carpe omnium's Journal

10:51am: oh mah gaw i drew stuff!





i totally cheat on back muscles, really i have non idea wtf is going on back there. i've done so many muscle drawings of the back but its always totally different when you're looking at a real, moving back.

these aren't from life, though, they're referenced from a delightful figure reference book.

winter break = gesture life drawing!

9:44pm: i will entertain you with a concept sketch for a skool assignment - awesome! its a poster about the environment. key concept words: zero waste, future, ecosystem.



the first thing i thought of was a "closed ecosystem" like those people with their fancy fish-plant aquariums. rest easy, this boy will have legs.

at first i was containing the circle inside the 10x20" rectangle we have to work in but it felt kind of constrained.

i want to try to emphasize drawing with this one in the final, maybe something like this or this. i've never done those on a large, complicated scale before. no time like the present?

a few things i have to keep in mind:
- light source (i've already kind of lost my light source here, oops.. must do a quick light-study just to cement things)
- don't panic and start doing things without thinking

9:59pm: I really like doing collages, i tend to do them in a frenzy - paper, glue, scissors flying everywhere! i think its important for me to work with a lot of different types of materials, even if its just in my workbook, it keeps everything feeling fresh.



she loves you furreal!



do we have another cat?





don't sue me oookay, these are just for fun.

i really love type, i love looking at type upside down so i can see all the shapes. i like how type looks when its jammed all together.

3:57pm: New York: an exorcise in communal screaming by the gentleman with the itchy legs
I am back from New York!


ha! you know i didn't notice it at the time but i seem to have given her some kidn of horrible spine problem, her neck is waay over on the left.

My trip took an unexpected turn before it even started when I missed my group's bus, i was all packed up and i checked my facebook and found a message that said "where are you the bus is leaving!". 'SHIT NO WTF!' panic ensues but i decided to hop on my own bus and come anyway. I'd never been to a city by myself before, so everything was kind of crazy. In the morning and evening I'd hang out in front of the hostel I thought they were at and try to run into them but no luck - where were these people?! I figured out where they were holding an art show at a place called Red Hook in Brooklyn and made up my mind to somehow get there.

some maps and direction, this is what the inside of my head looks like:



I dont know if you've been to New York, but getting from Manhattan to Red Hook is an adventure all on its own. The first directions I got from a subway worker sent me to the wrong station but this big amazing black woman train worker helped me out and sent me to a bus stop in front of a church. but were no buses running to Redhook (or anywhere, there was an accident on the bridge) so I was wandering around at night, no idea where i was going, using a shitty bus route map i had doodled in my journal for guidance. a lot of really nice spanish people gave me directions along the way. an hour and a half later i wandered into this warehouse area and THEY WERE THERE! big hugs all around, "i can't believe you made it!", etc. - neither could i!



I went to see Tim Fite, which was pretty much my first ever concert. i don't know how to describe my experience there but it felt almost religious to me, in a violent, frenzied, insane mosh pit kind of way. Tim's music was described to me as "kind of like folk hip hop" which did nothing to prepare me for the insanity of his Halloween concert. When they got on stage they were wearing all white, no pants, they had licorice and candies stuffed into the front of their tightie whities and the show began with "an exorcise in communal screaming by the gentleman with the itchy legs". Needless to say, I was in love. Totally infatuated. Tim was like a character out of a David Lynch movie. They were all very bizarre, moving strangely through the crowd, destroying things - total chaos!

Tim Fite stuff:



Living with Tim Fite part two

notes about tim fite the day after:



I found a couple of souveniers in Brooklyn at a rummage sale and found a lot of nice clothes on the streets, people just leave a lot of stuff out.

i didn't have my glasses on when i drew this:



I can't tell you how much beautiful art I saw at the MET: Sargent, Watteau drawings, Reynolds,MUCHA; at times my heart was beating so fast it actually hurt my chest. Seeing these pieces in real life was like meeting a long lost friend.

I have so many stories, I think missing the bus was actually one of the best things that could have happened.

11:40am:

mah hurrrrr. it's pretty long and i was all grooming with a buzzer and decided 'hey i'll just take the sides down! and oh i like it.

8:42pm: a warm up collage from today



also, practice from yesterday:



i gave myself an undercut last night! it looks great.

9:31pm: this illustrator whose work i really dig has commented TWICE on my art blog which means he liked them AND that HE CAME BACK TO SEE NEW STUFF!

aw man.

also here's one more from this morning, while i'm here.

12:08pm:

a study from this morning

5:07pm: drawn and painted in mah sketchbook, i adjusted the colours in potatoshop



cause WHOA my scanner eats colours for breakfast.

zis painting style is inspired by kaleykaleykaleykaleykaley

12:32pm: kaley in critique. booty booty booty shorts!



and here's something from her living room. she has a lot of weird owl things. and also a 50's tiki bar (not pictured).


after rubens, just something to keep my hands busy while watching law and order. idle hands, devils, etc.



coffee with anne, la la la



coffee with janet, la la la. i seem to have a lot of coffee dates.



i've decided that thing on the right will be my new signature. i think i have to make it 5x bigger, though. yep.


this is from the summer, actually. look at me all ignoring the hands and face. also that arm is grossly disproportionate. theres something i still like about it, though.



this is after a renaissance sculpture but i can't remember which one.


in other news, i'm going to new yawk from Oct 28 to Nov 1.

Here is my current itinerary:

- the met (at least 2x because i like to go through museums methodically)
- the Morbid Anatomy Library
- society of illustrators
- society of illustrators halloween shinanigans
- strands bookstore

also in case you're wondering i'm eating broccoli right now. can i get a hellz yeah!?

9:28pm:

10:34am: at right, meow



her son robert



chicken arms



chicken twig



a girl in class



it's a poem!

9:36am:

8:59pm: that sinking feeling



the girl is an interpretation of part of a photo by ed templeton from the age of neglect, 2002.

the other hand is buddah's, china c. 650 - 750.

i drew these studies side by side but separately and they inadvertently developed a story of their own.

see hand not cut off quite so abruptly over here.

on an indirectly related note, this week i keep accidentally cutting my hands, i have like 5 separate boo-boos between the two right now. clumsy clumsy. that's not actually part of this drawing-story i just thought i'd mention it.

9:02am: luke



here are 3 gesture drawings of my friend's kitty.

sit sit sit



wash wash wash

2:47pm: more musings from my sketchbook





i enjoy drawing in this style, i feel like im chasing the line around

6:22pm:

7:28pm: greetings from space!

this is what happens in space.

trust me, i'm a doctor.





two pages of doodles from when im supposed to be doing other things.

10:13pm: i've discovered this summer that i'm a lot more capable than i think i am if i just slow down and take my time.

anyway this is for that commission i mentioned, the deer with the tree-antlers. its just roughly stitched together, not all done.



sorry for the bad stitch job, i think i turned one a little on the scanning bed by accident. i hope that someone markets large scanners for home use, soon.

question: should i add more tree to fit the second deer (give him some tree-antler action too) or get rid of him? i kind of like having more than one deer, though.. initially there were going to be 3 because they're supposed to be prophets and prophets always come in 3's. chhaa.

5:54pm:

and here's a doodle from today

8:04pm: this is an interpretation of a fashion ad i found in a high end fashion+sports+lifestyle magazine. incorrectly labelled "victor and rolf" which i just discovered is actually a perfume company or something.

i had a lot of fun designing the shapes and patterns.



i actually did this at work while answering phones so its on the back of really crappy paper.

ignore the perspective anomaly going on with her face vs. her nose/mouth. it adds character. trust me.

7:19pm:

referenced (albeit extremely loosely) from vice magazine's brazillian issue.

8:29pm: ookaay here is something for the minute, just an idea i'm playing with. this is actually a frankenstein of drawings. i'll try to post the original from which this was spawned another time.

i photocopied some drawings, enlarging and otherwise distorting them and then i hacked 'em all up them up and started putting them together in different ways and this came out --



i love photocopiers! they really let me loosen up and think of my drawings in different ways. plus there's an element of surprise - you never know what that photocopier will do next! plus its collage AND drawing, two of my favourite things!

and this is an interpretation of a figure found in Vice magazine.

9:48am: disclaimer (the updated version!)
Disclaimer, 2.0

hi there hepcats! here's some handy stuff you might want to know before you decide to add me:

almost all of my posts are art related and those are almost all public

between work and illustration skool i can't keep up with lj, although i do always reply to comments and if you have cool art i would love to see it so tell me when you post it!

i dont delve into the details of my personal life all that much

but if i do post about my personal life you should know that im queer, i like to use male pronouns sometimes, i swear, i occasionally post pictures of jenny shimizus boobs, use words like faggoty mcfaggerton and i rarely lj-cut.

( except for this one )

10:29pm: what are you doing?

maaaannn, im drawing tigers!



also a misc. tentacle.