The Plan:

• BabyGetFramed.com header = baby holding a frame
• As I create the header, create a shading tutorial for CraftyArtWorld.com

The BabyGetFramed.com owner, a friend of mine, came to me the other day asking for me to create a header for her website.  After some conversation, we decided on a baby holding a frame around his face, and she gave me a few photos of her own son to use for the face.

Though I would never charge a friend for a service like this (I love to draw and never charge friends for the drawings they request), I did put some thought into what I could do with this so that it will also benefite my own site.

After a few days, it occured to me that I have never done an actual tutorial here.  I have given instructions, but my Art of Drawing Hands page is the closest thing I have to an actual tutorial.  So I have decided that, as I am drawing the basic image for the BabyGetFramed header, I will scan the image in at various staged and turn the image into a shading tutorial for my site.

Stage 1:

 This is Stage 1 of my image. You may notice that I have drawn the basic areas where the body wrinkles, but have not included the details of the hands and feet. That is because hands and feet are always the most difficult for me, so I tend to leave their details for when I am actually shading them. I have also not drawn the face in Stage 1, as that is something that I will draw during the shading process as well.

The Catch:

This entry is not the actual shading tutorial, for that will be a page (or series of pages, I have not decided yet) of the actual site. Rather, this entry is just to keep you posted and look for advice as I am creating the basic image. If anyone has any ideas or opinions, please let me know.

I will add each of the stages as I create them, so look for the next one within the next few days (possibly the start of next week, as I do not have access to the Internet over the weekend.

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Below is a character sketch of Roxana, the beautiful and wild first wife of Alexander the Great.  This character sketch is planned to be a companion piece to one done in oil pastel of one of the great Greek heroes (I haven’t decided which one yet).  The companion hero character sketch will be posted on my blogspot account, but is not yet completed. 

As for this one, sketch you see is a combination of two different screenshots I have of the character.  I used the first shot to sketch her face and the second to draw her hair, outfit, body, and background.

The Story:

I am a huge fan of the Alexander story.  If you don’t know the story, here is the nutshell version.  Alexander the great was strongly bisexual.  He had male lovers as well as many wives.  His first wife was a cause of controversy though.  See, Alexander was traveling while warring, taking over the world a little at a time.  In his travels, he met Roxana and was attracted to the wildness of the woman.  Easy to understand considering the women he would be use to in his homeland.  He wanted to marry her, but his commanders demanded that his first wife be from their own country.  The child of his first wife would be his heir, and they did not want a mixed blood child leading them. 

Alexander ignored their warnings and married her anyway.  He even had a child with her (Aegus).  However, he was murdered before the child was even a few years old.  Roxana and her child fled, but were eventually hunted down and murdered themselves.

The Art

Sad story, and it probably makes you wonder why I did the character sketch.  Alexander is a great hero in my mind, a concurring one but a hero nonetheless.  In the movie, Roxana’s character was played by Rosario Dawson.  I really enjoyed the portrayal and so used her for the character sketch. 

For the character sketch, I used a graphite pencil for everything but the hair.  I have a really hard time with black hair, always have.  I used a black colored pencil for the hair, hoping that the darkness value would be right at least.  I am not completely satisfied with how the sketch’s hair turned out.  The character has very shiny black hair and the highlights were extremely difficult for me. 

Let me know what you think of the character sketch!

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This weekend was the first international Drawing Day.  Unfortunately, as I did not have internet access over the weekend, so I am posting my drawing today.

A few weeks ago I bought a book on basic shading.  The book talked about shading the basic values of a picture and then slowly forming the details. 

How the Style Differs:

This is about opposite of my normal style as I normally draw the basic outline of an image, slowly brining in the detailed shading of a face, a shirt, an arm, etc.  I start with one feature and work outward, rather than doing the basic shading of the whole image, then getting more and more detailed.

My Opinion:

The basic shading process was rather odd for me, and I think that the resulting image didn’t turn out very well.  Each of the faces of the siblings in the image is off by just enough that it does not look like the individuals that I was drawing.  Each sibling appears more cartoonish than I had intended. 

The basic shading was good, but as the details were added the overall personality of the image was lost.  I am happy with individual parts of the Sibling image, but not the whole. 

For example:

• The shading on the black shirt I feel is good
  
• The hair on each figure is good
• I even really like the basic leave structure in the background (which I chose not to bring from basic shading into higher detail).  

Overall, I think that this simple value technique may work (with more practice), but I am not convinced it is a technique for me.  I will try basic shading like this again, but probably not for a while.

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So, spring semester at college just ended.  I have to say that my favorite art project for the semester was a Styrofoam art, self-interpretation head.  We were given Styrofoam model art heads and told to use paper cut-outs and glue to make the head into an interpretation of ourselves.  As I am opt to doing, I didn’t go to art class while we were working on the project (don’t worry, my teacher never minds that I skip some classes).  I hate going to class and seeing how the other students are creating their projects because it tends to influence what I do with my own.

Instead, I created the Styrofoam art head from home.  I took cut-outs of

When I got to class to turn in the Styrofoam art project, I discovered that my own self-interpretation was very different than the others in the class.  I discovered that most every other student had turned their Styrofoam art heads into themselves, placing cut-out eyes where eyes belong and cut-out hair where hair belongs.  They were all very cute, and mine stood out for the originality.

My self-portraits are generally like that – abstract rather than practical.  I prefer the abstract art (at least for self-portraits) because, no matter how many times I draw the shell that is my face and body, the part that makes me who I am is never there.  The only way I really know to show who I am is to show an abstract version of my personality. 

I wish my school offered a class on abstract art…maybe I should look into it on my own and add something here about it.

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This friend, Cora, used to work with my fiancé and me.  A while back, I used a wood burner to burn a dragon into a box for an anniversary gift for my fiancé, not a 5 year gift, just a gift.  The box was sitting on his desk and Cora saw it. 

She apparently really liked it, because she asked me to burn “something” into a wooden plaque for her to give to her husband for their 5 year wedding anniversary.  I wasn’t given much to go on, just her complete faith in my abilities.  Let me tell you, that was a little terrifying.

Getting Started I spent almost a full day working on a drawing for the plaque, which was an almost prehistoric scene of trees and tall grass.  Don’t ask me why I chose this scene, as it has nothing to do with a 5 year mark, but I liked it and I thought it would look nice in their house.  In the open space between the trees, I added their last name and the date of their wedding.  She had written the information down for me.

The next day, I used a sheet of carbon paper to trace the drawing onto the plaque. I spent most of that day burning in the design.  It was rather elaborate, one of the most detailed images I have yet to burn, but it was a 5 year wedding anniversary gift for a couple of friends, so I was determined to get it right.

I was completely self-conscious about the whole thing, afraid that I would give it to Cora and she would hate it.  This was her wedding anniversary after all, and I know more than a few girls who get anal about such things.

Where it went wrong:

After it was finished, and I had scanned it into my computer so I could keep a copy, I gave it to Cora.  She loved the image, and the overall look of the gift.  Problem was, a 5 year wedding anniversary gift is supposed to mark the occasion of the wedding, right?  Well, mine was a little off…by 4 days to be exact.

I felt awful about it, despite having used the date that she wrote down for me.  When I burned it, I noticed that the date she wrote didn’t coincide with the date of the day she told me her anniversary was on.  I figured she was celebrating it on a different day than the actual wedding was, because she had waited for the weekend or something.  Unfortunately, she had written down the date (with the exception of the year) that it was when she visited me.  Oops. 

Luckily, a dark brown fine tip sharpie is very close to the color of burned wood.  She will be fixing the date before giving it to her husband, though the mistake will likely be somewhat visible.

The moral...?

So, what is the moral of the story?  The traditional gift for a 5 year wedding anniversary is wood, which gives you a chance to show of your artistic skill (or the skill of a close friend).  Just make sure, and double sure, that you get the date write.

Or convince your husband to celebrate the wedding anniversary a little early from the 5 year point on.  ;)

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So here is my problem:  the final project of the semester is to paint a symbolic self portrait using a color scheme of 4 tints.  Four!  I have to create my “self color scheme” by creating 4 hues that are purely my own (shades of red, green, brown, etc.) and give the new hues names that express my personality traits (like “determination red”).  So, how to create a decent painting with a 4 color scheme?

     Project Thoughts:

My original thought for the symbolic self portrait was to draw the figure of a woman rising from flame.  The woman would be nude, but with no body details, instead being like a carving of a figure made of wood.  Her arms and hair would be raised to the sky and stem out into the branches of a tree. 

Unfortunately, I can not think of a four color scheme that will do the image justice.  I thought of using variations of

The color scheme sounds too basic for the feel that the image.  I feel as if more hues are necessary.  Maybe that is the point, to limit us to the simple so that we really have to focus on what we are really forced to focus on these four tints. 

Whatever the point, I am still not sure about using a four color scheme.  It makes me feel claustrophobic, as if someone has tied my hands and feet and I am unable to move.  An artist shouldn’t be limited!

But an artist should be able to accomplish anything.  Isn’t that the real definition of an artist?  A creator?  An artist should be able to take any images, color schemes, media…anything and make it into something new and intense. 

This is my goal.  Create the image in my mind, using the restrictions set upon me, and paint something emotional, beautiful, unique.  I will beat the limitations set by this four color scheme!

------Updated------

Here is the image, decide for yourselves if it is any good.  Sorry about the crappy state of the picture, my digital camera didn't like the lighting.  After talking to my teacher, I discovered that I somehow missed that we could use 4-6 colors.  I ended up using: Red Yellow Tan Brown Black and Grey

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How it Started:

White shading on black paper is perhaps my second favorite art form (my first favorite being oil pastels).  This is something that I have spent so much time on that I was actually given a sketchbook of black paper for Christmas two years ago.

I was first introduced to white shading in an art class at college.  My teacher gave us all a white graphite pencil with black poster board and set up a still life of a Greek statue, the oh-so-famous one with no arms, by a black backdrop.  He set the spot lights, and then set us to work.  When I started, I felt I would hate it.  It was very difficult to pick up, because errors were not easy to erase.

As I got going though, I loved it for just that reason.  White shading is extremely difficult for beginners, which made my initial sketches improve.  I was so used to creating horrid sketches and editing them as I went, that this forced improvement became a god-send.

Where I took it:

Now I have created many different black paper and white shading drawings.  I have drawn dragons, wolves, and unicorns all in this media.  My most recent white shading picture is my favorite, however.

With a black poster board, I created a dreamscape.  The bottom third of the picture was where the white shading was located, and it illustrated an adolescent female character asleep on her homework.  The top two-thirds of the picture was done in oil pastels and formed a rainbow nebula (colored cloud).  Inside this nebula was the image of the white shading characters dream, ocean waves breaking against the beach.

What I have learned:

One thing that I have learned from doing white shading is that you want to start with a regular graphite pencil.  This creates a light, hard-to-see outline of the picture and the white shading can be placed on top of the outline.  Also, most errors can be covered with black colored pencil or lightened with a gum eraser. 

I hope that one day everyone will try this media, and bring white shading into popularity!

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Artist Anika's World -

The first entry...

About Me:

I read a lot, and write a bit, and one thing that I know from both are that, before a story can evolve, the characters need to be introduced and known.   Because of that, I will tell you a little more about myself, now that I have this nifty blog set up, and I will let future blog entries evolve as they will. My name, as you have probably guessed, is Artist Anika.  No, it’s not my real name.  It is the name that I gave to myself when I was still a youngish teenager and that I have called myself in my head now for many years.  Anika is the person I strive to be, rather than person that I am.

So, now that I sound like a complete psychopath, let's move on.

This blog is going to be a place where I will discuss:

Currently, my biggest project is building this site.  I've built other sites before, but I'm hoping that this one will be the biggest and the best before I am through.  I’m working on creating banners, and logos (all of which will be drawn and edited by me).  I am also writing the content and experimenting with new designs and layouts.  Building this website is turning into a craft all its own, and I hope that it will reflect the time and energy that is going into it.

Why add a blog?

I wanted to create this blog because I am always working on something new.  Some of the projects that I talk about here might never be added to the site, some might.  I also wanted a place where people can post comments on my thoughts and experiences.  I wanted a place where people can tell me if I’m getting something wrong, hopefully before I build a page in the CraftyArtWorld website. 

I also wanted a place, more convenient than simple emails, where people can suggest crafts or arts that may not yet have a place in the site. 

I’m not sure, yet, how often this blog will be updated.  In the beginning, I am more focused on my site than this blog; but as the site unfolds, I’m hoping to spend more time here than in the site.  But I wanted to get this first message up now, so that it has been started.  After all, a project is always easier to return to than to start.

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