Blind Contour Friday # 5

This is what I drew this week.. Actually I still need to draw one for this Friday.. 

Here's Manu, reading his ebook on Nook... He's been kind of hooked on to the nook ever since it came home! Well, at least I don't have to move bulky books here and there!

Well, all that staring distracted him so much that as soon as I finished drawing a blond contour, he took my sketchpad and drew a blind contour of me!!
I pretty often end up drawing him, when I am just too uninspired by everything else.. 

BTW, I am the featured artist in Peggy Stermer-Cox's Blind Contour Friday this week.. Come and visit us, a group of people who every now and then, let our hands and eyes take control of the page - only, the eyes are responsible for seeing the subject and the hand is entirely responsible for taking care of the drawing.. It is fun!


Thanks Peggy...

Inception Graphic Comic Cover contest - the Bikers

I drew up a couple of bikers to be placed at the center of the cover for the Graphic Comic cover contest in deviantArt.

So here is my step by step on the bikers.

I started off with just an idea in my head of having two bikers race across the page, while the page in itself should have a black or a gray background. I looked up a few race pictures and drew the initial draft. I had to modify them in accordance with what the script needed - the Mohawk helmet and things.. I had to give the guy behind a sword too, but that came to my mind pretty late! I was finally not very happy with my Samurai sword either!

Coloring the guy in the front black! It was fun! I haven't really tried painting in Gimp before. and this was amazingly awesome..

Next was to color the guy behind in flamboyant colors. I chose to stick to red alone and not play with the other colors.. By now I was in love with painting and shading in gimp.. I kept wanting to get back to painting the pic even while I was doing some other chores around the house.. I had to give the guy a face..

Added some perspective. Two reasons - to give the impression of depth, yes.. and then I really wanted the guy in front to come out of one background into another - like they were 2 separate worlds..

And this is the final version of the bikers. I had to cook up the background. The backdrop is supposed to be Ginza street in Tokyo. I had to look up a photograph and sketch it out directly in Gimp, since I hadn't drawn that initially.. I was pretty sure that I was going to mess this whole thing up. But I surprised myself in the end LOL!

Thanks for stopping by and reading! :)

Inception Graphic Comic Cover contest

Phew finally, inception off my shoulders!

I just finished uploading my submissions to the 'Inception: The Big Under Graphic Comic Cover Art Contest'. I had been drawing and drawing and drawing the main guys from Inception. I rented the DVD to watch the movie once more. After drawing quite some poses, seemed to me that the ones I wanted to use were the straight ones! But anyway, here are my roughs, and finished characters

Some random drawing pages...

Haven;t been able to complete some, haven't been able to upload some...

500 Faces - Sairam

This is one of the friendliest and genuine guys you can meet...

Name: Sai.. Sairam

Know him from: My kid brother's friend.. 

Know him for: Hmm, he's like family.. You know, he's one of my brother's real good childhood buddies.. the ones whom you carry along in sometimes in person, sometimes in good memories and hope, throughout your life..! So that makes him like a younger brother for me... :) 

Blind Contour Friday # 4

Here's mine for this week... I started with the tree - but it had too much detail.. so went to draw my pen holder instead...I like the spread, the way it turned out.

Bizarre Foods

While watching Bizarre Foods, you may get inspired to get creative on your own.. Especially if the food is really bizarre!! This is what I did!!!

And then I started looking out the window.. Saw a couple of people walking... And then I slowly just dozed off... only to be woken up by a fresh awake Tanush! Manu couldn't help laughing..

500 Faces - Ganesh

Name: Ganesh

Know him from: Work

Know him for: Very warm personality... A pretty wife... Atul... He is almost like an elder brother for Manu; we have always missed them since they went back to India :( .. Beautiful family - God bless them!

500 Faces - Vivek

Name: Vivek

Know him from: Work

Know him for!! : His smile.. Very glorious...

500 Faces - Sumanth

Name: Sumanth

Know him from: College

Will never forget him for: His smile, friendliness, the gudbud ice cream challenge, our project days...

Yeah, I know I am posting one post too much for the day, but really, I want to!

Meet Sumanth.. my very sweet friend from college.. I had to draw him - just had to - coz I got in touch with him after a real long time.. And it was such fun chatting with him.. He hasn't changed a bit! I was actually very happy that day, I got in touch with 3 very close friends of mine, including Sumanth. I need to find photographs of Jes and Poornima..

Blind Contour Friday # 3

Manu's Gloves...

I have noticed.. even if I discipline my eyes to stay focused and just take the path that the contours take, slowly... they still squint up and start looking at the whole picture! And it happens like 50 odd times in a simple picture like this one!

500 Faces - Abhinava

Name: Abhinava

Know him from: Work

500 Faces - Amith

Name: Amith

Know him from: Work

Forever smiling.. Pleasant :)

I very badly need to change the name of my blog.. God knows what I was thinking when I picked up that name!

Hands

Practice sketch... :)

Blind Contour Friday # 2

I hope it is ok to upload the picture for Blind Contour Friday, on a Monday! This is supposed to be Tanush's Mickey Mouse.. he he doesn't look like one!

Interesting, what you can make when you are drawing blind! 

Hope everyone had a fun Thanksgiving.. I have a lot more from this weekend to upload... I may do that only slowly..

500 Faces - Barkha

The label says Bad Caricature 1, but this wasn't the first one I drew.. 

Name: Barkha

Know her from: School

Memory: Amazing dancer... ever smiling..

500 Faces I have known...

Ok... I've been doing this from some time now... Apart from being a part of Julia Kay's Portrait Party, I have been practicing drawing portraits and caricatures of people whom I have known.. I didn't post them in till now, because I wasn't really sure whether I should.. Caricatures being a delicate subject, may hurt a few of them..

But, since I have so religiously been making it now since the past two months, I would rather post them in and have some critiques on them.. I would love it if you guys could tell me where I could improve (e.g., most of my caricatures still look like a portrait.. I have to work on decreasing the detailing I guess..).

So I am creating the Self Project which I shall call '500 Faces I have known' and shall keep drawing faces that are familiar to me, so that I improve my portrait, caricature and cartoon making skills..
They will have less celebrities though.. The reason..? They have been caricatured one time, one way or another, and I don't want to be influenced by those images when I am caricaturing them.. So maybe here and there, but not much...
Why 'Faces I know'? ..Because then other people who also know them can tell me whether I am on the right track..
Why 500? ..Hmm, I read here that I would have to make some 500 bad caricatures before I am able to really start noticing the subtle things that hide inside an 'ordinary' face.

I start posting here with my own caricature! :) :)

Beer

I like the way it's come....

This is also a submission to NaNoDrawMo 2010

View outside my window - rain

Joined another project.... This one is my first entry for NaNoDrawMo.. This is a group that aims at drawing 50 drawings in the month of November, every year... Well, ideally I should have started on November 1st and should have made some 50 drawings in 30 days - but since I am starting only on November 22, I am going to give myself 30 days from now, and draw 50 drawings in that time... This is like a compulsory drawing assignment - it should get me better with my lines...

View outside my window..

The view outside my window, from my desk... It was a beautiful day this Friday, and when Tanush was sleeping, I sketched this up.. I was also watching creativeLIVE's Children's Portrait Photography workshop - filling in for Manu who had office... Well, when Tanush was sleeping, there wasn't anything important being discussed in the workshop, so I started sketching this... Normally this would be a nightmare for me to sketch (I am scared of so much detail, if I can't do it in one sitting..) but it came out well...

Blind Contour Friday # 1

Officially kicking off my participation in Blind Contour Fridays... I need to be a part of these projects for me to keep doing good practice!

Tanush's First Trial Class

I drew these sketches while watching Tanush through a semi opaque window in his class.. He could not see me, though I could see how he was doing... For a first time trial of half a day without mom, he didn't miss me ONE bit!!! He had his meal decently, and even took a good 2.5 hr nap! He liked it there... But we eventually decided to not join him there.. because the fees was steep... 

Sketching the Baby portraits

This is the view from my front room, looking into the house... I am trying to capture these two portraits on the wall...  Tanush calls the 'babies' as Kutty (means 'little') Baby. And when you ask him who that baby is, he just says 'Me'! But we aren't sure he really understands that it is him.. He just repeats after us, that it is supposed to be him... He sees Manu's hand in the picture and says with enthusiasm that it is Dad's hand., but that same excitement doesn't remain when he says 'Me' for 'Kutty Baby'. There is some uncertainty, which he choses not to question I guess.. He even offered to donate to this baby, some of his clothes that he can no longer get into! 

I tried coloring it, and it became like this :-

Saturday library sketches and Sushi...

Had a wonderful Saturday this weekend... I sketched at the library - only to discover that not too many people crossed my way - so I wasn't able to find models at all... the 2-3 who came, thankfully stood long enough for me to be able to sketch them - with my double triple lines (somehow I have this compulsion of drawing and redrawing the same line, instead of a quick single stroke...)

We went to a Sushi bar for a finale of the day.. I couldn't journal about it, though I wanted to mention that the chef was an absolute wonderful performer... I am waiting for the days when Tanush would give me more freedom to be able to pull out my sketchbook at occasions such as these (though the poor guy is quite generous with what he does allow..)

Pooh and Mickey

Art - journaled after quite a long time...

Goat Transforming into Cathedral (JKPP)

I'll tell you the conversation inside my head before, during and after this sketch...

-- Now, before I start with my actual work, I think I should warm up..

-- Hmm, let me try out some simple portrait.. Let's go through Julia Kay's page

-- Whichever would be the first photo there, I'm gonna draw that...

And I opened up the discussion page - and the first one was Goat...'s.. I went through the page, thanking somewhat for the one sort-of monochrome photographs - half light half shadow one. Many good portraits, people had sketched of him...

-- Cool, let me try this one...

-- hmm, let me not use the pencil this time.. Something different - let's pick up a ballpoint pen..

After the eyes

-- Wow, this one should be cool... He has selected such a good picture of himself for the portrait

After the nose

-- I guess I should've stuck to pencil - would have been easier to shade on with...

After some more time

-- I guess I should have taken a more normal photograph! This is supposed to be a warm up sketch, damn!!!

After some more time

-- I hope I don't run out of ink!

After still more time

-- I can hear my pen moan..

After the pic got done

-- Ooops! I can hear Tanush - he's up!! So much for a warm up sketch before I get to start on my actual work!!! Now here goes today's productivity!!!

But, I am happy with the sketch!!

Breakfast

Tanush now wants to eat all by himself.. He doesn't like me or Manu to feed him.. I have to imagine and cook things that he can handle without messing up the place and his clothes (and his face, hair and the chair.. and the walls and toys and whatever else he can see).. At the same time, I have to make some of those soft squishy things too, 'cause absolute solids are not always nutritious..

Rob McKenzie (JKPP)

Another one for Julia Kay's Portrait Party - after pretty long!

Reference photo here - www.flickr.com/photos/rob_mckenzie/5059038596/

5 minute Faces..

Artist's Block again... I was supposed to work on an assignment.. I was making some good work, and then all my drawings started to look alike! And I just couldn't come up with any more new twists..

So I opened up my Picasa albums, and randomly clicked on people's faces. Drew each face for just 5 mins..
Fast.. My self imposed rules were - no eraser, no looking at the faces to find out if something's missing (you pay too much attention to details, you lose the time to complete the face), no pencil sharpening, no rechecking at the end of each face to see if it really looked like the person.

I liked the exercise.. I am amazed, how much an artist's block can bring out your creativity, if you let it...

Some of you may be able to identify some of the faces (ya, and some are skewed in their angle)... :) :) have fun..

NY (I think)

I painted this a few months back.. I didn't know where it was until now, when it is almost on the verge of being cooked alive by Tanush.. ya the page came off my book, and I am not sure how long it'll be before my sonny decides to execute it.. So for a copy I decided to display it here..