Okay, I'm back.

And I'm back because I noticed this morning that my little Lexmark icon on my toolbar had a red 'x' on it. I ran my mouse over it and beside the 'exit' choice, in brackets was, 'disables scan & copy buttons...'

Um. Could I have clicked exit on the Lexmark icon? I've restarted the computer since then, so what if I tried one more time...?

I plugged in the printer, tried a scan and voila...It works.

I just cannot communicate how completely stupid I feel at the moment. I mean, it's a complete and utter feeling of absolute stupidity. Feel free to laugh at me.

Oh boy. So the blog will probably still be slow until after christmas but then whenever I say something like that, declare my intentions, I generally turn around and do the opposite so who knows?

Anyhow, a few sketches that I liked. The first one was done a week ago but sort of captured that moment of exposed dumbassery when I realized my all-in-one was most likely fine. I call that sketch, "D'oh!"

Hiatus

This is miserable. My other scanners (I had two old ones) would probably work if I could find the damn power cords and cables. But who knows where they are? So I'm left buying a new all-in-one...After Christmas.

To be fair to the family though, I'm supposed to be baking and decorating right now so if my scanner had to go, now was probably a good time. So let me take a break until Christmas is over and done with and I have a shiny new Lexmark cheap-piece-of-crap to scan my drawings on. I'll stick any work I do away for the new year and there will be a whole pile of good stuff waiting to be viewed.

Scanner dead

Darn it. I went to scan some sketches today and when I pressed the little button my machine did nothing. I'm suspicious because it looks like little hands were playing with the paper feed function (which doesn't work now either. The whole machine is snottily unresponsive).

However, it's a $50 all-in-one printer we bought last January because it was cheaper then buying cartridges for our last printer so I think we got our money out of it. Now it's probably either go buy another cheap one or fire up the ten year old scanner I've got tucked away in the basement. We'll see.

Drawing box pictures!

I have to apologize for how long it's been between posts. Starting with Halloween we moms enter our busy season. I'm not optimistic about frequent posts between now and Christmas either. As a canuck mom I don't have to worry about Thanksgiving (that was back in the beginning of October for us) but I'm a big believer in celebrating Christmas as a season so I'm already starting the baking, planning, christmas cards, etc. Busy stuff. So apologies if my posts thin out for a couple of months.

I do however have the completed drawing box that my dad built for me (my contribution was passing him the wood glue or nodding knowingly at key moments) so I can post a picture.

















It's a rough plywood box (Mom and Dad are renovating so free building supplies! Whoo hoo!). The top, where I draw, has a thin piece of pressboard on it for a smooth drawing surface and a lip at the bottom to hold pencils and paper. The top is a bit bigger then the box and measures 19 inches by 24 inches and is attached to the box by a piano hinge. The piece that holds up the drawing surface is neat. I had visions of a couple of sticks, one at each corner to hold the surface up but dad cut a support that's hinged to the bottom of that surface and he or mom glued some velcro on to hold the hinge when it's folded flat and not in use. He regretted not putting a latch or handle on it and thought we should have used a much better grade of plywood but heck, I'm thrilled. The drawing surface is fantastic to work on and the angle is perfect. And the making of it made for a great memory with my dad.

I love it.

Unfortunately, the kids love it too. It's been used for drawing and a jigsaw puzzle surface almost nonstop since my mom dropped it off yesterday. Here's a picture...




The back's of the heads are, from left to right, my neice Maddie, my son Harry and my daughter Catherine.

About all the non-comic book stuff...

I know most of my recent posts have not been comic book related but I was looking at sample comic book scripts a couple of weeks ago and realized that MOST of what a penciller is required to do is not superheroes. It's planes, cars, buildings, scenery, spaceships, robots, animals and ordinary people. So I'm lightening up on the superhero sketches for awhile to focus on other subjects and I think I will be inking after all, not because I want to do it in the future but more because it makes me really work on finishing pieces (the discipline thing). Not that there won't be superhero pictures too, but they'll be a lot more stuff that seems unrelated.

Woman in ink.

Yesterday I picked up a couple of pens at the local drugstore for inking. I know they're not inking pens or brushes or anything and I'm saving my pennies for whenever I finally get in to an art supply store in town but they're better then nothing. Inking isn't something I thought I really enjoyed but then I inked my yoga sketches and neice's coat sketch from the last two posts and though their crappiness was spectacular (don't know if I should boher posting them) at least they got me to realize that inking is quite enjoyable.

So today I picked out a stack of National Geographic (is there really any better source for beautiful subject photos?) and went through until I found an absolutely beautiful woman to draw. I did the pencil sketch and it turned out so nice. I was afraid to screw it up with pens. But being afraid never gets you anywhere so...

This is the finished product;

Nude Ladies! Beware!

Another post! I've been in a drawing mood tonight so I went over to drawingboard.org and did this month's drawing jam. It happened to be nude yoga poses. Very quickly done but I think they turned out pretty nifty. I have to admit that I love drawing nudes as they have all the most interesting lines and shadows.

Almost had a disaster though. One of the neighbourhood kids that plays with my daughter (they're both 8) just about wandered into the kitchen where I was drawing. I screamed, 'noooooo!' just in time. Whew. I really don't want a call from his parents asking why I'm looking at porno on the computer while he's over.

My niece's coat

I went back and darkened it so it would scan better. The darkening changed it a little for the worse because my shading was pretty light and now the shading contrasts too much with the lighter parts of the jacket. Anyhow, it gives an idea of what I had done originally and it's still interesting to me.

REAL drawings

No comic book heroes or fun with Gimp this time. I took out my pencil and started drawing stuff around the house. A great pine tree I can see from my kitchen window, my neice's coat, my hand holding a cup. Great pictures I was eager to show. But my scanner sucks. The quality of the scans is just horrible. I might pencil over them again but some of them, especially the coat seems really nice just as they are and I don't want to ruin them. I have one anyway. It's the pine tree again with a woman's face stuck in front so that I have didn't have to draw more boughs. I was getting tired of drawing at the point. It's the only one that shows up after scanning and it's still awful.

Drawing Box

I was talking with Melchior in past comments about needing something to draw on besides my lap and mentioned that I had an idea for a wooden box with a top that could be held up at an angle for drawing on. This past weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving (which is why I've been remiss on posting for the past week) and I was at my parents with the kids for a few days.

My dad has a shop filled to the brim with metal and wood working tools. Plus he and Mom are renovating their house so there was a lot of scrap wood around. He and I figured out what I needed and built the box. Almost. He needed some small wood screws to attach the box and cover to each other by piano hinge but I expect to have within a week or so. I'll post a picture when I'm finished and if anybody's interested I can do up and post some plans as well. It's very simple but looks like it will be perfect for what I need.

Poison Ivy

Okay. I joined the Newsarama art group. They have a little group of people that draw to a weekly theme just for fun. This weeks theme was Batman villains. Now, all these challenges are nice and I'm giving Gimp a good workout but I DO need to get back to figures and other things...Boring things like animals and rooms and landscapes. I don't want to do covers and pinups. I want to do the stories.

But this looks nifty anyway so I'm going to post it. She still needs finishing somehow and the pictures look better if you click to enlarge.

First pic I posted, redone.

I went back and revisited one of my first batch of sketches with Gimp. Turned out sort of neat. I could have done a better job with a pencil but not bad. I'll probably come back to that again when i'm more practiced with Gimp because for a really quick and sloppy sketch, it seems to have had some good bones. I'm beginning to learn to save old sketches that I previously would have thrown out. Both this one and the Gert and Old Lace pictures were older sketches I thought I was done with but with Gimp I found some more in them I could explore.
Original...











Redone...

So it was my birthday...

...Yesterday. It was nice. My husband took the kids out for the day and I did nothing for a few hours but watch TV, eat chocolate and work on the pics I posted yesterday. Then he came home and brought a cake, Chinese takeout and a present. The present was a sheet of bristol board.

I know most women wouldn't be thrilled with bristol board but this one came with a small backstory. When I decided I was going to start drawing again and become a penciller I didn't say much to my husband. I started the blog and mentioned it to other people but not really to him. I thought he'd think it was silly, think it was another hobby but nothing serious. So I held off.

This blog and the sister blog have done fairly well though. My drawing got better and is now almost half decent. I started buying a few small supplies. And I started to tell him about what I wanted to do and showing him my drawings. He doesn't get really enthusiastic about stuff I do, or doesn't seem to, so he'd look at a picture and say, 'That's nice,' go back to watching some version of Star Trek and I'd take it away a little deflated. One day however we were talking a bit about what I was doing and I mentioned that I'd read awhile ago that pencillers generally work on bristol board and their work gets reduced to comic book size. I said I've have to work at scaling up my figures and drawings. Something said and then forgotten, a throwaway line.

And then yesterday he gave me the bristol board. Shucks. You think a guy doesn't much care, doesn't listen and then he picks out this perfect little gift that says not only has he listened but he has every confidence in your ability to do what you want to do.

Gert and Old Lace

It's Gert from Runaways. There haven't been many other comic book deaths that had me choked up the way I was when she died. Probably NO other comic books deaths in fact.

Not completely finished but I sort of like it that way.

Chubby, smart, funny, jewish, near sighted, in love...what a great character. I'll miss her.

As always, just click on it to enlarge.

Oh yeah! I'm 33 today.

It's my birthday today...Forgot all about that.

Magik

Another drawing jam over on drawingboard.org. I decided to do these regularily because I really don't have a lot of discipline and tend to leave pictures unfinished. The jams are pretty informal but there are artists over there I'd love to earn critique and compliments from so I'll work at this. This month's superhero jam was focused on characters who are or were dead. I chose Magik because she was the character who drew me into Marvel with the Claremont/Buscema mini-series.

I have to admit I really don't care for inking and colouring, at least not yet. Once I get more practice or once I get some real tools instead of doing it digitally that may change but there's just something about a slightly worn 2b. The way it still has a point but a slight turn gives it a perfect shading edge...

Anyhow, the pencils and then the unsatisfactory Gimp-finished final version.

Nightcrawler/ Wolverine

I think this is a failure. I did it for a drawing challenge thread on a comic book forum but looking at it this morning, it's messed up. The whole right side seems undersized and the structure of that side isn't right either. Still, it's much better then I could have done a few months ago. His face is okay I think. It feels nice to be getting comfortable with a pencil again and getting back to what I could
do when I was younger.

Flapper girl inked!

Well, I downloaded GIMP and using my cheapo optical mouse managed to ink the flapper girl picture. Granted, if I was using real pens and ink or I'd had a tablet or even just an optical pen mouse it might have been easier but I don't think I EVER want to ink again. Not that I won't have to but I'm convinced the penciling is the easy stuff.

But wow, it sure makes a picture look better.

EDIT: You know what you should do before you spend several hours cramping your wrist to ink a picture on a program you've never used before? Google. Because apparently there are MUCH easier ways to go about the inking thing.

Ah well, I never look before I dive when it comes to learning new stuff so why stop now?

Flapper

Another picture I did for a drawing jam on drawingboard.org, this one had a roaring 20' girl theme. I don't think I'm done with this one though. And I sooo wish I had some inking supplies.

New sketch

Sorry for not posting for a few days.

I joined Drawingboard.org, a forum for artists whether amateur or proffessional (Stuart Immonen posts there!) so I could get more critiques and see the techniques of other people out there. They have a monthly drawing jam and this month it was Keira Knightly. I did a 5 minute sketch and thought I'd share it here. No, it doesn't look like her but I think it's okay.