ankatheartcat

One of the finals for Computer Ill

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:50:07 GMT

Here is one of the finals from Children's book. Due to some computer problems I do not have all of the work for this class. My laptop was useless for a little while so I had to put files on my external hardrive. Anyway, here's the main image for pages 2-3

Love and coffee,
Anka The Art Cat

Sample pages of Kid's book

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:39:57 GMT

I managed to complete the work for Children's book more-or-less on time. I don't want to post all of the dummy book pages here but I thought I would pick a few to show:

"I Love You Sandwich" Written by Justin Tibault, Illustrated by Anne Terres

Love and coffee,
Anka the Art cat

Computer Ill from awhile back.

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:28:01 GMT

We had an open project that was meant to involve an imaginary film based around the three little pigs. My group decided to do a surreal film inspired by "Babe: Pig in the City" which is a cracked film. If you ever want to watch something that is totally weird I recommend it highly. I wrote the whole synopsis so our group would all be on the same page but no one read it. {shrug} I ended up doing storyboards and drew directly into photoshop, which is not something I usually do. It was hard.

In the end I ran out of time and the class felt that the sequence of events didn't read well without description. I think that's fine as these are meant to be storyboards and the camera crew would have a shot list and a script to go from as well. If he wanted comic pages he should have said so. Otherwise the project went fine. Casey did some nice character designs and Meg did some cool locations. Overall we did a pretty nice job. Go team! ;)

Love and coffee,
~Anka the Art Cat

Finally. Fashion done!

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:54:40 GMT

As the title implies, here is the complete and acceptable fashion Illustration for Thiel's class:

I like any number of my other fashion illustrations better and Thiel said he was flipping through a fashion magazine at the gym and was surprised at how much nudity there was. I think this makes my second attempt acceptable but Pfft. I'm just waiting for him to realize the 80's are coming back so he can see that the second (better) drawing like this one should have been fine too.

Love and Coffee,
~Anne

Portraits.

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:43:45 GMT

We had to do 30 12x12 portraits in 30 days for painting. In order to complete the task I limited myself to one hour per portrait and mixed mass quantities of fleshy colors. The results are not great but I had all 30 done and the really bad ones have been removed so you don't have to see them. ;)

Yeah, so, that's it.
Love and Coffee,
~Anka the art cat

The fine results of a productive night :)

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:17:17 GMT

Let's start with Kid's book... No wait, let me back up a touch. So, working at Joe's house has been hard. We have this big studio space in the back room but it was just not a good workspace. I don't know why but any time I came back here I lost the desire to work. So this weekend I came back here to work while Joe was playing games and I got that "Ugh, I don't want to do this" feeling and decided the room must be tended to. So I poked my head out the door to the living room and asked Joe if I might make the room a proper studio space. He said I could go to town on it. So I moved almost everything. I cleaned and cleared and removed. There was a big corner sofa set in a corner with a TV stand in it, there were about a million chairs... generally there was too much stuff and it wasn't in places that made any sense. So, the whiteboard went up on the wall, the sofa went in the corner, the art supplies went in the cabinet. Everything got swept and dusted and now the space feels like a work environment. It feels comfortable and intentional. I'm proud of my work. All of that said, I started working this afternoon and have only stopped for occassional breaks. I sat down with a paper and a pencil and wrote out an extensive to-do list. I have accomplished a respectable portion of that list in the past hours. Now, let's start with Kid's book:

Most of the people in my children's book class chose stories that involve one character or a few characters, but I am working with Justin. This means two things as near as I can tell. First, it will be awesome when it's done, if it gets done. Second, it cannot be easy. I have to design at least one new character for every page of the book except maybe the last page, depending on the final format of the book. So it's been slow going. The class before last we had a review and I showed the following page of character designs:

It contains the out-of-date version of Sandwich and Kibble (lower left) and the six prototype people that I made to figure the style out (lower right). Between that class and this evening I figured out that all the info I need is in my sketchbook so if I had my sketchbook I could work on designs. The third, fourth and fifth characters on this next page were designed at odd intervals when I had my sketchbook with me:

The rest were designed tonight. I'm sure that doesn't sound like much to my non-art people, but I had to look at each of the page descriptions consider what the characters needed to communicate and who they needed to interact with... Okay, so maybe it isn't all that much work, but it took a long time and it's hard to make this many characters look unique in black and white. The bottom characters are Vanilla Latte (the mother in the story), Kibble (the dog) and Sandwich. They had to be re-designed. In addition to these character designs I have prepared the thumbnails for all but the last 4 pages. This was also a lot of work. I am happy I will have something serious to show in class tomorrow.

So, aside from Kid's book I found all of the reference for my next computer Ill project and primed the god-bird for the next Sculpture assignment.

And then there's Ill II... In which my past two assignments have BOMBED. So, I have to work on re-doing everything from the past several weeks. I finally re-drew the fashion drawing that Thiel liked:

I'll be tossing some digital color behind the drawing and crossing my fingers, I still like the second on like this better.

So then there's the next assignment, which is a double-page spread for a children's book. I decided to do the fable of the farmer and the rattlesnake. I want to do the final scene, wherein the snake has bitten the old man and he is dying and the snake leaves. I did thumbnails and then the thumbnail that I am planning to go with:

Wish me luck! It would be really nice if Thiel actually liked something I do again. I also composed the reference photos for the revision of the book cover. {yawn}.
Finally, here's a new piece of the secret project:

Love and coffee!
~Anka The Art Cat

Ill II does not go well

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:02:11 GMT

So, if you saw my previous post about the fashion illustration for Ill II you know that it was kind of a rough week. Well... that is sort of how this latest assignment has gone too. We had to do a cover for a book. I decided to do a full jacket for "The Year of Living Biblically" by A.J. Jacobs. I did thumbnails, I worked it out, all was well... then I came in on Monday with this half-complete image and Thiel hated it. Just hated it. He said to start over, he wants me to do it the way I did the Greenspan/Bernanke piece. Okay but it's due Wednesday. AGAIN. So I went and checked out a camera and a tripod but I couldn't get the tripod until the next day and I couldn't get anyone who I could shoot reference of in the daylight... Ugh. Needless to say I did not complete the assignment by Wednesday. But here's the incomplete of what the cover was going to look like with some text thrown in:

And the drawing a little clearer, I don't know why he hates it, he said it didn't look like anything else I had ever done... I'll have to figure it out.

Working hard. Love and coffee,
~Anka the Art Cat

Figure work

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:20:00 GMT

Figure work from my figure painting class, some of it's older, I'm trying to post it in order as best I remember. These first two were from a class in which I developed a much better sense of how to go about things:

(this next one is my favorite so far!)

All for now! Love and coffee,
~Anka the art Cat

Fawshun.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:40:11 GMT

Oh god the fashion illustration assignment. Thiel gave us this one and I just couldn't seem to get it going. I did some sketches and settled on this one idea that I have played with in my head a great deal. There is something unsettling about amputation, there is also something poetic and beautiful about it and I thought about it and the fashion industry breaks (primarily) women up into component parts as needed. So I fell into this idea, I wanted to have the woman on the floor, limbless with that same fashion stare, dead eyes, she had to look cold, but at the same time she needed to be sexualized. I had to include the hands and feet as disembodied seperate fashion images partly because it helped the point and partly because I didn't want to be accused of hand/foot avoidance. Initial fashion sketches and initial thumbs for the amputee:

So Iworked this idea, I took a long time compiling photos and I made this photo-collage sketch for Thiel and he hated it. He finally just said, "No, absolutely not, you can't do this." I spent that class working on it anyhow because I had no other ideas. I ended up with something I could work with and turn into something nice, but that's as far as it got. All told I miss the above-view of the initial sketch and I think I need to get someone to model for a couple of photos so I can complete the image as I really wanted to.

After he finally decided that my idea was too... I dunno, I actually have no idea what his objection was aside from the fact that he just didn't like it. If that's the case then he should have decided it was not okay right away because there was no way he was going to suddenly be less disturbed by amputees. Anyway, after he said no to this idea he decided that the project was due the next class. This wouldn't be such a problem if it was the wednesday session of our class. But it was the monday session, which meant I had a day to do a complete illustration from start to finish. I asked Thiel if he found nipples offensive but the discusion quickly became one of "do they publish nipples in magazines like Vogue?" The answer is yes. Anyhow I found some photos that I liked, edited them cropped them and made them into something I could draw from and maybe make a nice image out of. I am certain I made sufficient changes for my own legal protection. Anyway, here is what I came up with in a day:

Thiel liked the one on the right for technical reasons (I shouldn't have used the salt on the left one, I didn't have anything to block the skin with) but he still said they weren't acceptable and that I should do it again. So I sat down and got out pencil and a paper and drew a super-skinny gross fashion girl with no breasts and that dead fashion stare. Thiel liked it, he said I should ink it. I wanted to put down ballpoint on it, I thought it would work nice, alas, my ballpoint pen had died in my bag so I used this clunky brush-marker, then I put down some watercolor and then some gouache, Thiel says that I murdered it: (I will replace this image once I re-scan the picture, the file got lost)

Eli felt it might have been okay if the colors hadn't gotten so muddy, but they're muddy on purpose, I don't want this grotesque creature to be mistaken for an attempt at creating something appealing. Regardless Thiel wanted me to re-do it, and not ink it or color it, so I have:

A little different but the same general idea... and that's where the fashion illustration project stands!

Love and coffee,
Anka the Art cat

Stopgap

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:37:08 GMT

The final for my pulp: Red Passion. (I am actually planning to re-do this in a painted style, the only reason I didn't go with a painted style from the outset was the fear that I would not be able to make it good... {sigh} but I think it'll be really nice if I find the time to re-do it)

Another final that I am not done with. This is watercolor, and a little digital correction/combination. I still have some painting I want to do on the originals of this, I'll post the new version when I get a chance.

Ah children's book. The terrible chaos and fury of children's book. This is more or less how it's going:

I am pleased, though the progress is slow, there's a lot of working things out and I am having some fun with it.

Here is the continued development of the deer project (take 2) and a sketch for the TOP SECRET PROJECT!! from before, only not really.

Love and coffee,
~Anka the Art Cat

Mini-update

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:12:24 GMT

The sketch for the Pulp cover. It's due today but it may be a little while before I save the final in a postable format. I saved the sketch a bit ago so I figured I would finally post it.

Sketches for the celebrity portrait for Ill II:

Serious hugs to anyone who knows who these two are.

Love and coffee,
~Anka the Art Cat

Pulp Cover for Computer Ill and Kids Book character designs

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:06:42 GMT

Just got back from the woodshop,could really use a nap :) but I have much to do and little enough time! Here's a little update on Computer Ill. After the turn-around/3 image project Prochnow assigned us a pulp-fiction book cover. I researched the old pulp books and looked at perhaps a hundred covers. I decided that the funniest of the pulps were the "adult reading" books, specifically the lesbian books. I decided to do a soviet themed cover and I titled my book "Red Passion". Here are the sketches for the cover:

Should be good, wish me luck!

Justin made a suggestion about the style for the kid's book and I have tried to work it out:

Love and Coffee,
~Anka the Art Cat

Top Secret Project

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 01:20:53 GMT

Deer for Ill II

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 01:14:21 GMT

Illustration II we got a story about a kid who's dad used to take him hunting and the kid shot a deer when he was 11 and the father later killed himself. It wasn't great but at least there was some imagery to work with. I started with thumbnails. The one I wanted to do is in the second image:

Thiel did not want me to do that image. No. No, Thiel liked the stupid picture with the human head mounted as a trophy. :( IT's SO STUPID. But I did it anyway:

Love and Coffee,
~Anka the Art Cat

Computer Illustration

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:56:14 GMT

We had to do a turn-around or three images of a character in different situations for computer illustration. I initially did a girl in the style I intend to use for the people in the kid's book:

But as you can see, I was having trouble making her look like not plastic. SO, I opted to do something else:

Liv was the biggest help ever. I met up with her on the Saturday before this one and she showed me some really useful tools. I couldn't have done it without her help.

Love and Coffee,
~Anka the Art Cat

A desk!

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:55:32 GMT

Joe painted a desk. I helped!

Love and coffee,
~Anka the Art Cat

Oh the chickmanity.

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:40:37 GMT

Updates on the Chicken Project from color studies and drawing to completion. It went over pretty well but... ugh, the thumbnails for the next project went bad... but more on that later. Anyway, I initially presented this first sketch after the thumbnail was approved:

Thiel actually smiled at it, a good sign. From there I did the final drawing:

and two more color studies:

When I got to class (all ready to do the final painting) and Eli and Thiel helped me shape the final piece, which I have two versions of with more and less woodgrain:

All for now. Love and Coffee,
~Anka, the Art Cat

Goblins.

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:34:30 GMT

I thought I was going to need a new story for the kid's book class and I had a character I made for a game. A goblin named Grisks:

I made a young version of her for the kid's book story too:

I may have to go back to this if I can't make the other one work, so I'll keep developing it in the back of my head.

Love and coffee,
~Anka the Art Cat

Children's book... UGH.

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:13:22 GMT

Children's book has not been going particularly well. It's supposed to be my fun class, my free to do what I want class. Working with Justin has been difficult. On the one hand it's his story, he deserves some control. On the other hand, he's very particular, and I had some trouble keeping myself interested in the project. I needed to be able to move forward. Here is the piece I thought would be the last I ever did for the project:

and what I thought would be the last character design work for it:

and here's why:

The last time I put pen to paper to do character revisions, the above is what resulted... or part of what resulted. I was ready to give up and do something else. I asserted my position and sat down with my creative partner and I think things are ready to move forward again. The main problem I was having involved the mother, who has now been completely cut from the story all together, she may be seen once at the end, from behind. Maybe.

Love and coffee,
~Anka The Art cat

God. Fing Computers.

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:48:32 GMT

Had to do a portrait for Computer Illustration. Huge pain in the ass. I chose to do Gustav Klimt and to base my illustration on a painting of his. Unfortunately, as graphic as his work was, it still had brush-strokes and bits of stray color, and texture and generally looked 9-million times better than anything I could do with illustrator. I did three versions of the final image:

On the left is a version in which the colors in the skin are drawn from a self-portrait of Richard Gerstl, who was a fellow of Klimt's in the Vienna Secession. The middle image is my original idea, which pulls the flesh colors from Klimt's piece: Hope II. This is also the image that the other elements of the image are drawn from. The pattern and colors on the clothing as well as the background are drawn from that painting. It's beautiful, look it up. The image on the right is just my attempt at a normal flesh color.

Love and coffee,
~Anka the Art Cat

Figure and 3D

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:22:58 GMT

We have been working with plaster in 3D, it's good fun but apparently the humidity has combined with our collective ineptitude to create the disagreeable situation of everyone having wet plaster to work with that seems like it might never dry. Oh well, here's the initial sketch:

In figure painting we have been doing 15-minute paintings, here's my best from several classes ago:

but we also had a homework assignment (in addition to the 15 sketchbook pages) that involved a self-portrait using viridian (green), burnt sienna (reddish brown) and titanium white. It's not great but I am planning to continue working on it so I figured I'd scan and post it before I fuck it up:

Love and coffee,
~Anka the Art Cat

Ill II

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:58:00 GMT

Remember when I posted the final version of my car illustration? Yeeeah. Thiel hated it. He made really vague suggestions about what I should do to improve it that I could not for the life of me decipher. Eli cleared them up a little. I was going to start over and all told I think I should have because Thiel didn't like the new final any better than the first version I made. Here are the three versions I brought to critique:

Through much discussion I eventuallyfigured out why these aren't any good at all. It has to do with the fact that I was not willing to draw the car in the way I usually would if I were planning to put down a drawing for watercolor because cars are supposed to be a certain way, they're shiny and sleek and I was afraid that the way I draw might make the car look jaggey... so basically, if I had just gone with what I do and drawn the car the way I would draw a person I probably would have been okay. I didn't, it's not.

Love and coffee,
~Anka the Art Cat

Klimt for Computer Illustration

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:49:27 GMT

Our next assignment for Computer Illustration is a portrait. I have opted to do Gustav Klimt, in as close an approximation of his own style as I can manage in illustrator. Here is my sketch:

Love and coffee,
~Anka The Art Cat

Final Post for the Day: Children's Book characters!

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:58:29 GMT

To start working on our children's books we needed a story. Justin and I had been planning to do a story together and it turned out perfect for this assignment. I started with these character designs:

It was a reasonable starting point, I worked on the mother for a while, drawing a re-drawing changing and tweaking, then the boy. Once I had the boy worked out:

I added that style to the mother (far right) and asked some advice. Joe said she was a little "naughty schoolgirl" and not so much "business casual". I didn't like that for her to be "motherly" she had to be thick, but he's right, she looks better (though it may have more to do with the different outfit I put on her)

So here are the final working character designs, sized to scale!

And that is finally all for now! Love and coffee,
~Anka the Art Cat

Figure Painting Homework and For Fun

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:36:01 GMT

Part of our figure painting homework is to do a themed drawing/painting every week in our sketchbook (after researching an illustration in the same theme). The first week was animal, I found an illustration by Jill Bennett from Roald Dahl's "Fantastic Mr. Fox", which was a favorite book of mine as a child. I painted a Donkey. I need to work on contrast and figured it would be a good space to practice.

Also, I picked up a pack of tiny Ampersand watercolor boards just to try them out and I figured my girl in the striped shirt got rejected from the car illustration so I'd make use of her here, lest she never be seen again.

Love and Coffee,
~Anne