Illustration Friday: Round

Our society values stick-thin people. Hardly anyone real is stick-thin. Most people are rounder, if not completely round. But roundness is no reason not to live one's life. Here is one such person, who played during dinner at a marvelous weekend event. No one there cared one way or the other about how thin or not a person was. People danced, made music, talked, and generally loved being alive.

Accordion Guy # 10

I don't know what to say. This is the first "accordion guy" picture I've done on the computer instead of with pen and ink. Though it's fun playing around with this digital stuff, and seeing what different effects you can get with different settings, I really miss the real stuff. It's messier.

I find it interesting though, that whatever medium a person uses, they have the same kind of basic urges. This seems very clearly MY picture, despite the fact that I made it on a computer instead of on paper.

But now I'm going to go start a paper picture.....

Accordion Guy #9

Okay, so this isn't REALLY a "hatching" picture--I do have a few ideas, but I really need to hatch a plan for making a little extra money. Having the kid in college is stretching the budget beyond all reason.

I tried selling cards today at the Holiday Farmer's Market, and though lots of people looked at them and said how much they liked them, hardly anyone bought them. Maybe I was asking too much , or maybe it just wasn't the right thing for this event. Who knows. I really like them, though.

I made the sketch for this drawing a couple weeks ago, and started rendering it in ball point pen yesterday afternoon, and finished yesterday evening at a friend's house with a bunch of other people playing music. When they asked why I wasn't playing , I had to say that it was because I was so much enjoying seeing if I could make this drawing work out...

Illustration Friday: Music

It's not like I haven't made a dozen or so "music" pictures, and I have some cool ideas for this one. But it's been our local dance weekend, and I didn't have any time at all. This is a sketch I made of one of the musicians at the dance weekend playing accordion, which I am going to post temporarily, which I'm working on a "real" music picture.

Accordion Guy #8

This is my reward for finishing the last class set of Frankenstein essays (I started four hours ago--ack!)--scanning and posting this little picture I made last night (when I was WAY too fried to grade essays). I now have two class sets of Scarlet Letter essays, and two class sets of Scarlet Letter tests, which are mostly writing and will take forever to grade. I'd much rather be making pictures (or playing music).

But this is another picture for the Illustration Friday. I "blurred" a whole bunch of pieces of paper with a light wash and then spattering ink on it so that it blurred in interesting ways.

Accordion Guy #7

(
There! This makes me a whole lot happier...not so stiff or boring (despite some rather obvious problems, which I'm going to ignore at this point).

Accordion Guy #6

Just more pen-and-ink drawings, with the idea that if I do enough of them, I'll get better at them. Plus they're a lot of fun.

What are the "rules" about references? What sorts of images are copyrighted? I mean, if you use an image from the internet as a reference, how different does your drawing have to be from the original photography to not be violating copyright law? Like this one. I actually don't know where I got it from. I printed off a whole bunch of accordion pictures a couple months ago, but I don't think any of them would be recognizable as "that picture". Sure, maybe something about the pose, but not the compositions, and I've taken a lot of liberties with a lot of things....

As with a whole bunch of other drawings I've done, I am still fascinated by the wrinkles on people's faces....

Accordion Guy #5

, m*******It's been cold and rainy all day, with intermittent storms. I've been alternating working on things like this and playing the nyckelharpa I'm borrowing. I think I'm going to go mad.

Accordion Guy #4

The only problem with making a picture that you really like (like the last one, not this one) is that for sure, the next one you're not going to like nearly so much. But you have to do it anyway. This one falls smack in the middle of that middle 50%, which is a shame, but oh well. I know what it is that I don't like about it, and what I'd do differently if I were going to do it again (which I most likely won't). That's the good thing about making pictures solely for yourself. You're ALLOWED to make bad pictures. And on this one, once I'd messed up (the blotch of ink on his face), then I was even more free to experiment, because it really didn't matter any more. It's only through experimenting that you discover things that hopefully you can use deliberately on other pictures.

Accordion Guy #3

I hate to say it, but the only reason I made this picture is that I wanted to experiment with a grainy wash background. I must admit I'm really liking the layering affect. Someone (who?) whose blog I've looked at recently said something about her backgrounds being fortuitous, and the composition being deliberate. I guess this is all pretty sketchy (and by all means I should actually DRAW the whole thing first before going nuts on the ink, or you'll end up with two parts of an accordion that don't really fit together.)

Accordian Guy #2

, music picture
Here's the reward for persisting in making bad pictures--one that I really like! It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't made all those other pictures. What did someone say--that you can't expect to like more than about 25% of the pictures you make.

That 25% really liking, 50% okay, and 25% hating is about right. Well, you won't get the ones you really like without making lots--unless of course you're really good....sigh.

But this made me think of the Far Side cartoon with a split frame--on the top an angel is handing someone a harp and saying "Welcome to Heaven--here's your harp" and on the bottom the devil handing someone an accordion and saying "Welcome to Hell--here's your accordion."

I do like harp music, but ultimately, the accordion is more versatile. You can play raucous dance music with is as well as beautiful, moody stuff....

Accordion Guy

New pen nib--no ink droppings (ugh--that sounds like bird droppings). I wanted to post something new before I started commenting on people's fleeting pictures, because I really don't like my fleeting picture.

But I figure that as long as I'm learning something (which I am), then it's all good.