Fencing Life Drawing

 

So we had Fencing instructor in last session for life drawing. This was a brilliant class. The model himself had done life drawing classes and as a result we got some excellent posing. 

I started off as usual with some graphite drawings. I think these the most successful of the session, the speed of the graphite allowed for some translation of the poses' speed.

(as a bonus, the instructor himself felt I caught the poses right)

When drawing using the graphite, I blocked out the torso and then worked in the lines.

happy with the near knee here

The model liked this pose

 Probably my favorite of the graphite drawings

I then returned to the technique I used the previous session. Don't think it worked as well this time, the samurai costume suited it better I think. Still, some of it worked... think I got bogged down with drawing too much.

Here the elements on the right work better, the arm and leg. However  I then worked in too much on the torso.

 

 

The leg works well here. (had to go in and erase some stuff in the torso)

Instead of blocking out this time, tried just using the edge

Again the elements on the right are closer to what i wanted.

Life drawing - Aiki Jujitsu

So last week we had an Aiki Jujitsu model for life drawing. Think of it as a samurai.

It was a pretty great class. Had been a while since I'd drawn a model with cloths on and the costume he wore was great. (I joked with Pete that it was kinda like drawing a Jedi)

It was also the last class that Simon will be at and we sat together. Think it worked out really well for both of us, having someone beside you trying out some new approaches. Here's his blog http://tweakoverkill.blogspot.ie/2012/08/lifedrawing.html



The first set are where I used graphite stick.

 

Tried out poster paint and instead of a brush, used card to paint with. Very happy with the results.

probably my favourite one

The Spainard!

 In honour of Spain winning the Euros I'm posting the first of my new set of boulder caricatures. It's Borja, the head of I.T. and lead comper on randy. This Spaniard is use to winning, he beats me in tabletennis every chance he gets!

Other Borja attempts

Mikey!

Here's the sketch I posted on the boulder art blog too. The theme was power animals. Never finished the 2 pics I started this morning for it cause I threw my back out. Sitting here in pain I'm cursing getting old!

Life drawing week 5

This was a tough week. Wasn't feeling the best and we had a new male model. Anatomically he was pretty muscly. Found it hard with all the detail to simplify the poses, don't know why. Also tried compressed charcoal sticks for the first time. Was never a big fan of charcoal, something to do with the sound of it on newsprint. But Aine was doing some deadly stuff with it.... so I wanted to give it a try.

30 seconders, tried to push anatomy (Colin liked this one)

My favorite drawing of the session

Another inverted one. Really happy with this one.

Went more square for these.

This was an attempt to capture the pose in pure silhouette. Probably my second favorite drawing of the session.

Trying to "build" up the pose in layers.... gonna try this on a long pose some time.

 

Like the more square shapes in this.

Photoshopped - added the shadows, happy with how it turned out.

Tried some marker stuff. Worked internals first, then built out to outlines.

Finally Framed!

These are the pieces I bought in the first Boulder art charity auction. Really happy with both of them. The dinosuar is a Chris O'Hara canvas piece, and the bear one is by Aine McGuinness. It's a beautiful watercolour that I bought for Sinead.

The girls raised over 2 grand and next month hope to repeat the success but on a larger scale.

Life Drawing week 4

Should have posted this ages ago. This was a particularly enjoyable week for me. Tried a technique that would influence the next 4 weeks. You can see it develop over the first 3 drawings here.

  These 2 are where I inverted the images in photoshop. I unfortunately love doing this.

 Added the dark under the arms later - kinda think it works in the thumbnail, not so sure once it's at full size.

Umbrellas

So here's the piece I submitted for the charity auction in work. Its a piece I did ages ago for a boulder gallery Franners was doing. It's originally part of a triptych but Sinead loves the other drawings so i kept them. Probably do some more now too.

The piece itself is an A6 postcard drawn using blue ink. Think my favorite umbrella is the one at the back.

2 posts in one night!

So in work we have a gallery set up for a charity auction. And Estrela and Bianca have been pushing for people to produce some work. The image I submitted was an old "umbrela" one so I'll post that tomorrow. But here's the image I did tonight.

Obviously I'm a huge Mignola fan, and well it does have an effect on my work. But hey, that can't be bad right. The image is named after the song I was listening to on the way home from work today, by the great Wolf Parade.

It was maybe gonna be a profile pic change for facebook too.

Life drawin'

So Boulder has set up life drawing sessions for us in work. Been a couple of years since I sat in a room doing this, so alot of the work was fairly rough, but I was happy with a couple, and most had some sections I liked.  They were all gesture drawings ranging from 30 secs to 5 mins.

 

 The First 2 were from the first 30 mins section. The first drawing was picked out during the review as a good drawing by the people in the class. Was a bit shocked by that. The last drawing was picked out during the second review. It was picked for the change in approach I used. I tried to use purely straight lines for it. I wanted the pose to look ridget like model appeared to be.

Within 5 minutes of being in the class I was pretty happy. Although I dropped into some old techniques I like to think Beth Spenader was sitting behind me egging me on again. The drawing off the page was at times a deliberate thing. Working on A3 I wanted the drawings to be too big for the page (something Beth use to encourage me to do in college)

Finally some art

Here's the first draft of a piece I was asked to do for Sinead's uncle. Its a family portrait of all of Sinead's siblings, and of the 3 (soon to be 4) grandchildren.  Tried out a couple of things in this that I think worked, or Sinead loved. The playing card "full house" motif. The 2 older grandchildren are the largest heads, and the 2 youngest are right in the middle. The 3 older siblings are at the top and the 3 younger are at the bottom. Sinead and Alanna are beside each other cause they're the eldest for each generation and Sinead gets to be a little bigger, well, just because it's my drawing and I wanted it that way.

Still have alot to finish on it but am fairly happy with the Emma(the baby) and James(the 5year) and was delighted when John knew straight away that the blob in the centre was the ultrasound of his baby.

Hopefully get this finished in the next few days

LaLaLoopsy

Here's the first webisode from the project I'm working on at currently. Enjoy

Zig and Zag

I worked on this pilot teaser before the trip to thailand. Loved working on it, I was a huge fan of zig and zag as a kid and use to draw em all the time. So I'm quite happy to see it was posted on coldhardflash today.


Zig & Zag (Teaser) from Flickerpix on Vimeo.

Hectic Month

Mad how fast this stuff can get away from you. Have a number of things to post but need to scan em or render em.


Anyway, I'll hopefully post something later, just wanted to post this. My friend Dave O'Sullivan has finally set up a website. Only one image on so far cause he's still working on it. So I would recommend checking it out - its class.

Dave's site

bouncing ball finished

 

Couldn't wait to get home from footy and sort this. Thanks go to Paul for showing me the graph editor tool I was looking for. Quite happy with this now.

3d first shot.avi

So I've returned to 3d. Been a couple of years and about time. (says murray) Mick Plummer is training up some of us in work in Maya. And to be honest its the breath of fresh air I needed. Really enjoying just figuring out the program and stuff. This week he starts on rigged characters, so hopefully in a couple of weeks I'm doing some character stuff.

Anyway, this is my first stab at the good old bouncing ball. Still have to figure out some of the graph editor stuff in detail - but the little nephew is here now. So instead of finishing it, I'm now watching the gruffalo again.

The Amazing World of Gumball

Cartoon Network have released a clip of Gumball in preparation of the shows airing. And luckily enough it contains scenes i animated and worked on!



Gumball Sneak Peek

Hope you all enjoy!!!

Sketchbook Pro

So Galvin gave me the disk to install sketchbook pro over the weekend and try it out. (I know you told me too Ben)

So i decided to give it a go while watching united get their arses handed to em by Liverpool. Probably a great decision considering Sinead was jumping about screaming with laughter...

Anyway. Last year I was my cousin Stef's groomsman at his wedding. Never prouder to be asked to do something and was so happy top be part of it. Plus it was a brilliant wedding.

So I've been working on a sketch for a little bit and finally got the finger out... really happy with the drawing of Louise, think i might have to tweak one or 2 things on the Stef one thou. Plus I'm not to sure about the "GREY CIRCLE!!!!" in the background. Gonna play around with this (any suggestions welcome.)

Has alot of fun with sketchbook pro, must admit its pretty much the drawing program i've been looking for. Quick, intuitive and easy. Totally recommend it.

Now if only i could hide from the slagging I'm about to get...

More mini pics

 So after posting the last 2 photos, i was encouraged to post a couple more that i toyed around with. (thanks Gill).

The first pic I like because of two reasons.
1 - I like the water - helps with the miniature look
2 - The photo is of Bullock Harbour, and of Western Marina, I worked there a long time ago.

 The second picture is from Turkey. Really like how the group of people and the pillars came out.

The final pic is from the first cycle to Galway i did with the lads - on the bikes are Stef and Al, and both will tell you its awhile since anyone said they we're miniature.

bloody computers!

 Not only did i spend most of yesterday with a hangover(as normal i hear you say), but my stupid computer got infected with a malware program - so all the plans i had for working got thrown out the window. Thanks to Spiderspore, its working again and has a blu-ray drive too now! however with that i haven't got a new drawing to post, so i think I'll post 2 photos i made last year.

 The two photos are attempts at making it look like minitures, was really happy with these 2 when i made em. Not to sure now. (feel free to tell me what you think)

 The first picture is from the trip to Canada a couple of years ago, the second is from my cycle route when I'm in training. kinda wish i had caught it a little closer... will probably try again.

And lastly, wanted to post a drawing - posted the originals of this before. This is the inked version I have on my wall in work. In it you'll also notice i redrew Rob, Anne, and a couple of others. Still not too happy with some of em - Galvin, Moondog, or Aine to mention a few. Alot of these have to be updated, and I've already done newer versions i prefer. Posted this because a good friend of mine from college, Roisin Maguire, told me she really liked my caricatures. So i thought she might like this. (again, don't be afraid to comment)