J and K... Just Keep going (catch up post)

This is a subject I think about a lot.  If I had more time I'd go into more detail about it; but for now I'm just going to do a quick blurb. 

I think it is REALLY important to keep copies of your old work around; be it art or something else.  It gives you an easy measure stick for your life, in 2 ways- 1 it let's you know where you've been, and how far you've come but 2 it also let's you know that wherever you are; you can always improve.

When I started college I'd always been a 'talented' artist; I have hundreds of drawings from as young as 18 months to prove it.  That talent though didn't mean I didn't have to work to improve my ability.  

I started my university path about 8 years ago, right after my first kid had been born.  I don't have easy pregnancies and with him I had carpel tunnel so bad that I lost most of the mechanical use of my hands.  At the time I was frustrated but wasn't worried- I was drawing as a hobby I wasn't pursuing it as a career.  You never know how much you love a thing until it is taken away I guess; I realized I didn't want to do web design professionally or even graphic design (at the time you could get away with lesser drawing skill in that field).  I realized after taking a few foundational art classes for my graphic/web design major that I wanted to Illustration.  And I was HORRIBLE at it. 

Thankfully I had professors that could see my passion for it- and they encouraged and helped me as I relearned how to use the finer motor functions of my hands.  These first 3 drawings are from my first year in Illustration- so about 8 years ago. 

This next Drawing is from 3 years ago

this one is from this past fall

this last one I basically drew on a bit of a whim 2 days ago

I'm to the point where I have enough skill and ability that I can draw pretty much whatever however I want.  It has been a long road, but it has been worth it.  I still have things I want to improve, but I know with time and effort I will improve them.
Alicia Hawks

I is for Ink drawing

I'm cheating a little bit here; these are old drawings that I did last fall for Inktober, which is a very silly thing where you draw a different ink drawing every day in October.  It was started by artist Jake Parker; it's pretty sweet. 

Anyway- here are some of my favorites that I drew. 

Just about all of these relate to an upcoming graphic novel that I'm working on.  I cannot give an exact date to when it will be available; but the target is sometime this fall.

Thanks for stopping by!
I'm hoping to do a new drawing for tomorrow; but the way this week has gone; I'm not sure that'll happen.  We'll see.

~Alicia

H is for... hardly any time :P

ok so... it has been crazy these last couple of days. Not crazy interesting; just crazy crazy. 

I actually had 'F' all ready to go on Saturday- and then never sat down to post it.  So I'm going to play catch up; and adjust my blogging challenge. 

My original challenge was to do a quick 30 minute speed paint- to improve my digital painting.  Which is something I certainly need work on.  (as I've pointed out like every day this challenge)  But because of my life being what it is I'm going to just adjust it to 30 minute 'art'.  Usually that'll mean a drawing; because I love drawing and want to do more of it. 

Here is my catch up:

F for fish.
I actually intended to paint this... but then I just started playing with digital charcoal brushes...

G is for Girl. 
This was a drawing I did the other day and was way frustrated by it; so I just sort of gave up after getting the lines down.










and H?  well I'm cheating on this one. I'm going to share some images from my project that it currently consuming 80% of my time.  would be 100% but I have 3 kids and I'm attempting to be at least an OK mom while I finish this up.

so H is for... outHouse....  yea.. anyway...
here ya go:

If you are a uber nerd.. or even just a small one; you might think this is cool  I'm creating 3d artwork to be used in table top RPGs such as Dungeons and Dragons.  They will be little paper models to add atmosphere to the game.  Some of them come apart in layers and you can actually play in the terrain as well.
It is a crazy project.  I cannot wait until it is done.

Alicia Hawks

G is for Goldilocks

This is a catch up post; and this is some old art that I'm sharing.

This was a mock cover for a non existent children's book.  We were assigned a classic fairy tale; and then had to put our own spin on it.  So this is what I did.

F is for figure drawing (artistic nudes)

this post does contain artistic nudes...

This is a bit of a photo dump; but here are a few of my figure drawings over the years.  They were all drawing at different times- so the level of skill is a little all over the place; but I've liked these enough to keep them around.

E is for eye!

(For the benefit of first timers: For this years challenge I've given myself a personal improvement project of doing a 30 minute digital 'speed' paint each day.  My goal is 2 fold: to become a faster digital painter and to figure out a way to paint that doesn't look digital.  I can paint digitally; and pretty well; but it has the LOOK of a digital painting, so I'm trying to improve on that.).

here is a 30 minute 'painting' of an eye. 

I tried kind of a digital alla prima approach with this one. I think if I were to paint for longer than 30 minutes I could really make this look nice.  As it is; it looks ok.  The eye kept drifting to the 'CBS eye' look... but I tried to keep it from doing that. 

anyway.  This was fun; and I don't totally hate today's speed painting. 

I have decided that next year I'm going to paint something I'm good at for this challenge rather than do a self improvement challenge lol.  it is a little embarrassing to post these fast practice pieces.  BUT I think it is worth doing and It is forcing me to try new things; so there is that.
If I were to spend more time on it I'd fix the eye shape a bit, add some more dark tones; it is very bright right now; and refine some of the edges.  All things to keep in mind for tomorrow.

Anything you think would be a cool subject to paint tomorrow?  Leave your F suggestions in the comments.  OR if you have an idea for another letter- you can suggest those as well.

Alicia

D is for Duck, C is for Cherry

For the benefit of first timers: For this years challenge I've given myself a personal improvement project of doing a 30 minute digital 'speed' paint each day.  My goal is 2 fold: to become a faster digital painter and to figure out a way to paint that doesn't look digital.  I can paint digitally; and pretty well; but it has the LOOK of a digital painting, so I'm trying to improve on that.

Yesterday was a day where I spent the entire day working on a project for a gallery show I'll have this summer.  So today I split the difference and spent 15-20 minutes on each letter.
I painted a cherry and a duck.  And I  hate both of them.
I've been trying a more 'painterly' approach; and it is NOT working for me.  My best post in the last 4 days has easily been my first; but that is because I wasn't painting; just drawing.  I hate how the digital paintings I'm producing look like they were painted by a much less experience artist.  I have to keep reminding myself you have to start somewhere.

Anyway... here they are.

Any suggestions for E?

 so... yea...
Alicia