I'm back!

Fashion Drawing, Pencil.

Wow, I haven't posted anything on here for a long time! I've been really busy at work, especially now with the Christmas season. I was also sick last week, I had a bad case of the stomach flu and had constant fever and a strep throat. No fun... I'm going back to work tomorrow. *sigh. Christmas is in four days! Then it's my birthday! =)

I'm trying to get some new artwork going before the New Years. I bought a lot of art materials on Ebay last month (maybe a little too much I should say, but they're a Christmas/Birthday present for myself... hehe.) and I'm anxious on getting to use them. hehe.

Close-up of the drawing.

I attached a drawing I did for practice earlier this year. I got the model off from a Glamour magazine fashion page. Her eyes are done by continuous shading and I did a lot of incomplete lines on her face too which is always fun to do when you are doing a fashion drawing. I'll be putting up more recent work in a couple of days, so stay tuned for that!

Fashion Sketch

First Sketch

Final Sketch, Pencil.

This is a practice sketch. Both pictures are of the same drawing, I just took a picture of how it looked before I added all the details. But now after looking at it together, I wish I could have just kept it the way it was when I first took a picture of it.

My initial plan of the sketch was to keep it simple and make the focus more of her face, but I ended up putting way too much detail on her. Oops. But I guess this is just part of learning. Like they say, "Practice makes perfect."

My Keys!

My Keys, Ink and Water color, Moleskine.

I can't function at work without these keys! I bring them with me everywhere! There's my swipe card for work which I use to sign into the computers+workstations, my OH! Henry/Reese retractable blade (my two favorite chocolate bars, btw.), Hawaii key chain (which I don't know why I have it since I've never been to Hawaii), and keys for work and home. I use about six of those keys everyday, several of them I don't even know what door or lock they open to. I should probably decrease the amount of keys I have, it's getting really heaving on the pockets!

As for the drawing, I'm actually quite glad how it turned out. I started it about 3 weeks ago and stopped halfway because I was getting frustrated w/ the colors that I was using, but I decided to finish it over the long weekend and I couldn't believe how well it turned out. I use student grade water colors, I bought them when I first started learning about water color, but now I find the color in the set aren't the type of colors that I need. Maybe it's time that I upgrade to a higher quality of water color that would suit my needs a lot more and give me a more richer colors to my paintings.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I love the holidays only because it means I actually get some time off work. haha. No turkey this year though, I'm just going to relax and do some drawings at home.

I've been working on a painting for the past couple of days. It's been so long since I've held a paint brush. I can't even remember how to mix colors! But the painting is turning out really well. I might post it in a couple of days when I'm done. I'm just super glad my paints haven't dried out after so many years!

Here's a lil update... well kind of, I drew this less than a month ago for fun. I got the model off from one of the Glamour magazine pages. haha. I thought it would be neat to draw. I actually didn't want to color in her hair and lips in the beginning, but I guess I got a little carried away. =) Sorry about the quality of the picture, I no longer have my scanner, so now I have to resort to using my camera instead for taking images of my artwork.

Yes! We finally got to go see the Inukshuk!

My brother Len and co-worker Jacob walking up to the Inukshuk

During the summer, my family and I was able to go see the Inukshuk near our house before my brother left for Calgary. It wasn't as rocky of a climb as I thought, there's actually a drive path behind the hill that you could use to get up to the Inukshuk. The statue was huge! We were able to get a family picture underneath the Inukshuk. It was such an awesome sight! You could almost see the whole town from up there!

Moleskine

While browsing through random art blogs I've noticed that a lot of the artists were using this "moleskine" sketch book for their drawings and were giving it a lot of praise. I searched it on Google and was intrigued by the history of the brand and the type of the materials they used for their notebooks.

During my vacation in Calgary, I decided to buy a moleskine notebook. I bought the watercolor version at the art store that I've been going to since 7th Grade, Mona Lisa Arts Supply Store in 17th Ave SW. They didn't carry the sketchbook version though so I had to scope out the other Art Supply store a block away. Sadly, They didn't carry them either but I did get the Plain Reporter Notebook.

I'm still on my search for the sketchbook version of the Moleskine. Maybe the next time I'm in Calgary I might be able to find one. But one thing for sure, after purchasing these two Moleskine's I've become a true Moleskine fan.

Abstract Drawing

Here is a drawing of a Tigerlily that I did for the Industrial Architecture & Design class that I took last year. We were learning to do abstract drawing. First drawing is a sketch of a lily, the second drawing is a simplified version of it, and the third is an abstract sketch of the lily. I didn't do too well on the abstract version, I think because I had to many lines... oh well.

Welcome to the North.

What a hectic work day today was... Government Pay Day. The store was super busy! We had a power outage during lunch too which didn't much help much and in the afternoon, three cashiers didn't come back from their breaks and decided to take the rest of the day off. Fun.

"Welcome to the North." one lady said to me.

I've been in Rankin for more than a year now and I'm still not used to the staffing problem. Actually, I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

Wow, I haven't written here for so long! I've been so busy at work, I have no time to play on the computer anymore. Well, I guess I'll put up an old still-life sketch that I did about six years ago for my 11th grade Art class (I can't believe it's been six years!), just so I can have some sort of update. haha. I'll put more recent work later on. Enjoy.

Inukshuks

Every morning when I wake up, one of the first things that I see is the town's Inukshuk outside my window. Inukshuks are stone landmarks used as directional markers by the Inuit of the Canadian Artic. The stones are stacked in way that resembles humans, with outstretched arms that serves as a symbol of northern hospitality and friendship.

I haven't been able to go up to see the Inukshuk that's outside my window here in Rankin Inlet. It's on top of a very rocky hill and I'm a bit scared to go up there with all the snow and ice. Hopefully by spring, when most of the snow and ice is gone, I'll be able to go up there and actually get to touch it.

The stone statue can be seen anywhere in town. I took some quick sketches of it last month. (click on the image to get a better look). As you can tell, I'm not that good yet with cross hatching (haha), I'm still learning. But I think the sketches turned out pretty good. I might put up some photos of the Inukshuk here in Rankin Inlet later on, so stay tune for that!

Forever Odd...

I bought a new book the other day, "Forever Odd" by Dean Koontz. It's the follow up after "Odd Thomas". When I saw it at the "book section" in our store, I was super psyched almost to the point of fainting. I haven't actually finished reading "Odd Thomas" yet but concidering I'm a huge Dean Koontz fan, (also a huge Stephen King fan, btw.) I just had to buy the book.

The book now is sitting on my night table, waiting to be read. But first, I got to finish reading"Odd Thomas" and "Velocity", another book I'm reading, which is also by Dean Koontz. Yes, I read alot of books. My brother finds it amazing that I can read five to ten books at the same time and still remember what happened in the last book. What can I say? I'm just that talented.

It's finally 2007...

... what a year 2006 was. I think the most important thing I learned within that year is "patience". From living in a beautiful booming city, to a small Northern town out in the icy tundra, (with only a population of about 2,200), you kinda need alot of that. I've also learned to deal with different types of people and a whole other lifestyle other than mine. Overall, I've very proud of what I've achieved in 2006 and I hope that this will be a new beginning of a great new year!