I hope everyone's having a great holiday season so far. I just thought I'd make a quick update while I'm on vacation since an interview (my first!) I did for Something We Like just posted today. Check it out if you're interested.
Well, I'm off to wrap some more presents and eat entirely too much!
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Mexican Hats & Indian Blankets (Applied)
Drawing inspiration from photos I took a year ago of wildflowers in Austin (see previous post Mexican Hats & Indian Blankets), I drew this little guy who is modeling his Mexican hat and Indian blanket poncho. I love how the common names of so many wildflowers evoke such very specific images:
I mostly just wanted to get the idea down on paper, but I also thought these simple drawings would provide me a good opportunity to play with digital coloring since I am still just barely dipping my toes in the great big digital pond. Something else I did with these drawings that I almost never do was to complete the initial shading in pencil. In my current technique, the painting stage consumes so much time that I never bother to establish lighting in the sketch phase. I'll often work it out in a color study if I can't visualize it well enough to go straight to final. If you notice a difference in texture between the two drawings it's because one I drew on graphics pad paper and the other on bristol paper just to get a feel for how the different media take shaded pencil drawings.
I think this little character is begging for a story. Maybe I'll dream something up for him some day...
I mostly just wanted to get the idea down on paper, but I also thought these simple drawings would provide me a good opportunity to play with digital coloring since I am still just barely dipping my toes in the great big digital pond. Something else I did with these drawings that I almost never do was to complete the initial shading in pencil. In my current technique, the painting stage consumes so much time that I never bother to establish lighting in the sketch phase. I'll often work it out in a color study if I can't visualize it well enough to go straight to final. If you notice a difference in texture between the two drawings it's because one I drew on graphics pad paper and the other on bristol paper just to get a feel for how the different media take shaded pencil drawings.I think this little character is begging for a story. Maybe I'll dream something up for him some day...
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Thanksgiving in Prescott
I might be a little late in saying so, but I hope everyone had an excellent Thanksgiving holiday! My in-laws recently relocated, so we had the pleasure of visiting a new town for the holiday this year. I'd spent one night in Prescott, AZ several years ago, but hadn't really had much time to explore. Four and a half days for this vacation gave us a good chunk of time to check out the area and we rapidly discovered how rich the Prescott region is in hiking opportunities!
We first climbed (and conquered!) Thumb Butte, so named as from the distance it looks rather like the tip of a thumb:
The trail sort of disappears in a jumble of rocks and brush as one nears the top, so we had to do quite a lot of scrambling to make it to the top. And make it we did, but not without facing some harrowing obstacles on the way.
Less than a five minute drive from the my in-laws new home was Willow Lake and the Willow Dells Slickrock Trail Loops.
Probably my favorite of all the hiking we did last weekend, these trails involved a great deal of boulder-hopping with stunning panoramic views of the dells and the lake.
We finished off our hiking Sunday at Granite Mountain, taking a trail that wound up a lower hill and offered nice views of the mountain catching some late afternoon sun.
We'd been feeling a bit starved for good hikes since our move to Dallas, so this vacation was just what we needed. I'm not sure how many miles we totaled, but it certainly felt like a lot. We came back from our vacation feeling pretty exhausted, but for all that hiking it was definitely worth it!
We first climbed (and conquered!) Thumb Butte, so named as from the distance it looks rather like the tip of a thumb:
The trail sort of disappears in a jumble of rocks and brush as one nears the top, so we had to do quite a lot of scrambling to make it to the top. And make it we did, but not without facing some harrowing obstacles on the way.Less than a five minute drive from the my in-laws new home was Willow Lake and the Willow Dells Slickrock Trail Loops.
Probably my favorite of all the hiking we did last weekend, these trails involved a great deal of boulder-hopping with stunning panoramic views of the dells and the lake.
We finished off our hiking Sunday at Granite Mountain, taking a trail that wound up a lower hill and offered nice views of the mountain catching some late afternoon sun.
We'd been feeling a bit starved for good hikes since our move to Dallas, so this vacation was just what we needed. I'm not sure how many miles we totaled, but it certainly felt like a lot. We came back from our vacation feeling pretty exhausted, but for all that hiking it was definitely worth it!
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