Kiss Your Flabby Soul Goodbye!

Well, I finally put my nose to the grindstone and finished writing my book, "Kiss Your Flabby Soul Goodbye!" It is now my second self-published book and I'm excited about the possibilities. I hope others are too, especially after they see them!

So don't be shy! Take a peek, order the book, tell all your friends and family. Welcome to yet another day on the journey!

Mark
http://store.payloadz.com/detail.asp?Id=494649

Cartoon practice

Well, my cartoon buddies are starting to come along. Practice is paying off and I'm more pleased with the images I'm producing. Interesting how confidence grows along with practice. Must be a magic formula: practice + perseverance + patience = success? I might be on to something here...

My cartoons can walk!

Having fun with my cartoons and hope to see them getting along by themselves. I mean really, you have to push them out of the nest sooner or later!

Photo shoot

I had the privilege of going to a photography workshop where we learned how to photograph models. It was a great experience and I think I came away with some pretty decent shots. Just four of the almost 200 I shot!

Dragons!

So my dragon is starting to take shape. He's going to be one of my final portfolio drawings. I'm learning how to draw the legs and head and body parts. It's part of a larger drawing that came to my mind not too long ago. But I will say this... it's a blast to draw!

Business card

So this is the beginning of my final portfolio for AIS (Art Instruction School). One of the first projects is to design a business card. Had a heck of a time figuring out some decent lettering after having experimented with quite a few. Then the cartoon figure... looks just like me!

It's a work in progress and hopefully I'll have everything done by the end of February. Well, that's my goal anyway...

Caricature

Now I'm down to my final portfolio and today I was loosely sketching for some caricature work. It didn't even come close to what I wanted but it was fun!

Camera fun!

I have some tabletop photography equipment to take pictures in hopes of selling my images. Been a lot of fun experimenting and practicing. Some examples of what I've done so far! Coooool!

Time to send 'er in!

It's been said before... progress, not perfection!

I've shaded about as much as I can shade and I've drawn and redrawn as much as I can. Time to let it go.

These are all the pieces for this next-to-last assignment. I want to publicly thank everyone who has commented on my progress, especially those who encouraged the dream.

And I lift up a prayer to all those who don't believe in dreams, don't believe in the passions of the heart directed towards God above. May we always be what we are, and be it well!

Lord, if this is the talent you have given me and want me to use, then may that always be enough of an excuse for me to plow ahead and do it. Deo Gratias!

Close to done

Okay, wrapping up Bertha here. Need to do more shading on other parts of the assignment then it's time to turn 'em in. Even with all my whining, I don't think I've been graded any lower than a "B" on any of my assignments. So this is all good, I'm learning a lot, and hopefully I can bring some beauty into this world that will bring a smile or two. And if I can get Bertha to smile, well, then that WOULD be victory.

Bertha breathes

Shading and drawing, oh my! Working on giving Bertha some interesting looks and some cool folds. I'll make her attractive yet!

Bertha

This is the final assignment drawing. I have to show I can draw clothing on a figure... too bad it couldn't have been on a lady who smiles! Yeeeesh! You can bet I won't be bringing this lady home to mom. She looks like she just found out her pet amoeba died. Oh well, work with what you have.

More drapery

I'm supposed to draw the different folds you see in the picture. So I've spent more than several days trying to match up lines and shades and tones.

I want to say that this is so much fun and that I'm having a blast, but that would be a lie. It's tedious and frustrating. I feel like a copier copying one image to create an exact duplicate.

But what I really don't like is that I'm trying to PERFECTLY reproduce a picture. I'm fighting AGAINST perfectionism yet I find that for this assignment, I have to get every line and curve just so.

I can see already that some of the proportions are out of whack. The shading is off and it doesn't match PERFECTLY the picture we're drawing off of.

I want to have fun when I draw and this is NOT fun. But I'm sure that what I'm learning here will translate into being able to create looser, more creative artwork. Let's hope so. In the meantime, I have to shake the cramp out of my hand!

Just smile...

Folds and stuff

A quick people sketch (clothed I might add!) and some more drapery. All this black and white pencil work is numbing. Might have to go get some finger paint and go to town!

Fashion Design 101?

I'm guessing this isn't quite unlike dressing up paper figures with clothes (only I'm doing the artowrk!). Ruby Anne here gets a nice outfit from JCPenney complete with outdated stripes and outlandish hair do. The good news is, I don't have any plans on becoming a fashion designer!

Pretty in a dress

Hands and faces are still giving me fits! But hey, ain't she perty?

And still more...

Okay, you may be bored looking at these. But when I'm a world-famous artist, you're going to say... "I knew Mark when he was putting up all these funky sketches on a blog." Then they'll put all these sketches in a book then make a movie of my life. So if you're not part of this process now, you won't get a cut of my movie profits. Howz that grab ya??

Still at it

Human form, clothing, wrinkles, shading, posing, proportion. Practice, practice, practice...

Suiting up

This is jock strap boy with some clothes on. Until you get the particulars of the human body right, the clothes just aren't going to look right. Working on the folds and how the clothing drapes over the body.