Daily Sketch 9-5-11

A new job is a wonderful thing. It does, however, take some getting used to. Especially as far as scheduling is concerned.

Still, some time can be found...

Daily Sketch 8-26-11

At the behest of one of my good friends, a mini expression sheet of...well, it ought to be an Atlas Deer/Barbary Stag. 

Better than the usual melancholic and/or introspective look my character designs usually have. He's right, though, "Aggressive" looks more like plaintive, or possibly agonized...

Daily Sketch 8-18-11

I was able to spend a few hours today in the Natural History Museum on campus, and spent a good deal of time (after photographing everything, of course) drawing these. It was a lot of fun, and I think I've improved immensely. These were done right-to-left, by the way.

Daily Sketch 8-17-11

Done today at work:

 

A scarf- and sweater-wearing badger and a saintly camel pouring fluid scorn (metaphorically) upon the words "Pouring Scorn." I like the way the latter is going, and may end up doing a large painting of it (for my show perhaps). It would be good lettering practice.

The phrase, by the way, stems from my listening to the Redwall book-on-cd (it's been probably a decade since I'd first read the book, maybe longer). It's interesting how our tastes can change as we develop a sense of discernment. I had never noticed how many adverbs the book has in rapid succession, nor how much Mr. Jacques seemed to still be feeling out the world he was creating (a world that is far more solid and confident in itself in such later works as The Long Patrol and Mariel of Redwall). Fascinating from a literary standpoint, and of course the entire series is a wealth of possibilities for illustration. But that is for a later day...

Daily Sketch 8-16-11

Roman baths (as mentioned here), a little waterfall/spring thing, and an even littler sketch of an Anubis. yay Anubis.

You know you're an artist when ...

... you find your work posted somewhere, without your knowledge.

I was doing a random Google search tonight, because I wanted to show a friend how I was intending on doing an illustration (hopefully tonight's Daily Sketch Edit: Daily Sketch is here.); namely, in the style of David Macaulay.

The image I had in mind was from his amazing book Great Moments in Architecture, specifically plate XXIV, "Homage to the Revolving Door."

I had, many years ago, done several studies of Mr. Macaulay's work, particularly the way he depicted miniature people in his drawings of architecture (rather like Piranesi's etchings, wherein the structures are so massive that the people are reduced to stick-like blobs), and had done a drawing from that particular plate.

In amongst the bad Facebook photos and other unrelated things the Google search pulled up, I found this image:

It was the one I was looking for! So I opened it in a new tab and then got a look at the actual name of the image ... no wonder it looked familiar: it was the self-same study I had done years ago [originally posted here.], now used on a blog about (I think) the revolving door feeling of the American Health Care system [or somesuch. This is the site—if you go, I recommend turning your sound down/off, as the author has music embedded].

I'm not mad, and actually thought the whole affair was rather hilarious. Though in retrospect, it is a little unnerving how easy it is for one's work to be re-purposed like that, with no credit given, no permission asked. And, of course, it's not even the original work. At least I make plain the fact that my drawing is a copy, an exercise.

It's amazing what you can find on the internet.

David Macaulay's website
My original post.
His book: Great Moments in Architecture
Wikipedia's entry on Piranesi

Daily Sketch 8-12-11

It always surprises me what 15 minutes and some good focused effort will do.

Drawn from an illustration by H.J.Ford (though the original was a young man, a'la Howl from Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle, and not a dragon).

I wish I could figure out why my scanner is so blurry all of a sudden...I may need to re-install the driver. Such a pity when technology falls down on the job.