College - Drawing 101

Hello again! I'm pushing ahead with my art blog by posting some of my best drawings from my Drawing 101 class. Enjoy!

Complex Tool - One of the assignments our instructor gave us was to draw complex tools. This is the best one that I did of a dremel.

First Still Life - First (and one of the best) still life drawings I created in the drawing class.

Midterm Still Life - This drawing was made about halfway through the course. We were asked to draw a still life from the pile of objects the teacher created in the center of the room. There was a lot of stuff to draw, so it was pretty easy to find a good vantage point!

Corner and Mirrors - Once we finished still life drawings, we moved on to rooms. I drew this from one of the bathrooms.

Skull - after getting used to drawing rooms, we moved on to drawing more organic objects, starting with skulls. This is the second skull drawing that I did of a bull skull.

Ram head - After drawing skulls, the next step was to draw the rest of the animal. We went to the science building and spent a few days there drawing taxidermy animals.

Cloth - Once we finished with animal skulls, we moved to using charcoal to create shading. This was my most-involved drawing, but it's also one of my favorites.

Charcoal Still Life - After we mastered (or at least became proficient with) black charcoal, our instructor had us use both white and black charcoal on blue paper to create an even more detailed still life.

Lounge - As the year drew to a close, we began experimenting with different shading methods, including hatching, stippling, and cross-hatching. For our final project, we were supposed to draw a room using one of the shading methods. I drew the lounge of the dorm in which I was staying using the cross-hatching technique. I think it turned out rather well.

That about does it for now. Hope you liked what I had to offer! See you again next time!

First year of College - Fundamentals of Design

Sorry it's been a while since my last post; I've been severely lacking in both time and motivation for anything other than school and work. Now that I've had a chance to catch my breath, I'm going to take the opportunity to continue adding some of my artwork. These next few drawings are from my first-ever art class in college, Fundamentals of Design.

This first set of drawings are all part of the same overall project, which explored four basic aspects of design.

My first project. We were supposed to create a design using ink that showed line and shape.

Second drawing. We needed to create a design that showed that we understood what lines were. Like I said before, it was a fundamentals class.

Third drawing. Our third project was to use value to simulate distance.

Fourth drawing. This design needed to show repetition. I decided to make something that looked similar to dragon scales, because I'm a dork like that.

Fifth drawing. The final of this set of projects, we needed to create a design that  incorporated all of the elements that we had used in the previous four designs.

The next few pictures depict our second project, which consisted of using colored paper to make designs.

First design - The first design that we created during this project was relatively simple. We were given a 4"x4" or 5"x5" square of black paper, and we were supposed to create something (using all the pieces) that did not look like it came from a square.

Second design - Unlike our first design, our second one needed to look like it came from a square piece of paper.

Third design - Our third design was to consist of 5 unique shapes that combined to create a single picture.

Fourth design - Same as the third, only using white paper on black.

After we finished this project, we began drawing with perspective. Unfortunately, I did not receive these drawings back from my professor before he left for his new job (an oversight for which I am still mentally kicking myself), and I only thought to take a picture of the final project. 

Diamond in the Rough - This was my final project in Fundamentals of Design, and it remains on of my favorite drawings. It took me close to 36 total hours to complete, but it was worth it.

That's all for now! I promise the next update will be sooner! Thanks for reading!

Early Animations

Since my last post dealt with my early drawings, I decided that this one should showcase my early animation attempts. I created these animations in my Computer Aided Drafting and Design class while I was a sophomore in high school. My instructor liked to let his students experiment with all different types of software, including AutoCAD, Autodesk VIZ, Garage Band, etc. As a result, I was able to try using VIZ to get a start on some animation basics. This first video is the result of both on-my-own experimentation and some of the pre-loaded tutorials.

After I got comfortable with the software, I decided to try creating a longer animation. I have always been fascinated by warplanes, so I decided to try creating a P51-D Mustang using VIZ and have it fly around for a bit. This is the early result.

I was pretty pleased with the result of my efforts, but my instructor wanted me to do better. He encouraged me to add more details and make it look more realistic, so I did. When I was finished, he entered me into the Southeast Polk Technology Expo, which was a regional competition for high schoolers in all different areas of technology and design. Here is the video I submitted.

I was going up against four seniors who had far more experience than I did, so I wasn't expecting to win anything. I was shocked, then, when I received two blue ribbons and two gold medals in my respective categories.

That's all for now. Thanks for taking a look! I'll be back soon with some more recent stuff.

Some Early Drawings

Since I'm going to be trying my best to keep this blog up-to-date, I figured the best way to start is by posting some of my early works. This is going to be stuff that I did in high school, so it's not going to be terribly amazing, but we all start somewhere.

Phantasm-Sketchbook assignment where we had to create a new superhero. It's one of my earliest attempts at drawing the human form, as well.

Dragon-this was just a sketch that became much more detailed as I drew.  I have never been able to recreate that look.

Idol-This drawing is another early attempt at drawing the human form

Flower-Quite possibly one of my favorite drawings I have ever done. My art teacher required us to draw a flower of some kind, and I knew instantly that this was how I wanted it to look. 

Dream Vacation-This was one of my final sketchbook assignments. We were told to draw our dream vacation, but I decided to be abstract and drew a literal vacation in a dream. 

Self-portrait-My last art class sketch assignment. The pose was inspired from a picture I took at the end of one of my high school trips (to Colorado), and by the end of it everyone was sick and tired of everyone else. I snapped this shot to commemorate the general feeling of dissatisfaction for nostalgia's sake.

Deck and Mast- This drawing with color was part of an independent project that I took on my senior year. I fleshed out a story (which ended up being longer than I thought it would be), drew storyboards and characters, and was planning on using Autodesk VIZ to create an animated version of the story. Unfortunately for me, my perfectionist nature ended up hurting me in both the story and the drawings, and I was forced to drop the last part of the project and instead I spliced the storyboard backgrounds and characters together on the computer (with a LOT of help from my parents), recorded myself reading the story, and created a half-hour long movie that way.

That's all for now. I'll post some more early stuff soon!