Dr Sketchy's Anti-Art School - May

There's really no end to the splendour of Dr. Sketchy's. I've seen Tank Girl in 3D, learned that Wonder Woman's amazing spinning-into-costume trick is possible, witnessed the embodiments of Lust & Wrath and now watched life-sized toys come to life on the Good Bits stage!

This month's session was extra special for a few reasons; Dr. Sketchy's Dublin was celebrating it's one year birthday! The day before also happened to be my 21st birthday. This fact didn't go unnoticed by the truly wonderful folks at Sketchy's who called me and another birthday girl up to the stage for sparklers, cupcakes, singing and we even got to blow out the candle on the special 1st Birthday cupcake. Well, if that doesn't make your day, I don't know what does. Thank you again to Scarlett Nymph and all of those other awesome people at Sketchy's! :)

What made it even better was the fact that I got in not only on time but early. Yay for getting a lift in by extension of birthday special attention!! So I got my pick of seats and had a great view for the session, which had a Toy Box theme this month. The costumes and make-up were stunning as always, as were the models; the lovely and very colourful S Adistik Sedition, the beautiful & doll-like Lilly DeValle and the aptly named Phil T Gorgeous as Action Man. As usual, there were some great performances; Phil with a fantastic rendition on "Asshole" (which I haven't heard in forever. And also, Denis Leary nom) and Tallula Boom Boom performing - with the help of Winnie the Pooh - to Vamp Transvision's "I Want Your Love" (which I'd never heard before but loved!).


So basically, good day. I'm looking forward to the future of Sketchy's in Dublin and their next birthday! And I can't stress enough how much you should get to a Sketchy's if you can!

**Drawings go from 1, 2, 5, 10 to 20 minutes (in order), click to enlarge**

A-Z Actor Portraits Challenge : D to G

Today was a busy one for me and these portraits. I got D to G done while working my way through two X-Files discs. Luckily, I didn't get too lost or confused.

I done these in a few different media; pencils, graphite pencils and, just to be awkward first think in the morning, all colouring pencils. I haven't done too many drawings in just colouring pencils and no portraits, I think. I'm happy with the way it turned out though, so it was worth it. Also, I do love my polychromo pencils. Worth the ridiculous cost.

F and G caused much back and forth and mind changing. I had originally planned to draw Frances O'Connor for F, but couldn't find a good enough photo. So I went through some other possibilities; Fairuza Balk (who I will draw at another point) and Felicia Day (who I'm adding to another A-Z I have in mind).

Then I couldn't find an image I was happy with of Geena Davis for G. I swapped to Gene Wilder, got quite excited about that, then couldn't find a good picture. One I found that I liked was teeny but, again, I'll draw him at another stage. Others that made the list were Gregory Peck, Giovanni Ribisi & Gad Elmaleh (who are all far too distracting), Geoffrey Rush, Goldie Hawn and Grace Kelly (I'm sure I'll get around to some of these again though... *overload*). After all that, I found a photo of Geena. Hers didn't take me that long, done with graphite pencils... I may have been fed up with G already.

Okay, /rant.

D -- David Bowie

E -- Ewan McGregor

F -- Franka Potente

G -- Geena Davis

A-Z Actor Portraits Challenge : A to C

There's a lot of these "30 Day ____" challenges floating about on Facebook and I had started one but the topics were pretty boring; favourite food, favourite animal, favourite place, yadda yadda yadda. I got two days in and lost all will to carry on. That and I kinda forgot, which says a lot for its appeal. So, I started one just for myself and based it solely on portraits since that's one of my favourite things to focus on. Heck, I even did the entire NCAD brief on the face.

This was the initial list I came up with. After some suggestions and rethinking I have rejigged it a bit. I couldn't find an interesting enough image of Brendan Fraser to draw (which saddened me to no end) so I swapped to Bette Davis and decided to tackle those darn eyes. Actually, I've just noticed that the first three people I've drawn have rather big, expressive eyes.

Since the majority ended up being actors, I've decided to make it strictly that and I'll remove Marc Bolan for someone else - Bowie still counts though. I'm thinking of doing an A-Z Musician Portrait Challenge now, and a Character one to capture some interesting emotions and moments. Yes, I do like to bury myself in work the minute I'm free of it. But I really want to make sure I keep up with doing something everyday. This is only one of my plans of art bombardment of my life!

A -- Anna Friel



B -- Bette Davis


C -- Christina Ricci

Edward Scissorhands

Prints are just too darn fun to do. They take some time, effort and work to make but once they're done you can reproduce the image over and over again and experiment with colour and design. So, yeah, they've become a bit of an addiction of late. After the Birdeatsbaby ones I did earlier this week, I got some other ideas.

Today I made the blocks for Edward Scissorhands, based on the iconic movie image. I tend to prefer the prints that I do in white, as opposed to the blocks that represent the darker shades. Especially in this one, poor Ed's nose is a bit off in the blue pictures.

This one was a bit more difficult. It was bigger than the BEB portraits but between the hair and the blades, oy! I got there though. And I do really love those envelopes! Prints seem to look good on them.

I explained my process in the last post, so I'll just post the photos.

Birdeatsbaby Prints

First off, Birdeatsbaby are just awesome. I won't get into any explanations here because I've got a fair few photos to post, so I'll direct you to a BEB review and interview I did on Pop Culture Monster, and there's linkies at the bottom.

Okay, so it all originated with this photo of the band-

- and from that came many, many prints. (I may have actually made more prints than I did for my whole Print module in college. In one day. Erm, oops?..) This little project seen me covered in paint and my bed lost beneath, well, this...

When possible, I tend to take lots of photos of projects while I'm working on them. Partly because it's interesting to see the process, partly in case something goes wrong after hours of work!!

I started off by sketching their faces for the block's template (you can click to enlarge photos).

Then I got to cutting and sticking!







Et viola!

The first ones I did were with the negative blocks since they were, for the most part, just one section so if it fell apart (like the ones I did in college) it was no biggie. I used some different coloured paper, envelopes and these pretty little cards I completely forgot I bought!











Then the more finicky blocks - which are still holding up!






Then all together!! Plus the third set of blocks I made to include some colour, just to be extra awkward. The registration's off but I still like them. I'll eventually get them to line up properly...ish.




I even printed onto a notebook and a waistcoat that's been on my 'customise or throw out' pile for months!

There will be many more prints to come. I have plans of doing some of Frank'N'Furter, Tank Girl and Noomi Rapace, to name a few.

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