Girls

Instead of working on The Holeys, I gave in to try out drawing girls head.

Is it because of procrastination, bored of my own ideas,  new object of interest?  Probably all of them.

I won't pretend to know what I'm doing.  In fact, here is the funny thing about my 1st girl head drawing.  The idea is to draw a female face looking directly at me.  By the time when I finished the drawing, you can see that it became a young girl looking down (at something)!  Should I laugh or cry?  ;)

"Girl 1" pencil sketch

 
For the next girl, I drew the eyes much smaller and further apart from each other to see how she would look like.  O.k. she looked quite odd but in an endearing way.  I actually quite like her.  (Gee, am I weird?)

"Girl 2" pencil sketch

There is still a long way to go before I could draw a whole girl and let alone of painting one.  Nonetheless, I believe that my drawing skill is improving with each sketch & drawing that I made.

So my dear fellow creatives and blogger, what do you think of my drawings so far?  All comment are welcomed.

Til then, stay warm (in my part of the world) or stay cool (in your parts of the world) ... 

P.S.  Apologize for the poor pix :(  No other excuses than my very poor photo skill

The Holeys

Here are some of The Holeys I've been working on.

"Rupert", micron pen on card stock

 "Winnifred", micron pen on stock card

 

"Edgar", micron pen on stock card 

 "Lizzy" (Elizabeth), micron pen on card stock

I like that they have the potential to spin off into other art projects.  Here are a few I'm thinking about:

1) A set (or a few sets) of hand-drawn Holey Calendar Card 2011, like this ...

"Rupert - Mr. January", micron pen on stock card

2) A set (or a few sets) of hand-drawn Holey Note Card

3) A story blog of The Holeys

4) Turn them into paintings

But with my current health condition and other art project, I wonder if I'm asking too much of myself?  Also, I really need to spend more time on learning & practicing both drawing and painting skills.  But ..... what is the best way to learn & practice other than working on a project?  Any thoughts?

Anyway, my fellow bloggers and creative, I'd love to hear of your comments about The Holeys.  Take care and have nice week ahead. :D

"The Holeys" copyright 2010 Hybrid J / Jamie Lee. All rights reserved.

Keep Calm Kobo & Interactive Paint

Not mean to be absent for this long ...

It's just the neck pain has come back and seems like no matter what I do or don't do, it just sits there and refuses to go away .... :(

And in order to pick myself up, I had given in to two of my whims.  I got myself a Kobo and ta-dah ... acrylic paint. ;)

The "Keep Calm" Kobo and "Interactive" acrylic paint. 

OK, a bit of Hybrid J trivia here: I love reading and have been an avid reader since the age of 2.  (I used to flip through magazines sitting in my crib when my mum was out doing grocery shopping.  Or at least that's what my mum told everyone.)  And you would seldom see me without a book or carrying some sort of reading materials.  When eBook came out quite sometime ago, I thought it was the most ridiculous idea in the world.  I remembered I told my friends that they'll never catch me reading a book from a computer or any electronic devices.

But over the last few years, I began to see that no matter how often I buy book cases to store my forever growing book collections, there are always books lying around the house waiting to be sorted, read or put away.   And since I started to draw and paint, buying art books become a must.  And gee, those art books are gigantic!  A few of them could easily take up an entire shelf.  I'm sick and tired of doing this "storage catch up game" that I gave in to the idea of eBook.

As soon as the local Borders started selling Kobo about month ago, I bought one.  Well ... there's also another reason I got myself this little gadget.  The Kobo comes pre-loaded with 100 free ebooks of the English Classics. Now, how can anyone walk away from freebies!  Plus when I look at the price of the average eBook - it is almost about 1/3 to 1/2 of the  paperback / hardback version.  By switching to eBook, I'm saving space and money.  Plus I'm now carrying 100 books in my bag and could read it anytime, anywhere!  I think I just became a convert of eBook. :D

I'm re-reading my favourite crime stories - "The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes".

(BTW, my Kobo is actually of black color. I bought a "Keep Calm" gelaskin for it.  Check out the little history of "Keep Calm" by clicking this link.  I also got a Union Jack gelaskin as well.  And yes, you're right, I have a sweet spot of Englishness ...)

Now for the acrylic paint.  Honestly,  I have no idea why I bought it as I'm still learning to use ink. But I guess apart from using it as some kind of retail therapy, I must be under the influence of some of my favourite artists (see the Artist Link on my side bar).  A lot of them are either using acrylic or oil for their paintings.  From fellow blogger / creative, Lisa, I learn that it is easier to correct mistake from acrylic painting.  Probably that's why I want to give it a try.  The brand I bought (Atlier Interactive Acrylic Paint) is an Australian made re-wettable acrylic paint.  It is a new kind of acrylic paint which allows longer drying time for painters to work with.  I won't pretend to know what it means until I use it.

Anyway before I plunge in to use acrylic to paint, I decided to practice a little bit more of color mixing. So far I got my oranges, greens and a few browns.  I'm having troubles of getting more than two shades of purple. Been scratching my head to understand why.  Maybe I should just forget about it and use whatever premix purples the market could offer! ;)

 As of my drawing projects:

- Continue to develop "The Holeys" and will post them as soon as I think they are ready.

-  Hope to be able to start "Sketchbook Project 2011" this month.

That's all for now, my dear fellow bloggers & creatives!  Hope you all have a nice week ahead.  :)

Diary Project

Last year when I first started blogging, I had come across the Diary Project. I had thought to myself if only I could draw, I'd love to join in the fun!

Just like all things, I forgot all about it til I read this post from Linda of Tortagialla. I wasn't going to be forgetful this time, hence I jumped right in and signed up to reserve a date page (12/11/2011).

Here is my page. (Apologize for my very poor photo skill ...)



"The Holeys" copyright 2010 Hybrid J / Jamie Lee. All rights reserved.

I have drawn up this little guy many months ago. Every so often, I'd wonder what I'm going to do with him and thanks to the Diary Project, I can show him off now. And not only that, this small artwork has inspired me to develop an art project with "The Holeys" (that's what he is!) So watch out as there'll be some exciting announcement about these little fellows.

There are still some date pages form the project looking for artworks and the deadline for submission is 01/07, so my dear fellow creatives, hurry up to join in and show off your wonderful work!

Perspective Drawing and Creature

Still on the mend ... but managed to start drawing (or more like picking up some desperately needed drawing lessons and exercises from a work book).

Here are 2 of them. It is a combination of observational drawing and imaginative drawing. (NOTE: They are more like practice drawing than proper drawing.)



When I first read about perspective drawing lesson, all the "sighting" and "measuring proportion" seems very complicated and hard to understand. But after a few hours of drawing a simplified version of a small corner of my kitchen, I was amazed of how real (perspective wise) it looked on paper.

Perspective drawing is still a newly acquired skill which I need tonnes of practices. But I found the process of using lines to create 3D objects / landscape on paper immensely interesting. It is almost "magical"!

You might also notice from my 2 drawings that my inclination to all things weird & strange keep cropping up everywhere. When I finished the little box drawing and the office corner drawing, I had this dialogue in my head.

Me: O.K. that's good! You did well in your practice, but ... something's missing?

me: What's missing?

Me: "Stuff" ... "Your Stuff" ...

me: What do you mean by "My Stuff"?

Me: I mean ... yes, this is your drawing but it is NOT your drawing!

I looked at the drawings again and the little spotted creature started to take form and crept into frame.

Me: Ah, there you go, you dumbo! Now that's more like it!

I think I was so caught up in learning the drawing skills (based on observation, hence realistic drawing) that I actually took the term "observation" to the letter. I drew what I saw and forgot to continue to let my imagination fuel my creativity.

Through the little spotted creature, I reclaimed MY drawings!

(BTW, I'm still wondering what kind of creature it is ... any idea?)

Procrastination ...

My neck pain is getting a lot better but after a few weeks away from drawing, I'm having trouble of getting back to the horse. I'm not quite sure what's happening but here are a list of the usual suspects.

- Disruption of normal weekly drawing schedule

I was just starting to get into a drawing routine then came all these "mishaps." So the habit was not well developed. I think it will require some mental strength to pull this off.

- Perfectionism

I have been working on some drawing exercises from a workbook before the neck pain and all the "mishaps". I got thorough the first two with no problems. (I mean I was able to "reproduce" exactly as the exercises required.) Come the 3rd one, I could only work out 1/3 of it and the rest is rubbish.

Since then, whenever I open the workbook, I have this voice in my head saying: see, you can't draw! No matter how hard you try, you'll never get it.

I knew it was the perfectionist inside of me trying to dissuade my effort. But what surprised me was I believe in her! Why do I expect myself to get the drawing exercises and the actual painting all right in one go? This is ridiculous!

As much as I hate to admit it, the ongoing war between me and the perfectionist seems never ends. :(

- "Mishaps" update

Yeap, the mishaps continue. The latest one is about my oven. I'm still waiting for a spare part to fix the oven door.

Really, really hope this is the last one ...


So in the mist of all of these, what do I do? I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with this quote: When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping!

I bought myself a set of paint brush and a pencil case. I'm not a big fan of synthetic paint brushes. But how could you walk away from these beauties? The last time I owned a pencil case I was about 16 years old. But since I started to draw, instead of scouting the usual handbag, I spent a lot of time browsing cute stationery stores.



With all of these happenings, it's really messing me up. So I think I'm going to stay in my "cruise mode" a little bit longer. Also I'm contemplating to do some basic drawing classes. There is only so much I could learn by myself through books and practices. It will be good to have a real person I could seek immediate advice.

Sketch Book

Yiiiipppppeeee ... finally got the sketch book from Art House Co Op. And now I'm the official participating artist of The Sketchbook Project 2011! :D

(Did you see me holding my neck to an angle and doing a one leg celebratory dance? You should see me. I'm sensational! HAHAHA!)


The theme I pick is: First thing in the morning, last thing at night. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to execute the theme. Sketch / Doodle / Draw / Paint objects, emotions, sensation! What about collage which I've never try before! Oh and the cover? I really want to do a killer work of it. But how?

O.K. enough of panic.

I still got a fair bit of time before I need to finish and send off the sketch book. Plus, I'm in no fit condition to draw right now. This is actually good. I could spend some time to look for ideas as well as brushing up my drawing skill for the project.

As usual, I urge my fellow creatives to join in the project. After all the sketchbook is fairly small. It's about 21 cm (H) x 13 cm (W) OR 8.5" (H) x 5" (W) and consists of 40 blank pages (not including the cover and back cover).

Come on, let's have some fun together!