Totally not naughty bits

So a month into summer holidays, I've come to a decision about my short-term goals. They're pretty simple, really. I plan to work my way through The Vilppu Drawing Manual, and complete at least two animation projects. Nothing big, but enough to build on the skills I gained this past year. Even if those two things is all I accomplish in the next three months, I'll still be a far better artist than I am now, so it's something to look forward to.

So here's where I am right now, round forms. Pretty simple, really. First of all, I'm doing two pages of this daily:

Looks simple, right? That's 'cuz it is. Nothing but spheres, or rather circles and crossed ellipses. Couldn't be easier. But as simple as it is, the benefits are huge, helping me build confidence, become more efficient at mark-making, build my spacial sense and get way better at drawing and conceiving rounded forms. That's a lot of stuff just for two pages of circles a day.

The other exercise, which I really started to get serious with yesterday, is taking those round shapes and combining them. So making blobby forms, stretching them, twisting them, piling them one on top of another, making critters out of them, giving them personality. It's tonnes of fun, seriously, and I don't think I could really get into it to this degree without two years of art training under my belt. Here's what I managed to produce today:

Cool beans, huh? And lemme tell ya, it's HARD to put a big blob and a smaller blob together and not have it come out as someone's naughty bits. Dunno if I succeeded 100%, but there's still a lot of cool, funky stuff in there. I'll post more as I get them done, so stay tuned.

From Life

Clearly it's been too long since I posted. But summer is here, and with it a lot of free drawing time, so hopefully I'll be able to provide some worthwhile work to show you all.

So first things first, I managed to pass first year Animation! Whee! Which doesn't let me off the hook or anything, it was way too close for my taste. That means this summer is going to have a lot to do with bringing my skills a lot closer to where I want them to be. To do that, I've been starting to work my way through the Vilppu Drawing Manual, in an attempt to make my basic drawing skills stronger, as well as doing a lot of life drawing.

That out of the way, here are some selections from this week's sessions at Sandy Hill and the life drawing club that's running at the school until mid-June. I'd love for it to keep running all summer, but we weren't able to get enough sign-ups. Totally disappointing, I was hoping to see a lot more familiar faces.

Not that something like that's gonna stop me.

Books & Books & Books!

FOUR HUNDRED BABIES BOOKS!!


Well, not four hundred, but a lot anyhow. Even though I already had six of them, and even though I bought some used and thus got a discount, I still ended up spending CDN $330 on the things. It's hard to be an art-book-aholic.

Anyhow, here's the rundown, from the top of the pile down:

Perspective Made Easy by Ernest R. Norling
Perspective by William F. Powell
Timing for Animation by Harold Whitaker and John Halas
Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair
Draw the Looney Tunes (no author given)
The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards
The Art of Animal Drawing by Ken Hultgren
Drawing the Head and Figure by Jack Hamm
Creating Characters With Personality by Tom Bancroft
Anatomy A Complete Guide for Artists by Joseph Sheppard
Vilppu Drawing Manual by Glenn Vilppu
Building Construction Illustrated by Francis D.K. Ching
Human Anatomy for Artists by Eliot Goldfinger
Drawn to Life Vol 2 by Walt Stanchfield
The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams
The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson

Whew! And if that weren't enough, that brings my personal library of art books to 76. And goodness knows, I'm probably not done yet.

Oh, and since it's Friday, blogger law requires I post a picture of a cat. Far be it from me to argue with the law.

Wait'll they get a load of me!