Pencil Drawings: Zombie, Monkey & Christopher Walken
Oct5
Got me a new set of coloured pencils (Faber Castell 24’s) for my birthday (thanks, girlf), so I don’t need to scab them off my housemate any more. Been keeping up with the drawing, which is great.
Here are my new pencils in a recycled pasta-sauce jar:
Here’s a zombie I drew and coloured in at the behest of my girlf, who was tired of me using one colour for each drawing:
Here’s a detail so you can take in all the good pencil-on-paperiness:
A monkey:
And here’s Christopher Walken:
Later!
“Real” Drawings & Mickey Mice
Oct1
For the past couple of months I’ve been working with kids in after school care programs. One of the great things about it has been drawing with the kids. REAL drawing. Like, with pencils and paper and stuff. It’s been a while since I actually touched lead to parchment, and I was surprised to find that my drawing skills since I last tried it had vastly improved. Guess the computer screen just isn’t conducive to those kind of realisations.
Anyway, I’ve been drawing heaps of pictures for the kids, and trying to get them to draw as well. Unfortunately, I keep forgetting to bring any home with me, but tonight I decided to spend an hour or two at home doodling away the old fashioned way.
Here are some results:
This is probably the best vampire I’ve ever drawn. Pretty proud of his wacky bent features.
After reading this article about the history of Mickey Mouse, some sort of Disney bug bit me and I just started drawing page after page of the iconic rodent. He was surprisingly easy to draw and I found that even when I screwed it up, he was still pretty much instantly recognisable. A testament to how well designed this character is. (I also realised that Mickey’s iconic ears always appear as round circles on the top and the back of his head, no matter which angle he’s viewed from. A little trick to garner instant recognition, no doubt.)
I even tried drawing him with my eyes closed and he was still instantly identifiable:
It’s interesting to note that in the early days of Disney, Mickey was a much more mischievous and sometimes downright despicable character. “He was a guy who smoked and drank and shot guns, skewered people with swords, threw Minnie Mouse out of a plane when she wouldn’t kiss him, and abused farm animals,” explains Disneyphile Warren Spector in the previously linked article. Inspired by this, I drew a lecherous Mickey Mouse. A far cry from the sanitised, personality-less mascot he’s become today:
That’s about it for now. I’m really enjoying drawing again for the first time in a while, so hopefully some more sketchy goodness will be populating this blog in the days to come.
Link o’ the Week & a Work in Progress
Aug1
Got bored doing the things I was supposed to be doing and started doing something just for fun. Here’s the start of it:
It’s continuation may be delayed as I’m flying to Melbourne in a couple of days and I have a lot to do before then.
In website news (shiggy.com.au), I’ve added a “Link o’ the Week” feature to the home page, right under the “Image o’ the Week” feature. This week’s featured link is the blog of Kim Fleming, talented Aussie illustrator.
I first encountered Kim’s work whilst working on “Grouchy Granny” for Funtastic Publishing. The editor sent me a sample of a previous book they’d published called “Boss of the Farm”, which was illustrated by Kim. She works wonders with watercolours and if you take a look at her blog, you’ll see she’s constantly challenging herself with new techniques.
“Grouchy Granny” can be found at the National Library of Australia here, as can “Boss of the Farm” here.
Who is Shiggy?
Shiggy is Joe Sciglitano, Aussie illustrator & designer.