IF: resolve/ Sketchbook 1/8/09

This week's theme was slightly difficult for me to wrap my head around it.
My official submission for this week's IF theme is on the right, but I also included the entire spread from my sketchbook, a habit that I've been doing for the last few entries of my blog.

So enjoy and tell me what you think.

sketchbook 1/7/09

The truck on the right drove off before I could finish painting it.

sketchbook 1/6/09 - blog worthy?

I actually did this sketch yesterday at the local Starbucks. Since it's winter, I find that sketching in coffee houses are the ideal location to capture people in all sorts of poses. Unfortunately, at times, I forget that this is not a figure drawing class and my "subjects" move because, well... they aren't models and some of them have to scratch their noses when it itches.

The other thing about this particular sketch was it's "blog worthiness". I originally didn't want to post it because it didn't meet some standard that I had imposed on myself, but then I read Lynn Chapman's post and it reminded me that this is a sketchbook and not some final piece and being not so precise is an OK thing to be. So alas, here it is.

sketchbook 1/4/09

I'm still trying to get my "pencil legs" and figure out how to render certain things with graphite. In this case, sketching at Starbucks during the evening proved to be a challenge when it came to rendering the darkness outside. I've been looking at Paul Calle's, "The Pencil" and it's been really inspiring.

sketchbook 1/2/09

sketchbook 1/2/09

IF: Clandestine

I'm currently reading Robert Ludlum's "The Bourne Sanction" and that's where my head was when was thinking about this week's theme.

I really like the look of water colour but unfortunately the end result of my watercolour painting typically is a bit too stiff for the medium. However, I'll continue with this frustrating medium and see where it leads me.

sketchbook 12/30/08

While drawing the chess pieces, I had Helvetica, the documentary playing and it inspired me to render the names of the chess pieces in this timeless typeface.

sketchbook- 12/29/08

sketchbook 12/27/08

Had a Boxing Day dinner at my dad's place with family. Too much good food had the usual effects on everyone and as a result, I caught my brother in-law snoozing and my sister lazing after dinner.

IF: voices

This week's submission for Illustration Friday.

I had three objectives for this drawing. The first being to fulfill the Illustration Friday theme. Second to do a self portrait, because I'm really not good at drawing portraits. (You could see some sketches of self portraits I did in my sketchbook here). Third, to integrate my my pencil drawing with Photoshop rendering techniques. (Not too sure it went smoothly).

sketchbook- 12/23/08

I'm not very good at drawing portraits so I thought I'd practice with my own face. I've been doing one drawing of my face for the last 4 days and not one of them looks like me. It's nice though to see the the different ways I've drawn myself over a four day span.

sketchbook- 12/19/08

IF: rambuctious

sketchbook- 12/14/08

A spread from my sketchbook. I really wanted to pack images into this spread.. and perhaps I'll do it for a few more spreads.

1/8 of my bedroom.

Drawn from my bed.
I find whenever I draw with this micron 03 pen, it lends itself to a looser way of drawing. I like the effect that it has on this drawing and also the definitiveness it gives to it.

IF: similar

After years of wearing the same pair of running shoes, each shoe has acquired similar wear characteristics.

My first PSD illustration.

IF: balloon(s)

It's been a while since I used watercolour and so I thought it'd be nice to jump back into this medium with this week's IF theme.

sketchbook

The pressure of drawing on the first page (or in this case the second) of a new sketchbook! Should it be in pen, pencil, watercolour, charcoal? oh the choices. It turned out cramming the spread with images was more important than the medium to get over "first page" jitters.

Wajima Kiriko t-shirt

A friend asked me to illustrate a new image for his taiko group. This is the result.

my kitchen…

Things I made in my kitchen: soba salad, soba, PB&J sandwich, tofu croutons, pizza, chicken adobo (need more vinegar next time), vegetable stock, baked chicken wings,
scrambled eggs, over easy eggs, vegetable chow mein, split pea soup,chicken noodle soup,toast, spinach salad, salad, raspberry vinaigrette, white wine vinaigrette, pasta, tomato sauce, risotto,baked potatoes, roast chicken, feta eggplant melt, cheese omelette,steam salmon fillet, tuna sandwich, fried rice, regular brown rice,guacamole, steamed tofu, spam sandwich, spam tempura, spam omelet.

Slow day at work…

Dirty Bird

A willful reaction to all the rationalized "design" I do during my 9-5 job.

I.F. Leap

My contribution to this week's Illustration Friday's theme of "Leap".

As I produce more and more drawings, I find I'm a doodler by nature and it's pretty evident in this drawing. A lot of the rough, sketchy marks are still present and again, this was produced with a papermate pen on some paper destined for the recycling bin in my office. My little contribution to the green movement.

I.F. multiple

Inspired by another boring day at work.

I.F. Tales and Legends

The beginnings of a Tale and a Legend.

It's been a slow few days at work and I thought I;d chip away at this weeks I.F. theme. I realize I'm a doodler by nature so using a fine point papermate pen was the perfect medium for this drawing.

So many thoughts running through my head while coming up and executing this drawing.

Slow day at work…

These drawings resulted from having nothing to do at work today.
This is what's around me in my cubicle.

A while ago, I read about an illustrator who was excessively anal with his drawings and would take him days or weeks to complete one of them. I tend to be that way as well, so I thought the "workday" would be a nice time framework for me to complete as many drawings as i could! Also, I used a staedtler permanent fine tipped marker for my drawing so that there would be no erasing and the marks tended to be a bit more looser as well, I found with this particular medium.

each piece is not that great on it's own, but I thought it'd be better in a mosaic format.

January 20

Really cold weekend and I was hibernating for most of it.
But I got stir crazy this afternoon and decided to go to the local Starbucks for a coffee and a bit of on site sketching. By the time I finished sketching, it was evening and I wanted to fill in the window area with a solid colour. Used the last remnants of my coffee to do so instead of cross hatching.

Dr.Sketchy's-January 14

Went to my first figure drawing session in a while. It was nice to get the rust out of the ssytem, but as usual, it seemed I only loosened up at the end of the session. Great model: Chantal Fry. A figure skater.

January 13

January 11

Didn't Sketch yesterday and actually felt crappy because I didn't. That's a good sign! Must be equivalent to a runner who missed out his daily jog and didn't get his runner's high!

So here's my next installment. Another weekend has rolled around and hopefully I'll get a chance to sketch at my local coffee shop!

January 9

January 8

My abode. Ma casa. Watashi no uchi desu. Chez Wil. Mia Casa. My house. This is where I have lived for the last year and a half. A basement situation that has slowly grown on me (although a bit more natural light would be nice, thank you!).

Started this sketch from the right side, and you could see that the lines were quite hesitant but slowly loosened up as I worked towards the left.

So that's it and just barely got it in!

January 7

The wall was hit pretty early on in the sketch. Need to work beyond it, but I'm just too tired right now.
Hopefully it'll be better tomorrow.

The main objective to this page was to get an even watercolour wash. Not successful. ughhh.

January 5 + January 6

Well started my new sketchbook and I had a bit of stage fright on the first page.
My dad's plants (January 5) and laundry-mat (January 6)

January 4

It's already feeling like an assignment: doing ONE drawing for everyday of January. Will do it anyways. However, it's the first weekend of January and hopefully I'll draw a lot more than just one per day and will have a number of drawings to choose from to to scan in for the following two days.

The hand drawing marks the end of one sketchbook and the starting of a new one. Slightly excited about that. (Call me geek)

January 3

Technically I finished the pen drawing portion at 12.34am and added all the extra stuff later this morning. So I broke my new year's resolution already.

Why does it take me so long to draw? Am I anal? yes. for one, I'm not particularly good at drawing circles in perspective. It's right up there with drawing a really good hand...

Uploaded are the raw image as well as a slightly modified one.

January 2

To try to fulfill one of my resolutions, I broke out the sketch book last night after a tiring, yet invigorating, aikido class (side bar: my sensei wooping ass). I had sleep on my brain but instead I sat down for the next bit and concentrated on my "still life". Needless to say, I didn't want to break my 2008 resolution so quickly, so here's my first installment to sketching everyday.

I've looked back at some of my sketches and everyone had to be pristine and finished to some level. No doubt, with some of the sketches that i'll be drawing, they won't meet this subconscious standard I have for myself and that's probably a good thing. It might even lead to a development in style, something that I've wanted to happen since university.

2008 resolutions…

#1. Add more posts to my blog, which means draw more.
#2. Draw something everyday, be it a doodle on a napkin to a full blown piece to everything in between.
#3. get a new day job.
#4. clean my apartment on a regular basis
#5. eat healthier.
#6. spend a bit more time with dad.

Everyday Objects 2

The Swiss Army knife was invented by Karl Eisner in 1891. Eisner was inspired to create a tool for the Swiss Army that was not manufactured by Germans, so he set out to produce a Swiss knife for the Swiss Army.

The first knife he made was called the “Soldier’s Knife,” which featured a wooden handle and a variety of tools including a blade, a screwdriver and a can opener. Later Eisner created a revised version of this knife that featured two blades instead of just one. Eisner needed another spring for the second blade, which also made room for him to add more tools such a corkscrew.

Everyday objects #1

Everyday objects #1

Shoes

Everyday objects #1

Everyday object 1

a collection of my shoes.

"Open"

A comforting neon sign in the middle of the night.

"Open"

In the middle of the night, a neon sign can be quite comforting.

Neighbourhood man

A man I see in my neighbourhood. Top. Final image. Bottom. Pencil roughs.