redroanchronicles

I didn't actually post a piece of daily art yesterday (failure already, on day 3! Woe betide me! Also, I just said "betide"!) because the project I was working on for the evening was actual paid work (gasp!) and so isn't really free to be posted yet. So I thought I'd make up for it today with a new piece and an additional catch-up piece for yesterday. I draw fast, so it all worked out. :D

In honor of my *mumble*teenth viewing of all of the episodes of Spirited (oh season two, why aren't you here yet?), I thought I'd make today's daily art postings a little rock and roll. Just... not quite as rock and roll as I'd intended.


Brush pen & Sharpies / 15 minutes

I'm often told I'm very negative about myself because I always have criticisms for my art, but I think of it more like a post-game wrap-up, personally. I'm not (usually) berating myself, but especially when I'm doing quick sketches and experimenting with new mediums like I'm already doing a lot with this project, it's really helpful once a piece is finished to give it a good looking over and think about what you'd do differently if you were going to do it over again... it's part of what helps the next piece be better.

So with this one, I'd obviously fix the shadowing on his face that makes Henry look like he's chewing gum. I'd also give him something a bit less odd to sit on; I didn't want to spend a lot of time drawing an ornate and boring chair, but my quick sketch-in looks a bit odd. Other than that I'm pretty happy with how it came out. Might've been even better as a digital vector... maybe next time.


Colored pencil on tinted paper / 35 minutes

This was my first attempt at doing a piece on tinted paper with just colored pencils, and my first time working with colored pencils since high school. So it came out kind of how I wanted it and kind of not. I was hoping to do a more hard-core punk-rock-y ink wash portrait with another of the photos from this series of stills, but discovered I'm nearly out of ink. Curse you, fates! Maybe next time. Anyway, this might've turned out better if I'd done it larger, because it was tough to keep a tip on the colored pencils to do any finer detail. Sort of cool anyway.

I've never been much for New Year's resolutions. I've never been good at keeping them, and it seems to me that most of us treat resolutions a bit like Lent: it's something you do for a little while, just to prove that you can, before you get back to your daily indulgences.

But I have to admit, I've been turning over a new leaf. In addition to the other disturbing signs of adulthood that have crept up on me over the years -- you know, when you realize that you listen to NPR a lot and learning to cook is suddenly important and you actually want people to give you socks for Christmas -- I've also been doing some pretty serious work on myself. I've even been reading self-help books, God help me, and finding them incredibly useful. And I have, in general, been taking stock of myself... and have been weighed, measured, and found wanting. (Name that movie! Sorry, I don't have any prizes for you. But it is proof that you have excellent taste in film.)

So I've decided that this year, the only thing for it is to be bold. I tend to be commitment-phobic because I only end up letting myself (and others) down by over-committing myself and therefore getting absolutely *nothing* done, but I think I'll get through with all this new-found determination I have going. So this year, in addition to continuing my quest to learn useful life skills, I'm going to be creating a piece of art every single day. I'd originally planned to limit this to drawings and sketches, but since I'm working on a lot of different mediums these days, I'm going to make the definition a little more broad and include sculpture and crafts and other fun things like that. I want to stress that these are often going to be quick sketches, and aren't always going to be particularly good, but the point of the exercise is to get me out of a "I don't have enough time to do all the things I want to do!" frame of mind and into a habit of creating something every day.

Because a big part of the inspiration for this project was Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova's Oscar acceptance speech -- which by the way is the best acceptance speech of all time -- I thought I'd kick off the project with a quick digital tablet sketch of Glen Hansard.



And while we're discussing my life skills crusade, I should mention that I've crossed another couple of items off the list; my roommate's husband has kindly taught me some mad chopping skills that took care of #20 on my list, and I knocked off #3 by snowshoeing around our pastures yesterday while checking fences. (It turns out snowshoeing is as easy as everyone said, but they didn't tell me that my butt would be sore the next day.)

I'm also working on some other goals for 2011, but have yet to define them, so I guess my goal for the moment is to work on defining my goals. :D