Sketches & Streaming

There’s no question that these days, a large percent of the American population has increased media/video streaming for amusement. But how many folks have started using streaming services for figure drawing practice?

Sounds like a package deal: A bunch of complete strangers striking interesting poses under good lighting in the comfort of my home. And they can stay still as long as I want grâce à pause button.

For fun, I’ve been using old colored pencils (“old” meaning “I’ve had them since I was a kid”). They don’t always provide a good range of values (lights & darks), but using different colors from the usual pencil grays is enjoyable. I did adjust some of the scans so they show up better onscreen. Some oranges and most yellows just can’t go to the Dark Side — maybe that’s why Rey’s lightsaber is yellow at the end of The Last Jedi! Just kidding.

Sometimes, partway through a drawing, my oblique humor will surface, and I add silly comments. (They have nothing to do with the action onscreen. It’s kind of like those “add a caption to this photo” contests in magazines.) Watch out for bad James Bond jokes further down.

“Hey, Mom said I could have the last bottle of YooHoo~”
“I saw on Daniel Craigslist that you’re seeking a new James Bond actor.” (I’m a math major, so I have a perfect skill set for “Casio” Royal & Divide Another Day remakes.)
That’s enough TV for tonight. Thanks for reading.

			

Art Zoo

Once Handmade Hopewell (HH) finished, I could spend more time working on art again instead of working on presenting art. Here are recent animal paintings.

This sea turtle was “finished” a few weeks ago, after HH. To give a sense of scale, it is leaning against a door.

At the start, there were some energetic, sketchy elements I quite liked, eg., around the flippers, but most of those areas ended up getting more refined or painted over. Looking at it now, I wish I had preserved more of them. Even so, the painting satisfied my need to do something artistic besides re-painting tulips and working on my video for HH, and I am generally content with it.

The Wednesday after HH, I got a call from neighbors who asked whether I were willing & able to come up with something artistic & humorous that night to mail Thursday morning to a couple getting married that Friday or Saturday. Although these wedding pandas are not punny of themselves, my neighbors were encouraged to send the happy couple a note congratulating them on going forward with their wedding during the panda-demic.

There are also some bird paintings, but I will save them for another time.

I hope you enjoyed today’s trip to the zoo.

2020 Show Updates

Both shows in which I was scheduled to participate in the next few weeks have been postponed or modified. Princeton’s 50th Communiversity has been rescheduled to Sunday, Sunday, October 11. Handmade Hopewell’s street fair has been cancelled; however, there will be a virtual fair the weekend of the original show (May 3rd). The plan is that there will be a map of what the street fair would have looked like, and visitors (to the website) can click on each booth and see a short video created by each participating studio. I will post the link closer to the date the fair goes live.

In the meantime, please enjoy this painting inspired by my trip to Hawaii in September. Also, happy Easter (yesterday)!