dinosaurs and people

2011-11-09T21:25:00.007Z

2011-11-09T21:12:00.000Z

2011-11-08T21:02:00.001Z

As if its the 8th already! but yeh, progress! haven't been keeping up with NaDraw these last couple of days cause theyve gone so fast ad ive been killig myself over this lineart business..I know its too difficult but im just not grasping this colour thingy without a tablet...need more tutorials. I just dot waa do it wrong so im putting the shading bit off?? But heres my progress so far:

After I did my block colouring I was reminded of this:
which I think ima try out, so im gettig back to sketching tonight ad finishing the designs for Saki and startig Tai maybe? so I can scribble them up and final have a set of OCs

2011-11-07T03:22:00.002Z

My first piece of Lineart EVER. Very pleased with it...took about 2hours to get started/figure out what I was doing until I came across a beautiful tutorial by Sashas and video by Vulcancatable.

I've definitely got the hang of it now and requires a lot of patience especially cause I was doing it tabletless (christmas!) but i'm really happy with the result. I know that I need to work o types of lines to use and. when, but I know that'll come with practice. Really really happy with this.

Heres the original sketch, the lineart on top of the sketch and the finished deal. Next stop, colouring!

2011-11-05T14:16:00.002Z

A nice blog/layout update. So on to day 5 of my re-vamped art NaNoWriMo..should really change it to NaPicDraMo (obvious meaning). I must admit, I didnt do any new sketches yesterday althhouughh I was sketching til 4am in the morning which I think counds sort.
I think im done with Li- basically know features/style etc, and moving on to Saki now which was spur of the moment. Not used to drawing my ow females O.C style buy should be ok..I practice hands and now im feeling really confident with them etc etc. Everything I do and learn now will just go towards what i accomplish when I start Forensic Art. I know I can do traditional fie art well, so its about time I learnt some other drawing skills and comics is one of them.

Waiting to get my graphics tablet, but in the mean time I found a sick Lineart Tutorial that doesnt require a graphics tab, just patience, which im gonna work on tomorrow when I have time. i'll either start with some of my smaller sketches of Li or dive straight in to something more dificult, then gonna practice colourig etc.

2011-11-03T23:22:00.000Z

busy busy busy! have much more than this but thought i'd stick up a couple cause im too lazy to do the rest.
My hands have already gotten so much better.

2011-11-03T17:40:00.001Z

To coincide with National Novel Writing Month instead of writing every day for a month im gonna be drawing. Gives me oppotune time to work on my OC's. Already have a few sketches to put up.

2011-10-25T12:27:00.000+01:00

2011-10-23T22:45:00.003+01:00

California Here We Come

2011-10-14T20:15:00.005+01:00

Scheming away I am, many plans but im very lay at putting them into action so I need to take things one step at a time. I finally realise what was massively wrong...I had no points of reference for my OC's and alas now I do!! I was just attempting to create them and drawing them willy nilly cause I just couldnt remember what they looked like etc and the whole point is to make them into someone- someone that im enthused about drawing and that i can develop, thats th eonly way my ideas will develop and now Im starting to have that but only for my 3 males so far, still need one for my female but thats ok, means I can work on my males longer. Theyre based off of male models (obvs) the only way I can keep getting references from angles etc and theyres still so much to find on these guys. So here they are:

Li: Samuel Larsen/Brandon Boyd

Tai: Jamie Quaintance

Zell: Ash Stymest/ Max Krieger

For Shame

2011-10-12T18:17:00.002+01:00

Longtime no post, gonna gonna be making up for that in weeks to come. I have nothing but time to waste so gonna start working on my comic illustration. For now...sketches.

Under the influence

2011-07-09T23:56:00.003+01:00

Came across this on DeviantArt a couple of weeks ago and it got me thinking about my own influences. During this endevour I realised how difficult it is. I literally had to write down a list of things I felt aided my art or just me in general, and some of them were pretty obvious- like music and science. But after about 5 influences, I realised I was struggling a bit and had to think outside the box. So after about 5 hours of thinking and picture collecting and then creating i've finally finished and come up with my own Meme. (All images from google or by the artists named!):

1- Music: couldn't think of an exact band because different ones have influenced me at different times for different reasons lyrically and musically.

2- Marvel Comics: this is a given.

3- Egon Schiele: studied him during GCSE and found a lot of parallels with his style in terms of form, shape and colour.

4- Jimmy Cheung: definitely my favourite Marvel comic artist. British born (woop) and just awesome. His characters are dynamic and his line art/inking is just beauutiful. I love his work on the Young Avengers.

5- Whedonverse: Joss Whedon is a genius, end of. The Whedonverse has provided me with years of entertainment and creative possibilities. The imagination is limitless.

6- Juxtapositions: i've always been drawn to illustrating bodies in various shapes. Just makes for a better composition.

7- Anime: from the very beginning this was probably my biggest influence but as time has gone on i've slipped away from it, but there are still definitely element of it in terms of style, especially in regards to my OC's.

8- Everyday people: massive influence on my OC's etc. I remember certain aspects of people and retain them for later use. I used to jot things down to remember for late.

9- Black hair: this s a recent thing. This hasn't really shown up in my art work but more just in my life in general.

10- Colours: this speaks for itself. Plays a very big role with my OC's.

11- Nostalgia: I love thinking back and pulling things from the past to aid new things.

12- Biology: this pretty much speaks for itself. Science and Art <3

13- Anatomy: nuff said.

2nd class citizen

2011-07-01T09:11:00.001+01:00

Got me a hight 2.1....im going to Dundee baby!

In Utero

2011-06-29T13:25:00.003+01:00

Well it's Wednesday 29th and today is important for 2 reasons:

Results day: I find out whether or not I'm Dundee Material. Hooplah! heres to hoping
I'm 2 days post Glastonbury and the Glasto blues have well and truely set in. But, seeing as though this is an art-sci blog and not a day in the life of my lonely glasto heart lets get right to it.

They call it 'Sandalism' believe me, i've looked for AGES to find out who the sculptors are, but for my last 2 Glastonbury's these have definitely been the highlight, combining my love of festival fun, art and science (not sand).

These are photo's from last years Sandalism which i was absolutely blown away by. So 'Cassandra' got made on monday- wednesday, then everyday until sunday part of her were striped away until she was just bones, then eventually crushed sand.

I absolutely LOVE these sculptures, they remind me of some of my earlier works when I was kinda Bacon and Russell influenced. Literally just water, sand and patience. The detailing aswell especially in the muscles is a beaut. You can see all the individual tendons etc. But these pictures definitely don't do the sculptures justice, firstly because they're pretty big, but mainly cause you need to see it to believe it. Never really come across proper sand sculpture before, but may look into this.

All I know is that 'Cassandra' was created by the top 3 sand artists.

Here she is from start to finish:

Sandalism at Glastonbury 2010 from zara gaze on Vimeo.

This years one went in reverse, but it was a shame I didn't get to see it everyday- only saw day 1 and 2. Basically started as a wave of sperm and the next day was an embroy. Gutted I didnt get to see the rest:

Especially after watching 'Inside the Human Body', not gonna lie, was very giddy with excitement at the prospect of this. Much so that I think im gonna start a new project. Not quite sure what it will entail, but will definitely keep updating.

Show me your base pair

2011-06-20T23:29:00.001+01:00

Just another quick post because I am kkeeeenn. Me and me bestie are getting inked in couple of weeks and after years of planning and deciding (i'm very indecisive) I have settled on what I wish to get permanently stamped on my innocent flesh:

I am VERY excited. Basically this is the equation for Adenine- a very important base pair in the formation of DNA. Very geeky I know, but it's alot more than that. It genuienly has personal meaning for me which I prefer not to disclose, but for me it has important meaning.

Originally I wanted to get a double helix structure but I wouldnt find any decent pictures that we're all cartoony etc. I did consider getting a gander at my own DNA sample and translating that but thats effort and just damn right ridiculous. So Adenine it is!

UPDATE: 09/07/11

Tattoo done and dusted as of the 7th. All very last minute but hey. £90 well spent me thinks. VERY happy with my little adenine.

Composure

2011-06-20T23:11:00.003+01:00

Well I said I was gonna do a piece on the madness of bioart/artists, but it's too late in the day and i'm sleepy, so instead a quick rant about genetics and the affect on nature yada yada yada:

Alexis Rockman- 'The Farm'

Here lies an images that says it all really. Im all for genetics and to some extent genetic modification (but who isn't), but the thing is, genetic modification is basically the genetic coding for 'death' (good ole Peter Galison). Basically scientists are 'killing' certain genetic codes and removing them from the gene pool in order to produce a desired effect. Let's be honest, this seems all good and well when the cure for all types of diseases are being discovered, but then again, our evolution takes thousands of years so in all fairness we're not seeing the full consequences of this 'gene manslaughter'.

Same can't be said for crops and various other animals- 'The Farm' is a really good take on this. Rockman depicts a farm showing the different stages of GM- from a chicken as we knew/know it, to one modified to the extent that its basically featherless and wing-tastic in other to maintain more meat or what not. But what I found particularly interesting was the little mouse at the bottom of the painting which has an ear on its back. It is basically a metaphor the a scientists god-like power to GM any organism just for the sake of it. The ear proves of no value to the mouse, its obviously just for commercial values (just like Sterlac and Kac- previous post).

Its all a bit odd really, seems to all have gotten out of hand. Next thing you know they'll be coming up with new base pairs, adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine will be a thing of the past! A lesson definitely needs to be learned from banana's, all that GM just kills of diversity leaving the organism more prone to extinction at the hands of one super virus/infection. Or in the case of some dogs, just general deformities and decrease in life span.

It all seems so far removed now from the original idea behind genetics to help maintain life. Instead it has the secret tag-line of 'purifying' life- but not in the same way as water, I mean the Rockefeller Foundation's molecular vision of life with rise of the New Biology, Linus Pauling way- a 'purification' of "molecular diseases"- basically, anything that does not fit in with the ideal.

For Shame.

And then there was one..

2011-06-16T02:46:00.015+01:00

So a new beginning (or re-beginning in this case). Perfect time to start really, just finished my BA History of Art Undergraduate (will save that discussion for my next post) and have just today or rather yesterday- been accepted to do an MSc at Dundee Uni to do Forensic Art. VERY excited. So now that summer has started and im attempting to be job filled, I also want to be art filled in preparation! This won't be all gallery visits etc cause im far too lazy, but maybe a few rants- starting with my course and updates with my upcoming publication! YES I AM BEING PUBLISHED!! sooo discussion on that will DEFINITELY involve a lot of nifty art/science stuff that im still trying to get my head around but s'all good.
So in sum, I will update this journal weekly (maybs twice if im not too lazy) with new art and new rants.
But here's a little food for thought that will be the intro to my next discussion me thinks: Bio-artist's gone mad?

Eduardo Kac- GFP Bunny Stelarc- Ear on arm thingy

Boom.