trainwreck-watching care bear fetus

This drawing is also a few weeks old. I was thinking about how people love to hear about disasters and see them on tv, and the image started to form in my mind.

The creature is a fat/fetus/penis/carebear hybrid. The mushrooms basically only exist because of smudged ink that had to be turned into something. I think they're only misleading in terms of what the image signifies. The tree and heart exist for composition's sake, but I don't mind the associations that may come up with the fruit tree - garden of eden, maybe? innocence? danger? fruitfulness? Plus I think it looks real pretty.

I had a lot of fun drawing the explosion (maybe it's the creation of a universe and the creature is a retarded God?) and I want to draw more, different explosions in the future.

new collages!

after thinking about collages, I made a few new ones.

old collage(s)

I haven't done much new art lately. Here are some collages from collage class, about a year ago:

I mostly had fun in that class, letting the material I found guide me, just juxtaposing things with some connection or opposition. That's not really an original strategy. I found that the simpler I made things, the better. I believe the main impression from my collage work comes from the 'cool' factor of old magazines I used. There wasn't much intervention coming from me.

The course outline mentioned "collage thinking", and I interpreted this as suggesting possibilities for non-glue-and-scissors collage. I think the drawings I've made recently are what I mean. They are pen and ink drawings, but I used source material from photos (I usually don't) and embellished them with elements from my imagination, or other photos. I used a variety of resources, but because the whole thing is drawn with the same ink, there is a cohesiveness.

Another lesson I might have learned from this collage idea is that taking away something can be as neat as adding it. But I never have that kind of restraint - to leave a figure unfinished, without a face, for example. Or to draw a background with an empty spot where the figure should be.

I did a lot of measuring with pencil before making this. I don't really know what the point is, it has a lot of detail but not much to grab you I think.

Elodia

This is a drawing I made, of a character created by my friend Alexander. With this drawing I wanted to figure out how to 'paint' in Photoshop, and I think I learned a lot. I tried out a lot of the different ways to use a brush, such as lighten, screen, soft light, etc. using transparency as well. In the past I used to just paint opaquely, and when I tried to hack away with transparent brushstrokes it just looked messy. I was more thoughtful this time, rather than just putting colours on to see how they look.

I think next I want to try a hard, bright sunlight, rather than an overall soft, diffused light. I think this image looks good but I don't know if the light effects are actually realistic.

I probably should have added more pouches, weapons, shiny things and doodads on her outfit.

The other thing I'm happy about is the clothing folds - after some book-studying, I feel more confident inventing those than I used to!