Friday, January 11, 2013

Dull but Fun...?

Colorful?? Oo ya. I think everyone who follows my blog understands my obsession with colorful things. Plus I have two coffee tins worth of pencil crayons to use up over the next two months....or so is my plan.

This week was mostly spent on reading and reading and testing out composition rules. Sounds boring I know. But in a very geeky way I really got into it. Trying to "lead the eye" of the viewer and realizing that it's not that easy, especially with complex layouts, made for quite a fun challenge. And I've only started....

I'm actually pretty content with most of the little thumbnails I drew while practicing, and basically I would think of a word and create a scene that focused on that object. Yeah I know...half those words would be "mountain" or "house". I'm just a bundle of creative energy aren't I?

The piece I picked to render I did on a whim, and when I first placed the main colors in marker, it was an epic fail, everything looked flat and had the same exact tones. I wanted to cry a bit cause it takes time to make a nice outlined drawing and then screw it over with crappy color you know. Plus, no CTRL+DEL button in life sadly.... But I sat down nonetheless and did a few color combination and relations to see if I could fix it...and voila! I got my warm colors near the focal point of the scene, a nice balance of primary colors and all that jazz. Or so I'm going to convince myself. I should try to color different scenes at different times of the day next...hmm.


My other adventure of the week took me to a really quiet cafe in downtown Toronto called the 168 Tea Shop on Queen St. If you're a fan of bubble tea, comfy couches, Chinese ballads, a giant second floor window from which to observe life, and warm rays of sunshine then I highly recommend this place. Also it's really affordable for Toronto prices! But I spent a few hours there working on straight pen drawings of the building across the street. Do I like them? No, not at all. I majorly screwed up the perspective in the first one, which makes it look all warped...and the second one was just..more of a speed drawing than anything else. But I think this can only mean one thing: I need to spend more time in cafés drawing from life. Or else it's an excuse to drink even more coffee...
And lastly, working with layout and design, I figured I'd draw me some houses. And of course
they are Chinese houses. I have amazing references from the photos I took, especially the little houses in the villages I visited. The top house is basically what most villages on the western coast are rebuilding themselves to look like...ugly things I know. The little ones below are more modest and old school. And damn those curved roofs....you try drawing one without making it look all messed up! 

Also, next week I'm gonna have half my portfolio up online! I was kind of hoping to not post it until it's all done, but the back up universities I'm applying to request an online portfolio...soooo...yet another blog. Are you excited? Cause I just about want to throw up right now thinking about it. But hey, I'm actually going to have a semi-professional portfolio put together. Can't hurt regardless of the outcome right? I hope everyone working on portfolios right now is seeing progress too and I wish you guys the best of luck!

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