Mid-Week #4: Wired Wednesday, Part the Second

It's time for the next installment of the Wired Wednesday series!  Okay, so it isn't exactly Wednesday anymore (well, on the west coast it is), but Wired Thursday doesn't exactly have the same ring to it.  Anyway, these are a few of my wire animals. These are all a lot more precise and less chaotically wired than Zeke-37. In fact, that chaotic style is almost exclusive to the wire man and his descendants now. So away we go...

First, I submit for your consideration a bat.  A lot like my drawing of the owl, this one isn't so much a specific type of bat as it is the Platonic ideal of Bat.  To give you an idea of overall size, he's about 16 inches from wingtip to wingtip He's currently hanging on my wall, so I obviously like how it turned out.  

This next one shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody who knows me or has seen my posts up to this point.  It's another monkey! Also not surprisingly it's one of my all-time favorites. I tried to get as much of that "Monkey-ness" into it that I could without overworking it.  The only thing it lacks is a name. Any suggestions would be thoughtfully considered.

Again for an idea of the size, it's about 13 inches to the top of the arch of his tail and about 10 inches from nose to back foot.

My rattlesnake is one of the more simple wire animals I've made.  The head is the most complex portion of it (at least as far as shape goes) and from there back it's mostly circles connected in such a way to give it the sense of movement.  The scale of this scaly slithering serpent is about 20 inches in it's current posture.  If it were able to extend to a straight line it would probably be around 26 inches.

The final animal offering for this post is my tiny giraffe. Standing a whopping 9 and a half inches tall, she's not exactly suited for grabbing the leaves at the top of the wire trees, but is a great height for hanging out on top of a shelf or chest of drawers.  She took just under two hours to construct, so given the level of complexity to her, she's one of my fasted wire-works so far. 

Next Wednesday (or Thursday at the latest) will bring more wire-works for your enjoyment, and of course the beginning of the week will bring more drawings (Sketched Sunday?). Until then, my friends, keep the arts alive.

Stay creative,

-AH!

A Bird, A Little Cat, and A Big Cat Walk Into a ...(stop me if you've heard this one)

I'll start this week with a drawing that is a favorite among my students.  I was substitute teaching at a middle school (junior high for those unfamiliar with the term), using the between class break to come up with more ideas, when I overheard the phrase "demon chicken" come from a group of kids in the hallway.  That was just the spark I needed. Immediately an image started to form in my head of what this thing would look like.  I decided to alter the concept a bit to be more kid-friendly, so here is my cave chicken.  It has pupil-less eyes much like cave-dwelling fish and amphibians, instead depending echolocation for "sight" in the darkness of the cave.   The standard coat of feathers has evolved away, in favor of layers of fat for warmth in cool, damp cavern environments.

The featureless eyes forced me to move away from my dependence on them for emotional impact, and the fat folds and veins were a fun way to work on shading and modeling. So whether you call it a demon chicken, a cave chicken, or (as a fifth grader more recently deemed it) the ugly bird, here it is in all its... glory?

Here is another case of artist's block.  This time instead of drawing a detailed ficus tree as I showed last week, I drew a very familiar animal with a twist.  I won't go into too much detail describing the drawing, since most people have at least a working knowledge of what a cat looks like.  The change, of course, is the single ear (in place of the normal three). So, out of my boredom and lack of different ideas was born the unicat. The fur didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, but as far as a springboard for creativity it did the trick.

 One of the quirks I have as an artist is the tendency to make animals take on almost human traits.  A great example of that is seen in this tiger. I'm not entirely sure if it's his eyes being larger and more focused than normal, or maybe his more rounded muzzle that does it here. Whether it's one of those traits or another more subtle one, I can't look at him without imagining him speaking some kind words of wisdom. In fact, with his exaggerated striping and semi-smile he could be the (much) more realistic cousin of A.A. Milne's Tigger.
Getting the tigers approximate symmetry right was a bit of a pain. If you recall from previous posts, that aversion to perfect symmetry is also part of the reason I don't draw a lot of cars, buildings, machines.

Okay, so there's this week's post.  I think I'm going to start to limit myself to three drawings/pictures per post for a while. That way I have time to add more to the growing collection and can continue the blog longer. There should continue to be new posts at the beginning and midway through each week so keep watching. 

As always, stay creative.

-AH!

Mid-Week Post #3: Wired Wednesday

And now for something completely different.  I first began bending picture hanging wire into various shapes one night after a seeing a great concert (the Christian rock group Third Day, for those interested) in North Little Rock, Arkansas one Good Friday, quite a few years back.  Oddly specific, I know, but that's just how my memory works. Anyway, the first thing I made was a little man. This one is a little more refined than that first one, as I have made a veritable army of the little guys since then. They usually end up going home with whoever is around and seems interested when I'm making them. My first wire man I made, named Zeke-37, still resides on a shelf in my bedroom.

After the first four or five wire men, I decided to try some other shapes and, for whatever reason, I settled on masks.  I'm really fascinated by masks of various cultures. I find it interesting how some cultures that are separated by vast geographical distances frequently managed to not only create similar mythologies, but chose to express them through the crafting of masks. I'm sure that hundreds of psychologists and cultural anthropologists that have at least as many theories as to why that happened.  Honestly I'm not interested in the reasoning, I just like the masks. Here are a couple of the first ones I made. The first one ended up having a Norse feel to it. The second has a sort of an African feel. I included side views of them to show their depth.

I made this sun not long after these first two masks. I suppose it could be considered the third mask I made. The distance between the eyes and mouth of this one would make it less functional, except perhaps for a child. I suppose I haven't really made any of them to be wearable, instead opting to make them more for decoration than anything else.

Much like the drawings, that's just the tip of the iceberg in regards to my wire working, so I'd imagine I'll be posting more of these too as time progresses.  Until next time, I'll leave you with one of my new favorite quotes.

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."

-Scott Adams, Cartoonist and Author

Stay creative, my friends.

-AH!

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, or Some Combination Thereof?

I think that title describes these pictures well.
This first drawing was a way to stretch my wings a bit (if you'll forgive the pun) by drawing a close-up of a hawk's head.  Of course, drawing a bird meant drawing feathers, which is not only a pretty relaxing activity but also excellent practice in drawing repeated, similar shapes. The difficult part is keeping the feathers similar in shape, while still including their natural variations so they don't look artificial.  There's very little shading in the feathers, which is another step outside of my comfort area.  The great part is that the angles of the feathers show the contour of the bird, rendering shading (again forgive the pun) virtually unnecessary.

The tree that is below is the result of the visual artist's equivalent of writer's block.  I can't really complain though, since I ended up with a really detailed illustration of a ficus tree.  The leaves look better in person, but you can see I employed a similar method to that of the hawk's feathers.  The leaves are similar to each other, but show a degree of variation as well.  The difference being that I wanted the feathers to show the contours of the hawk's head. If the leaves were all similarly angled, the tree would look more like a topiary than a naturally growing ficus. I should also point out that this particular ficus is an evil ficus.  You really have to watch out for them, since they look just like any other ficus.

One Sunday morning I had the bright idea to ask several kids in my church's youth group to throw out some ideas for strange things to draw. One of them, Nash R., really delivered. While I'm not sure I'd spontaneously choose to draw a Japanese spider crab, in retrospect I'm glad I did.  Keeping the legs in proportion to each other was a huge pain, but as with any trial, it paid me with experience. I couldn't have asked for a much better result for this decapod.  If you've never heard of these things, I suggest reading up on them. You can't get a much more intimidating crustacean than a 12 foot, 40 pound crab.

In case the fact hasn't become obvious yet, I greatly prefer drawing organic shapes (e.g. animals) to drawing more angular objects with set proportions (e.g. buildings or automobiles). This is an exception to that rule.  This was another requested drawing, and in this case it was one of my students who made the request unsolicited.  He wanted me to draw a robot dog.  Now, those who know me also know that I'm a bit of a pushover when it comes to polite requests from kids (or adults for that matter), so after only a very slight hesitation I agreed. Thus was born (constructed?) the robotic dog. In case he ever happens to stumble across this particular blog post, I'd like to say to him "Thank you, Ethan S. for pushing me outside of my artistic comfort zone.  I really like the way this little pup turned out, and would likely have never tried it without your tenacious coaxing."

That about does it for this episode.  Tune in next post, same bat-time, same bat-channel.

-AH!

Mid-Week Post #2

It's the middle of the week again, so here are a few more sketches.

First is a little guy in a short tuxedo.  I'm going to call him a brownie.  Not the chocolate kind, obviously, but the mythological kind.  Even though I don't recall them being known as a particularly classy lot, I chose to dress him in a tuxedo. I suppose since I've drawn similar creatures these many times over the years that these guys must be one of the many native species of my imagination.  This one, named James, came to realization while I was sitting in the stands at a high school lacrosse game. He is on the back of a team roster, drawn with a dollar store blue pen, so not the best quality paper or drawing instrument, but I think he looks rather dapper anyway.

Here are some hands I drew while in college about *coughs* years ago. The right-hand...hand in the second drawing bothers me a little, but I drew it exactly as the source picture I was working from showed it.  I can't help it if they chose a hand model with a chimp proportioned palm.
I would highly recommend drawing hands in various poses for any aspiring artist.  They, like the eyes, are one of the most expressive parts of a person. Don't believe me? Watch people conversing.  Are their hands still?  Probably not.
Disclaimer: Drawing hands can be exceptionally frustrating and I am in no way responsible for any damages to you or your surroundings as a result of hand-drawing frustration. If you chose to punch a hole in a wall, your safety is (literally) in your own hands.

Finally is a portrait of a zombie drawn on lined notebook paper (a medium I prefer to avoid when possible).  I brought him into being between the first and second periods of a Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs hockey game where I was working as a camera operator. I realized that most zombies are given rather unbecoming names like Decomposing Composer, Vicious Girl Scout, or Miami Face Eater, so I decided to give them a little class.  That established, I submit for your approval Mr. Holden J. Glover, the Eloquent Zombie.  While other zombies are shambling around moaning and groaning, he is shambling around very politely moaning "I'm really rather famished. Might I partake of your brain?"  Alas, in spite of his impeccable manners, he is still a zombie.

So there you have it. Another mid-week post for you. I'm thinking next Wednesday may be the first Wire Sculpture Wednesday.  As always, please share any comments or requests for future projects (celebrity portraits excluded) below.  Who knows?  Your idea may be just the inspiration I'm seeking.
-AH!

Meet Stan and Spite

As I've mentioned before, the inside of my head can be a scary place to the casual observer. I'm quite comfortable there, but again it is MY head. Taking that into account, here are a couple of the creatures to crawl out of the recesses of my imagination.

First up is Stan Fauntleroy. He's a lizard-man, plain and simple. I do feel the need to point out that while he does possess a phenotype similar to that of a certain insurance peddling gecko, they are in no way related. Stan is not the kind of guy you want to run into in a dark alley. He may look fairly innocuous on first inspection, but would you really want to cross a six foot tall, surly lizard man?
Artistically speaking, I find drawing fine details very relaxing, thus the multitude of individual scales. He was also one of my first attempts at a portrait from (almost full) profile.

Next we meet Spite. Not a lot to say about this one other than that he is the personification of the concept of spite. I guess if you insist on defining what type of creature he is, I'd probably call it a hobgoblin. In any case, I suspect I wouldn't trust him with children, small animals, or anything else defenseless. I mean, look at those teeth.
Putting his personality flaws aside and taking an artistic standpoint, Spite's face is intended to be both compelling and disturbing to look at, with greatly enlarged eyes (as I've mentioned being fond of) and a nice, big smile full of really sharp teeth.

These guys are just the tip of the "what the heck?!" iceberg. So check back (at least) every Sunday and Wednesday.
-AH!

Mid-Week Post #1

As promised, here is the first mid-week post. These are a few sketches that I've done when I had a planning period while substitute teaching. They give a brief glimpse into the more... unique side of my imagination that has been showing itself more often as time progresses.

The first is another dragon, this time more Asian-styled.

Next are a couple of vicious looking creatures drawn, unfortunately, on a yellow lined notepad.  Eh... I guess you work with what you've got.  Not really sure what to call either of them, but open to suggestions.

There you have it.  I'm sure that between sketches buried in piles of papers and new sketches that result from boredom inspired trips into my imagination, I should be able to keep up the mid-week posts.
-AH!

Canines and Primates and Birds, Oh My!

Okay, so more accurately one canine, two primates, and one bird.  Either way, you get the idea. Titles aren't my strong suit.  These don't really require a lot of explanation, so... yeah... here they are.

First up is an owl.  I didn't have a specific type of owl in mind as much as a generic concept of an owl.  Again, working without reference or any experience with feather dynamics, there are some issues (with the wings in particular) but I'm reasonably happy with the way he turned out.

Next up is a bulldog.  His eyes are kind of big, but I wouldn't change that. I like to make eyes a bit too large for extra emphasis on the emotion they can convey.  For example, this dog's eyes are saying "Where's my food?" It was also a great dog to choose for wrinkle shading practice.

Primates are a little easier for me since I have a long-held fascination with monkeys and apes.  Not a lot to say about this gorilla. I wasn't crazy about the fact that his ear was hidden in his fur in the reference pic I used.  When I added it in during the early sketching process, though, it didn't look right so I just went with the hidden ear.  He looks rather indifferent about it.

I'm usually hesitant to say too much good of my own art (a large part of my reasoning behind starting this blog), but this little guy is an exception.  I easily qualify him as one of my favorite drawings.  Like the bulldog he seems to portray his thoughts very well through his facial expression.  He seems to be thinking "Mmm... this is some tasty bamboo."  It isn't especially deep, but what do you expect from a monkey.

As a finishing note, I've found that posting just once a week is just doesn't seem like enough, so I'm working on a few possible weekly mid-week posts. Probably some rough sketches or doodles.  Eventually, I'll likely post some pics of paintings and wire sculptures I've done, too.  Again, any ideas for future drawings or art projects can be dropped as a comment below.

-AH!