Drink and Draw in the East Village

     What I'm working on right now: 

     Original drawing and stage one coloring.  Radical shift from the original, right?  But that was my plan.  She's black.... Just the skin and eyes here.  I've yet to fill in the lips, mouth and hair.  And whatever that is she's wearing....

     For fun, I did a digital edit before I even started on the hair.  Striking!  I will have to do two versions because the digital version is REALLY gonna pop and I can throw some fierce colors on it.  Love digital edits!!

Busy hands....  I gots 'em.

Drawing, designing, still experimenting with clay (more on that later).  Among it all, one of the projects that I have in mind is to write a tweens/teens book since I have a really good concept for one.  I began working on the characters.  This is my first one:  






I plan to name her Kai.  There are 3 characters in the book, Kai, Alisa and the last one I'm still trying to name.  After creating her, I began also trying to draw this same character in different poses/expressions.  Ish is mad hard to do!!  I will need to practice that, though, because your character really does have to look uniform throughout the illustrations in the book.

My attempts at uniformity:




Wellllll..... I need to keep working on it!  Practice, they say....

Now....here is a funny thing.  Sometimes I draw thinking I'm making one thing and it turns out I made something else without realizing it.  Kai is kind of a clone of me, somewhat.  I didn't realize it until I finished here.  She is definitely a take on THIS me:



For real, though,, right? lmao!  I guess since my face is the one that I see more than any other I drew myself (almost) without even knowing.  Gotta make sure not to do that with EVERY woman I draw!!

As I began working on this project I also started drawing a few backgrounds for the different scenes that the characters should be in, like the front stoop of one of the girls houses, etc.  I also began to research more into what it will take to get an illustrated book such as this published.  It won't have pictures on every page, but I do want to have some illustration in it.  What I learned through researching, though, is that when publishing houses accept and decide to print your book, they use their own in house illustrators!  Well, damn!  That screws up my whole plan!!  Part of the joy for me in writing the book is not just writing the story but also presenting my illustrations.  So  That.... Just..... SUCKS!!!  I also looked into self publishing and found that books that are illustrated are far more expensive to produce, especially those where the artwork is in color.  Hmpf.  Sooooo..... I gotta think this one out.  Maybe not do it in color?  I for sure don't want to do the book and have someone else illustrate it.  These characters need to look exactly the way I created them.  I know an in house illustrator is just gonna draw what THEY think and feel the characters should look like.  So... NOT... gonna.... happen here.  

I'm still going to work on this project, but not really urgently.  Still gotta make the other two girls, so I'm going to go ahead and do that.  Then, I'll see what path to try to take from there.  In the meantime, I have a ton of other projects that need to get done, so no worries!  Hopefully I'll end up making enough money from some of those to get the money to eventually produce this book myself!

So....  I see that it has been a long while since I posted something here!!  But guess what?  I've been busy working my little hands off.  Drawing, painting, sketching, learning to work with new media and tools, making clothing (as always) and now, I'm working on a few jewelry pieces.  Hence my new fascination with clay!

The only reason I have not posted any of my painted or drawn works here is that I can't get a good shot of them with my camera!!  I have tried different lighting, different rooms of my house and even have photographed a few things outside in the daylight, but the detailing still gets lost.  I'm tired of then trying to adjust the lighting of my drawings on a photo editor because that takes away from the basic integrity and originality of the piece. I'd rather not show it at all than to just show it in half its glory or edited. I have a really good mixed media drawing/painting that I did a couple months ago that totally loses its intended impact unless you can see all the textures I used, which won't pick up in photos.  But no worries... now I have found a good print shop in The Village that does scan everything, including art, so more of my stuff will soon be showing up here!  Yay!  I can't wait to show off my latest works!

In the meantime, I am trying to fill my Etsy store, and part of my inventory will be jewelry, which I am working on as we speak.  In working on the pieces for my collection, I am not just going the typical route by using store bought beads, charms and notions, etc to make my stuff.  Yes, I will use some of those elements to complement my pieces, but most of my parts are being made by hand by Moi (that's French for 'me').  I am using a variety of materials, some which will need a filler of some sort to give the jewelry parts some weight.  In trying to figure out what I could put inside a hollow jewel piece to achieve that, it came to me that I had bought some sculpting clay awhile back, intending to play around with it.  Well, VOILA!! -- there's my filler!!!  I began to work on the stencils and patterns for my pieces and then realized - hey!  Not only can I use clay as a filler, but I can also make some other parts for my jewelry pieces out of the clay!! - Duhhh....   Sometimes it takes a minute or two for the whole picture to pop in for me, but it always eventually does - ha!  So, I decided to experiment around with the clay and make a few pieces just to learn how to really work with this stuff successfully.  In the midst of this clay brainstorm I also remembered that I have cookie cutters.  Well, damn, there's nothing better to make precise clay figures with than a cookie cutter!  So, on I went on this little adventure...


The clay I used is a cheap polymer clay that is not meant for really serious work.  I found that out a minute too late, but this was a good learning experience nonetheless.  I used my cookie cutters to make stars and a penis.  Um, yeah... I have a penis cookie cutter.  Doesn't everyone?  :)  I actually have 3 in ascending sizes since they came in a set!  I took a heart pendant and traced it to make a heart charm.  Inside the heart I drew 3 smaller hearts and then cut out the hollows with an Exacto knife.  Above is my first batch of clay works, pre bake.  Below is the detailing on the first penis - I plan to paint it black and accent it in gold or silver, so I etched a design in ahead of time:




There's also a second penis, you say?!  Haaa!  Yeah, there is!  The one above came from the cookie cutter I had.  Well, after I made that one I was like "damn.  I know I can make a better penis than THAT!" So, I did!  And that second penis, ladies and gents, goes down in history as the first thing I've ever in life sculpted with my two hands.  No stencil, no pattern, no directions.  I just broke off clay, balled it up and made the parts, joining them together as I went.  And I'm damn proud of the result!   My first body part!  A penis!! Ha ha haaaa!  Here is the underside, so that you can appreciate the full 3 D-ness of it:



Yeah, it's tiny.  Well, what do you want, eh?  I won't go into whether or not I've actually seen one that size in real life - this ain't that kind of blog.  But man, if I told you.....  you would die! :D

So, after reading around online, I learned the proper temperature and amount of time needed to "fire" the clay to make the figures harden.  (no jokes on that, please... )  Here is the result:

Once again, I am pleased.  The beads came out of the oven decently hardened, so success on that one. I plan to be making a ton more beads now that I know how to do it.  The great thing about making your own base materials is that you can put your own unique designs on them.  I will also research on the best way to fire, glaze and finish all my future clay products.  I plan to use my drawing skills to decorate and design them my way.  Me and clay - it's ON!!  And I can't wait to see all the cool, new things I'm getting ready to make! It's gonna be fierce! :D

Acrylic on heavy weight paper..... This is actually a BAD pic of an okay painting I just did.  Since I've been hiking and mountain climbing I've been wanting to paint nature scenes.  Learning how to do mountains and the surrounding scenery is a challenge, yet it is fun! So many textures to play with and try to recreate.  Still working on that.... ;)   This pic was taken in some poor lighting so I used the flash.  Funny thing though, the flash makes the water in the painting look wet!  I will probably scan this one and re post it later, though.  This pic does not really bring it all through....   And yeah, that's ME up there on the mountain, facing the sun..... ;)  

                                                                                                                     

Back at it, and this time I am working on a butterfly, fairy woman..... entity.  lol!  Anyway, she's a fairy, I guess.  I drew it in pencil and I just finished it off in fine tipped black pen.  Since I draw things on the spur of the moment and so randomly, usually on the train, I sometimes end up putting something really good on a piece of notebook paper.  That's what happened here.  Now, I have to get rid of those lines. I attempted that by doing a white out of the lines with white acrylic paint.  Let it dry, and then I took a photo of it.  Here is the piece after phase one (draw and basic hand edit):