Tag: art stuff

To-do list for portfolio (for my reference, really):

  • Paint troll picture, jane, nellie, hedgehog
  • Scan unicorns, dogs, horses, nellie, robot
  • Scan & redo xander, monster (decided not to do this)
  • Sketch, paint, finish Daksh
  • Find a pair for Jane and Xander
  • Write title/short-desc for all
  • Write short bio for me
  • Figure out how to do a business card pocket (maybe)
  • Narrow down title & desc font from list of 25 Done!

…at least there’s only one that I need to do from scratch. The others are at LEAST sketched or partially inked. 

And hey, I think that’ll fill 15 pages nicely! Then all I’ll have to do is figure out what to do for my cover… if anything… I at least figured out that it’ll be 36 “pages” total and use 9 pieces of paper, which is cool. Deep breath. Slow exhale. I can totally do this. 

Oh, and Fishsticks is at 47,000 words now. Still not at 75k, obviously, but getting there. I’m traipsing through the murky middle and rethinking some of the timeline, which would involve a LOT of work… I may just finish it as-is and worry about that in the next round of revisions, AFTER the conference. Or, you know, ask their advice about it. 

How long have you been arting (schooled/self-taught, etc)?

I have always been drawing, ever since I can remember. One of my earliest memories is being mad at age 3 because SOMEONE put CHALK in the crayon bucket and I bit it to test and BLECK. 

In 2nd grade, my dad told me that I would need to learn to get really good at drawing circles, squares, and triangles if I wanted to do art seriously. That’s when I started reading art books and constructing drawings with shapes.

In 7th grade, I applied for an online art archive and was utterly rejected because my stuff was definitely not up to scratch. I was pointed to Tracy Butler’s art and fell in love with art as a means of storytelling. I wanted to get good. Really good.

After that, I took every art class public school had to offer, and filled sketchbook after sketchbook on my own time. Art class was helpful because my teachers forced me to do stuff I didn’t want to do (cross-hatching, life study, learning art history), and it was all very beneficial. They also gave me access to free art supplies that I never would have been able to afford on my own– paint, pastels, illustration board, clay, kilns, etc. 

I got accepted to a university in the Animation Major, learned that my arm and procrastination tendencies couldn’t handle it, and switched to Illustration. Color theory and observational drawing weren’t at all new to me, but it was GREAT to study side-by-side with people who actually CARED about it instead of being forced to. And I probably learned more through one semester of advanced figure drawing than I had in any other class.

None of the classwork were things that I couldn’t have learned on my own; art class is not a magical thing. People can take all of the art classes in the world and won’t improve if they don’t consciously practice and observe. But they are great motivators and I am so glad that I took those classes. Even Art History, because man I have a much better appreciating and understanding for the master works now. Context really is everything.

Anyway, I still have a lot to learn, but to answer your question… if we consider 7th grade the starting point, I guess I’ve been doing art “seriously” for… 17 years? OMG… 

Now go look at Tracy’s art and be inspired: @lackadaisycats

What are your preferred medias/programs?

Digital is much easier on my arm, so when I can get to my desk (not lately because I SERIOUSLY need to get those wraps before I spend any more time at a desk outside of my day job), I favor Paint Tool Sai for sketching/inking and water-color style painting, Autodesk Sketchbook Pro for sketching and markers, and Art Rage for crayon/chalky stuff. I kind of cycle through them in phases for whatever I feel like doing, so it’s all terribly inconsistent… but I DO process all of them through Adobe Photoshop CS6 (or CC if I’m at work) at the end for level and color adjustment. 

You can read more about my digital stuff here: http://gabapple.tumblr.com/post/130978403621/hi-sorry-to-bother-you-but-i-was-wondering-what – it has pictures!

For traditional media, I love drawing with ball point pens. But sometimes I prefer 0.5 mechanical pencils. I used to color with prismacolor pencils, but it destroyed my already injured arm… so I tend to stick to markers (prismacolor) when I’m doing “serious” stuff, often blended with just a LITTLE bit of colored pencil (cheap crayolas). 

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with brush pens and highlighters and I am LOVING it. They’re way more portable than watercolors, and so much less messy. But once I can be at my art desk, I’d like to do more watercolor and ink wash stuff. 

Pens, though. I love messy sketching. 

ryouverua:

For digital painters/artists – what size do you generally set your canvas to when you’re thinking about a 8.5 x 11 print? I’m still pretty new to this and last year I kept going waaaay too small and getting terribly pixelly results!

I usually set mine to 8.5 x 11 as far as dimensions go, but the most important thing to watch is your resolution. For print, I never go anything lower than 300, but that seems to work for MOST things.

So a typical canvas of mine will look like this in Photoshop:

I hope this helps somehow!!! If not, check out this wikipedia article on DPI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_per_inch