawing them week after week. In my last ward, I had Brother Wright, who looks like his name ought to have have been something like Otto von Liechtenstein. In this ward, I have Steve Nabours, who, when I first saw him, had hair that looked like it had been dyed red by a cool-aid packet. The next week I saw him, he had shaved his head completely bald, and then the week after that, he had facial hair as long as the hair on his head. It was about at that time I realized that He would be hands down the most fun face to draw at church.

We're no strangers to love.

You know the rules and so do I.

Yes, friends, it's another tribute to the internet, and I'm surprised that I didn't think of this one earlier. I was going for a muppets feel, but I think I might have ended up with a textured Simpsons feel. Either way, fun times.