Figure drawings

Posting a few figures done in ink wash. I did these back in December. It was the culmination on many months of trying to get back in shape with figure drawing. Thanks to Melanie Reim though, who saw me through some bad stuff but just kept pushing me. Of coarse I won't post the bad ones but believe me there were quite a few. The top image is a color experiment I tried today. I wanted to see if  I could get some texture in there...not sure I like it but it's worth trying out. 

Elif Shafak

Check out this inspiring TED talk by Elif Shafak. It's for authors and all...just a great way to look at the world.
http://www.ted.com/talks/elif_shafak_the_politics_of_fiction.html

Kids portraits

I was dropping Maja off at school the other day and saw these fantastic portraits up on the wall by a classroom. It's like Picasso said "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up". It humbles me to see the creative energy oozing out of kids. I feel like I spend my life refining my craft and sometimes in the refinement I loose the essence of what was there when I started. When I look a children's art I see that essence. There is a spirit of each person coming through in a simple, clear way. I love the idea of kids doing their own self portraits, it makes me think- Why not do a self portrait every year, just like we take a school picture? Who knows, it's never too late to start.
Sometimes I will study how I want my characters to look. Do I want big eyes, small noses, and so on. It's fun to experiment with features. When I look at these portraits I see the way children make choices. How they too are trying out new noses and eyes and playing with with all kind of proportions. 
These are just a few portraits. I'll post more soon.

Behind the scenes stuff

A few months ago I was working on a bunch of card images. As I was creating the art I thought I would take a few photos "in progress". The original sketch is quite flat and boring. I had to do the art in separate pieces to get the composition to work. I tend to work this way...in many layers so I can adjust the elements. You can see how the cat's faced changed, the more I worked on it. I felt like it needed to be softer so I changed the eyes. Then I also had to brighten the art as well. I usually work in more muted colors and then have to force myself to get brighter. Finally, I tried adding type, to propose a box set cover. The client ended up doing journal covers with the art in the end.