Art vs Artist - 2019

Here’s something that happens on Instagram: “Art versus Artist.” At its most basic, it’s an image of the artist surround by samples of that artist’s work. Where I could find hard rules about sampling the works, I chose my personal representative favorites from 2018. So, is this the 2018 edition (the year of the pool of stuff posted) or the 2019 edition (the year that these have been curated)?

As my favorite eight pieces, this differs from the “Top Nine” a.k.a. “Best Nine” posts of 2018. The latter determined by a simple counting of likes.

(clock-wise from top-right)

STAN LEE TRIBUTE - This represents my caricature/ portrait work.

CHEF SKUNK - This represents funny animal comics. The character is Nick from the long on-hiatus strip Tags from the a new one created for my 2018 Christmas card.

LIFE DRAWING with MARKERS - From one of the sessions done later in the year, chosen because I think it demonstrates better mastery of “highlighter art” than sessions earlier in the year.

YELLOW RABBIT - Another funny animal. She’s Hilarity from the short lived Cartoon Monday strip.

MICKEY - A rare example of my digital (Photoshop) painting.

BUNNY the BIRTHDAY SQUIRREL - I can’t drawing Bunny for every birthday notice that pops up on Facebook, for example, but I do draw him fairly frequently.

BELLE and the PRINCE as a HOGWARTS STUDENTS - Here’s a mash-up idea that was suggested for one of my “What Shall I Draw Today?” sessions.

TUFF-GIRL - Of course, I need to shamelessly promotion my adventure comic, Unstoppable Tuff-Girl, with the title character and with her pup, Wichita. This piece was created as the marketing image for last year’s WonderCon comic book convention showing.

Check out my Instagram feed @monstergram7

Life Figure Drawing, 2015, Winter

2 minutes and 5 minutes poses

black ink on paper

from January through March, 2015

various sizes

monstergram7 - March & April 2016

Here is what has been going on over at my Instagram feed, a.k.a. “monstergram7.”
https://www.instagram.com/monstergram7/

Daily postings have been encouraged by a huge bump up in followers following a shout-out from the Bancroft Brothers, Tony and Tom, best know for their respective roles as director for Disney’s Mulan and supervising animator for Mushu in Mulan . On April 11th, I celebrated achieving 250 followers. Then over night I had over 600!

Thanks again Tony and Tom.

Check out their podcast: Bancroft Brothers Animation Podcast

Life Figure Drawing, 2014, Summer

2 minute and 5 minutes poses

black ink on paper

from July through September, 2014

various sizes.

Life Figure Drawing, 2014, Spring

2 minute and 5 minutes poses

black ink on paper

from April through June, 2014

various sizes.

life drawing

ink on paper

2014

I’ve attended three life drawing sessions this year so far. No, not exactly a regular schedule, but it’s more than I’d done in the last two years.

I picked up a pen for sketching as so it’s packaging billed. After only three half-hour sessions the fiber tip is still pointy and the ink is black. It’s still early in the evaluation process. 

life drawing

watercolor on paper

A few life drawing samples from the latter half of 2007.

life drawing

I attend a local life drawing (L.D.) work shop every now and then. I first attempted water colors as a medium in a L.D. setting, I guess, about eight-plus years ago. They were tiny, three inch high things, done for five-minute-held poses. Five minutes in a two-hour workshop is generous.

Now, I only stay through the one and two minute poses of the first half of the L.D. workshop. The strategy I developed is 1) small 6-inch figures; 2) chiaroscuro light-and-dark studies which includes picking the best vantage that the light hits across the figure; 3) work dark to light; and 4) my palette of secondary colors, orange figure, violet shading, green negative space.

On that last point, I can't really dip into three different colors in one minute or less, so those tend to be more monochromatic warm-ups.

Here are twelve recent samples.