One goal accomplished, several hundred thousand to go...

OK, so this Friday was Artrageous Friday, and being the devoted intern that I am I spent it at Orr Street.  It was so nice seeing soo many people there since it's so quiet while I'm normally on duty.  First of all, I got to take a super sexy picture for Snaprageous. I'm going to share that later once Staci e-mails me. One of the most exciting things about Artrageous was modeling. I modeled for Jane Mudd! I absolutely LOVE her paintings and now I am one. On top of that I received so many compliments. It was a fantastic evening. I can't wait until it's done so hopefully I can see it!
You should go here and see her stuff :)
http://janemudd.com/ 

Painting Session with Samy H!

So, I sold my bike to my friend for a package of taro buns, taro mochi and a few modeling sessions. Best decision of 2010. Honestly. And not only was my friend a good model, she offered me one of her friends to model for me later as well! And he's really excited to do it! You can't beat free models who are super happy to sit/stand in the same position for an hour at a time!

And she came in the bandanna, but I made her wear the sombrero.

Obviously it's not done, but I didn't have the heart to keep her sitting there for 3 hours. And I had been painting all day before she arrived. I'm so excited to see how this turns out! :)

Marilyn, This One's for You!

I believe this is the finished piece. 
Ta Da! It's more fun in person, because I sneaked in lots of cadmium in there.

A

And here is the near finished piece for Larry.  I think I am happy with it.   I just need to get the flesh tone on the arm worked out a little bit more. 

New and Exciting Update! (Sorry, No Pictures)

Let's see... I finished my last day of modeling in Joel's class. So because of that I'm approx. 140 dollars closer to being out from under my student loan debt! Shouldn't be too big of a deal, only $30,000 to pay off! :)

Afterward, I decided to go do some sketching, I chose the William Jewell family cemetery.  It was small and pretty, also very, very quiet.  I found a nice spot to sit in the shade and started sketching this grave marker when all of these ants started attacking me.  Here I am, minding my own business, being quiet and sketching and they send ants after me. What hospitality!  Or, instead of blaming that on the dead, I suppose it could have been because I was sitting almost on top of the colony... either way it was very unpleasant and my sketch didn't get finished.  Right now I'm too lazy to fetch everything I need to upload pictures of it, but they will be up eventually.

And, instead of starting a new painting, I have decided to revisit Larry.  The one with the four-color pallet.  I am so much more pleased with it now than i was before. I'd keep looking at it and looking at it and just felt this unhappiness in my stomach. But now that's gone and it's almost fixed.  Also coming up, updates of the studio self portrait and possibly a finished landscape! Someday I'll also get back to the portrait of David. Someday.

So, that was the update for you three faithful readers.
Hope you enjoyed it.

Sketches from New Red Sketchbook!

So, I decided to just add all of the new sketches all at once.  I could just draw it out and do one every day, but I'm so busy being  an awesome assistant manager, super intern, model, nearly full time house wife and soon to be again full time student that I doubt I'd actually get around to it. Okay, I would find time to get around to it now that they're all on my computer, but remembering to upload new sketches on to my computer is what gets me... ah I'm starting to get off course... here you go...

From the 27 of June, the lovely thing about Columbia is that there is never a lack of bicycles on the street to draw.  

Here is a view of the Wabash Train Station from Orr Street Studios. I cut out the cars, buses and people.  I thought it was sweet just like this.

Another view from Lollicup.  The 9th Street Tattoo place with a friendly little tree.  These small trees downtown fascinate me for some reason.

I was trying to discreetly draw this lady on the bench and every time I though she was on to me I would stare past her at Panera.  Then I decided to actually draw a scene by Panera, you know, to keep things honest. I really love those little trees!

This is from the other day at work, I call it 'The Merry Bunch'.  

I was desperate to draw something... anything... today at work and I found this screw in a box.  I like the multiple shadows cast by it.

And for the last sketch of the evening, a tape dispenser, also at work.  

And there you have it.  I haven't been all that lazy lately, just haven't been making impressive progress on my paintings.  But, as long as I keep drawing in my sketchbooks every day I won't feel too bad.

Enjoy and love!

An Appetizer

This is just the mini post before the main post that will BLOW. YOUR. MINDS! OK, maybe not blow your minds, but still, I haven't posted in a while and I'm sure some of you would like a small break from the real world, so I will take the time to upload some sketches from my sketch book. :)
mmmk? mmmk.
:D
Until then, here is a link to a blog... I've been modeling for the past week and the instructor posted one of his sketches on his blog.  I'm fond of his work and it's so cool to have a professional artist draw my portrait. :) Here you go!

Boba People and a Rainy Window

O

Okay, here are the updated boba people.  I added in a baby boba because one of our regular's daughters whom I'm fond of was in so I made one for her. She was so excited.  Her mother tells me that she went around at a party telling everybody about "Lola boba".   Adorable. So there's that.

And here is a cool picture I took at Orr Street when the ocean fell out of the sky.  Mind you these pictures are like a week or more old. Oops.

Self Portrait in Studio... in progress

Okay dear family, and uh... Melon..., here is my progress so far. I'm very pleased. That bookshelf is going to be such a pain though. I feel that I will make a tremendous amount of progress during and after the next two weeks because I will spend my mornings modeling for a drawing class. (Clothed of course).  I can't wait! It's so fun to see how people draw you. And also the money I earn is going towards my loan!
Wish me luck!

An Abstract! Or you know.. my retired painting rag

So my trusty painting rag has officially retired as of 10:58 am this fine day in July.  I always thought it'd be interesting to stretch and frame my used painting rag. I think I might. I really like it and there is absolutely no way that I can keep using it.  I need to repair that rip first though.

Not fat, the painting adds 10 pounds

eh, mild progress tonight.  Still rockin the limited color pallet.  More to come later! (And yes I look 10 pounds heavier. It's true what they say, one stroke can ruin the painting... we just have to keep in mind that a) i am not 10 pounds heavier and b) still a work in progress. hooray!)

Cannibals and trees

Here is what the landscape looks like right now. I'm not completely satisfied with it at the moment, But whenever I get there, Ms Marilyn will get a copy of it because she's the winner!

And this is for everybody to enjoy:

Mmm delicious cannibalism.

This Just In...

I know I just posted literally seconds ago, but I got distracted mid way through typing it up and started talking with David.  He was sitting in our recliner and his face looked absolutely amazing.  I didn't have my sketchbook nearby and I didn't want to make him aware of what I was doing at first, so I started using MS Paint since my laptop was right here. This is the result. I'm pretty damn proud of myself. It's impressive for anybody using that program. Not only was it on Paint, but also created using nothing but the touch pad portion of my mouse on a laptop. I'm so proud!

Okay, okay. So his facial hair isn't that dense at the moment, but the spray paint tool is difficult to use, give a girl a break. I shall now distract you from that with the CURSIVE writing to the right. Also pretty snazzy, yes?
:)

Back to Painting

Well, here is the ghostly image of my face on the panel, AFTER I had scraped it off and covered it with a layer of yellow ocher. 
I decided after that, that I didn't want to do another big self portrait and decided that I'd try something different.  Inspired by the painting in our last Visiting Artist gallery at Orr Street, I made a painting of my studio and put a self portrait in it.

Here's the beginning so far.  I started out drawing it on with my oil pastels, what you see here is the step after, where I colored it in with my limited pallet.  It's so nice to want to paint again. It was a really rough week folks.

More to come soon!

:[

I went to the painting session on Thursday, but the model, along with everyone else excluding my professor, didn't show up... so I had to resort to a self portrait. This self portrait was painted in really bad lighting so it's not any where near being done. To be honest, I looked like a constipated man... so I scraped it and now a ghostly image of my face is still lingering on panel with a coat of yellow ocher barely concealing it.  So there isn't really anything to show for this week's work, or the lack thereof... so I drew yet another picture on MS Paint. My fabulous friend Samy is going to sit for me so I can paint her... and she offered me a few of her friends, who will not have to be paid *awesome*, to sit for me as well...