Junk Buildings

Here are a bunch of thumbnails I did in my sketchbook for a particular building I wanted to design. I love this stage; just playing with shape, allowing the brush to make stray marks, following them down the rabbit hole. This is the best way to free myself from prematurely obsessing over details and allow for “surprises” in the design.

There is a lot of emphasis on silhouette in animation and design in general, and for good reason. But I think it’s often preached to the point of formula and gimmickry. It’s important to remember that it’s just a tool and it serves a context. It’s relatively straightforward to come up with an interesting silhouette. But when the design is fleshed out, when it’s “turned” in space, does it still work? Not always. I almost always revisit the basic shapes even after I’ve followed a good silhouette into the rendering phase, working back and forth until I find the best solution.

Remember that old geometry rule? “A square is always a rectangle, but a rectangle is not always a square.”

Well, think of it this way: “A good design will always have a good silhouette, but a good silhouette will not always be a good design.”

Greek

Here is some stuff that I’ve been up to lately. Taking a few cues from the Provensens with these, trying some different things out. I want to break away from some of the fussiness of my process.

It’s funny how scaling back in certain formal aspects of illustrating will shift the paradigm by which you see the remaining ones. A lot of people believe particular fundamentals–like composition, value, etc.–always rule over others in an hierarchy of importance. I tend to think it’s more of a balancing act, or a series of compromises. If you want to ignore one, another will, by nature, take prominence. But they can’t all be The Most Important Thing. I think images that are over-worked or under-worked result because of a breakdown in the prioritization of its formal aspects.

In a lot of ways, when I look at these images now, I think they work better next to one another. On their own, I’m not sure if they’re quite refined enough; they haven’t found that place of balance yet.

Secret City

So I want to try something new around here. I take a good amount of pictures throughout the week. Sometimes it’s because certain colors or architecture catch my eye, maybe an interesting texture, or something ironic. And while I don’t have any sort of secret ambition to become a photography wiz, it would be nice to catalogue them somehow, somewhere.

I think it’s a valuable exercise to take photos. It offers a nearly instant process for experimenting with things like framing a composition, observing the principles of natural phenomena like light and physics, and manipulating the perception of those phenomena. Not to mention, capturing and expressing narrative.

I thought a little bit about starting an entirely separate blog to share the photos, but honestly, when I see other artists compartmentalize their work across various blogs, it makes me crazy. There is already too much to keep track of in life, people! This is why they invented tagging. And anyway, since this blog in large part is to record and share my process, I think the photos have a valid place here. I hope you all think so, too.

So I’ll be cataloging all my photo ventures under the ‘Secret City’ tag. Look out, San Francisco.

Today’s Warm-Up and an Interview

Here are some architectural thumbnails for today’s warm-up. I love doing these quick little studies, just playing with shape and proportion.

In other news, Chris and I were interviewed over on Pinball Publishing’s blog, CoinOp, regarding our collaborative project, Rigamaru. We talk about how the whole thing got started, our process and inspiration, and what’s on the horizon this year. Check it out, folks.

One last thing, Chris has a monoprint up for auction in the Brownstones to Red Dirt charity fundraiser. The auction will take place online, March 6th-13th. Check out their website for more details, and to see all the fantastic work being donated!

New In-Progress

More Progress…

This one is getting close to being done…

Life Drawing at PNCA

Some friends and I decided to check out the open life drawing session at PNCA this week, since it is a little bit cheaper than at Hipbone. The space was a bit more crowded, but I actually liked the model much better. All of these are 5-10 minutes, just straight ink. It’s sort of an exercise in deliberacy; just putting down a bold line, and thinking in light and shadow. Since I can’t erase or manipulate the line so much (versus dry media), it’s interesting to look back and observe which areas of the body I have a tendency to exaggerate or minimize.

Color Study in Gouache #2

I did this little study on my way to Phoenix recently for my brother’s wedding. There must have been some good Karma floating around out there for me, because I scored a whole exit row to myself. I’m still not sure how I want to handle the gouache–in transparent washes? fat-over-lean? direct wet-into-wet? Right now I think I’m over-working it, trying to control too much, which is what happens when I start to think about line and detail before color and light. The two big things I want to really hone in on with these studies are: value and color temperature relationships.

In Progress…

Here’s a couple of paintings that are in progress. Both panels are 30×30, and it has really been a challenge to get back into working this large. I’ve become so used to my little monitor and tablet. I think working large is a great way to reveal (and amend) whatever your bad drawing habits are. Things get mushy and fall apart real quickly if you are not conscious of the marks you are making! This kind of work is so much more physical–moving back and forth, checking things from a distance, mixing paint–I love it.

Color Study in Gouache #1

The weather was really amazing today so Chris and I got crepes for lunch at a nearby cafe. I brought along some gouache and decided to do a little painting after we had finished our food. That truck, involved in some nearby construction, must have moved 5 or 6 times during the course of my painting it so I had to do a bit of improvising. I’m terribly shy about drawing or painting in public, but it’s something that I’d like to get over. I was also reading something from George Pratt recently about how landscape painting really brought his studio art to the next level. I think it’s an area of study that I have pretty well neglected, but that I’d like to give some whole-hearted attention to. I really have no excuse now–this is the best time of year to be outdoors in Portland.

Hooligans and Highways

Above is a design that I have been toying with for awhile now. It began as an ink drawing, but I have been fumbling around trying to marry other rendering approaches with it while retaining the linework. It was almost abandoned in frustration, but I spontaneously went to work on it this afternoon again. I think it’s starting to go somewhere. I have always been a point-a to point-b sort of worker, starting one project and then finishing it before moving on to the next. But I am trying to evolve my working habits to accommodate a more nebulous creative process. Lately I am keeping multiple images going at once, setting one aside as I get stuck and moving on to another while they all collectively simmer in the back of my mind. Working this way requires a sort of patience that I don’t think comes naturally to me. In some ways the structure of college forces you to similarly multi-task. But the goals and parameters for image-making are clearly defined then (for me they were, anyway). Now, not only am I trying to derive my own answers, but I’m the one asking the questions. Ultimately I think the benefits of evolving this way will show in the long run, even if things feel contrived in the short.

Oh, and the pattern I’ve been working on, Hooligans, is finished. It will take some weeks for it to arrive on fabric, but in the meantime I’ve made a desktop version (1440×900) that is up for grabs. Enjoy!

Process Sketch

Below is a sketch involving some ideas I am working on. Even though I am trying to move away from digital work, I do feel like working this way in the inception stages frees me up. I have never been an artist who is able to completely lose herself in the process. I worry too much about the cost of materials and about producing waste. I can also work more quickly this way, getting my ideas down before they evaporate. And once they ARE down, the process almost becomes like sculpting–adding layers and then taking away, building up, stripping away again. But without sacrificing pigments and materials, or one-of-a-kind collage elements that would never be recoverable.