What is Art?

Art is...

1. Doing what you want and not what others want.

2. Taking something that has been done over and over and making it new and interesting.

3. Doing what you want regardless if you get attention for it or not.

4. Breaking all the rules and still making something that looks great.

5. Making something incredible with very little resources.

6. Doing something when you don't make any money off of it (or lose money from it).

7. Knowing everything possible about the type of art you do.

8. Being able to create in different styles when the need arises.

9. Believing failure is not real, and is, in reality, just you trying different approaches to something. People's reactions do not mean something is a failure, only that they react badly to it.

10. Being open minded about style, content and ideas.

11. Seeing something in another person's point of view.

12. Doing something, then redoing it to make it better.

13. Accepting that mistakes are always there and help us learn what to change to make ourselves better.

14. Realizing that perfection is unattainable for us but, in appearance, has been obtained by others.

15. Knowing that discipline and hard work are the keys to creating good art.

16. Knowing that sometimes being spontaneous creates better work than careful planning does.

17. Knowing sometimes what you do will not be understood.

18. Experimenting with materials, styles and ways of working constantly till something amazing is born.

19. Understanding that being what you want is more important that achievments.

20. Working at night with the radio on till 6 am, then sleeping till 3 pm the next day... repeat each day.

This list of twenty items was written by my friend Tim Sparvero and I find this list to be very inspirational to me so I felt it needed to be shared.

Color WIP

Well this morning I thought I would putz around a bit while waiting for the roomie to get back up. Told her better to go to a movie in the afternoon so she could get more sleep. So I decided I would pop open good old Photoshop because I had the urge to color and see what happened. This is the result.

I had a hard time figuring out at first what I wanted to work on. Couldn't find my notes for Synergy so I dug around to see what I might have had started and this guy is who I found. This is a male Slythorian from one of my stories. The drawing itself is several years old but I figured what the heck its not too bad of a drawing I might as well color it to see if I can get back into the groove. It's still got a long way to go and the tree looks like crap still but hopefully I'll figure something out for that. If nothing else it gives me something to poke at and experiment with.

Out of the Darkness WIP

I must say I love my rogue in my Pathfinder game so very much. It has been my first experience with playing this class of character and it has been beyond fun. This is a sketch I started at the gaming table, this past saturday.

Meet Seraph Morninglight, this is still a work in progress because I have to do a little more research for her blades and have to make the top of her outfit look right since there are things I still do not like. I have a few ideas of what I wish to do with the background but I have to make sure I have her settled out first. I think her hands still need a little work yet but they are starting to shape up. I think I may also change the leather skirt design but we'll see. The basic form is here it will just be the adjustments.

Long time no see

Well here's a character that I haven't drawn up in years and just had the urge to draw her up.

I am sure there are those that will remember her and they know who they are ;) It is the return of the infamous Kellendraysia, or simply Kell for short. I gave her a slight redesign and I'm pleased with it. This another image to stack up on the inking and color drawing board so to speak. I might end up giving this image a background as well if I can figure one out.

Pixie Sketch

Well here's another sketch, this character is actually going to be part of another drawing. So eventually there will be a piece that contains him and another character. Both of which need names so that is another thing I will have to make sure to look up.

So it should be a fun piece. Though I will fully admit I hate trying to figure out hands. I know it is good practice but I still don't necessarily like it. Hopefully I will get a bit more time to work on it today.

Random Sketching

This is what happens when you get inspired to draw between 12 am and 1 am in the morning. Since this is what I had done bright and early friday morning while chatting with friends before crashing and having to get up for work by the latest 11am. Needless to say I was up by nine after going to bed at 2.

I might see if I can fix some of her slightly distorted anatomy when I get a chance to work on her again. We'll just have to wait and see.

Vez Dragon Rough

I have been wanting to sketch up this character for my friend Shemara for quite some time now but haven't had the references for it. She has this awesome fire dragon character named Vez and she wanted a slightly more asian lung look to him so I told her I would give a good honest crack at it and here is the start of the rough.

I like it quite a bit so far and so does she so this is what I am working with with some nice visual references of the character and collaborating with her to see what needs to be adjusted, which there are a few so far and I am sure there will be more by the time that he is done but I think we're off to a good start.

Ever have an idea that just hits you...

...and you just have to get it down on paper. Well that is what just happened to me and within an hour I had found a reference pic that I needed in stock, and found the character reference I needed in a friend's gallery and within a half an hour of sketchy-ness I came up with this. An elegant and lovely sketch of a dancing cat girl named Felina, who belongs to my friend Lisa.
She is a lovely chocolate Siamese with dark auburn hair so I am thinking maybe a dark green, a nice rich purple or maybe even a blue dress. Though if anyone has any other suggestions feel free to throw them at me.

Carving it up!

Well finally got a chance to take a picture of the wood block that I have started to carve, well this one is a linoleum block, something that Liz had suggested to try being new to block printing since the linoleum is softer and easier to carve. I wanted to take a picture of of it before I carved out too much of it so I could keep track of it as work in progress. I think it will be fun.

Little did I realize when I drew up this little darling sitting in Liz's basement and learning about the carving chisels and getting all sorts of good tips on the dos and don'ts of putting a sharp object to soft surface to make art, that I subconsciously chose cherries for a reason. Liz suggested that I put something in the little rattie's hands and I decided that I wanted to make the rat white so the cherries would stand out. Low and behold after I got home and thought about it I drew up a representation of a rat that I used to own named Sakura who was a dumbo albino rex, who's name means Cherry Blossom. So if it doesn't seem like it will be too hard I will add in cherry blossoms into the corners of the block to go along with the cherries she is sneaking away with.

Exalted equals Art

Well I just just joined an Exalted game and it has inspired me to do art. I have the sketch started of my character Kovuu's Anima Banner. The winged serpent is the beginning design for the banner the small 'fluffy' looking serpent near the bottom is the spirits that reside inside of his whips. So I guess we'll see what happens.