This sketch turned out much better, I think. I’m pretty happy with it, for once.

I tried blotting out the bleeding ink with a wet towel, which just ended up making the lines a bit fuzzy… So I gave in and just used my Tria markers.

I was worried it would look funny, since I don’t have any grays, but the grayish tones I got from combining pastels turned out to look the nicest, I think.

Altogether, it looks effortless, not like a mistake. Hopefully now that I’ve figured out a style for these things, they’ll all look at least this polished from now on.

I don’t think I’d kick either of those two out of bed.

We watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall last week, as we found it for cheap on Blu-Ray this weekend.

I knew I wanted to watch it again, but I had forgotten just how much I liked it. It’s got plenty of those classic, hilarious, gross-out “Judd Apatow” moments, but for the most part, it’s probably the sweetest of those movies.

I bought that lovely Pentel tradio fountain/marker pen a while back, and started doing all my inky black outlines with it (a characteristic of my drawings that I have stuck with since middle school).

I love the delicate, organic lines it creates, but I have recently gone back to watercolours to colour things in on top (also something I started to do around the 6th grade). I noticed my colours were getting muddy and gray. The lovely pen, which should be waterproof, bleeds! Alas and alack! This particular drawing caused me some consternation in particular, as the preliminary sketch was so nice… until I got water near it.

This makes me sad, as the pen was not a cheap investment, and it works so well in so many other instances (in fact, it refuses to budge when I use other solvents, like markers). I’ll have to come up with a new solution.

Gossip girls sketch (by beth maher)

Some little character sketches I did while watching Gossip Girl last night (we’re behind by a few episodes though).

Those gals are just as fun to draw as I had a feeling they’d be. The gloriousness of the costuming goes without saying, but all the wild, flowing hairstyles are pretty great too.

J Crew Cuts sketch #3 (by beth maher)

Thing’s I’m learning about by doing this series.

1. Outlines should be dark, but that doesn’t mean they have to be black.

2. Blender markers are a blessing and a curse.

3. It would be nice to have some neutral tones, instead of… none. But it’s more challenging this way.

4. While the brush tip is a nice addition, it doesn’t replace the fine point of the old Trias. *Sigh*

J Crew sketch (by beth maher)

Playing around with a J Crew catalogue and my Tria markers last night. I haven’t drawn like this in soooo long!

I think I’m gonna do a series in my sketchbook of these little Crew Cuts cuties. They’re too adorable to resist. The J Crew styling is also lot of fun to draw – all the wrinkles and creases and folds make for some great fabric studies. 

I just need to come up with a solution for my blue pencil. The Trias kinda smear it around and sink it into the page.

If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, you’ll know that my solution to many an art related conundrum is: faux-wood, peel-and-stick vinyl. I love me the fake wood shelf paper.

Maybe it seems at first an odd choice, perhaps a bit trendy, perhaps a bit kitschy – but it actually has some significance to me, odd as it is.

My grandfather (being the crafty cocktail gentleman that he was) loved the modern world. He surfed the net, read the New York Times, and downloaded mp3s of vintage jazz singles.

He loved pretty much any modern innovation – the quicker and the simpler it made his life, the better.

For example, he was a huge fan of the pressed aluminum cladding that made his work (as a heating and furnace guy) much easier.

When he saw the way Franky Gehry used these resilient sheets of metal to sculpt entire buildings he was impressed.

So, needless to say, wood on a roll was something he used quite a bit of. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he loved his Chinese antiques, but if something needed doing, it might just have gotten a coating of sticky vinyl by the end.

So you know those boring black sketchbooks? The really cheap ones you can get at any art supply store? I use them. If I used anything more expensive I’d be too worried about making a mistake and ruining them, and wouldn’t be as loose and experimental with my sketching as I like to be. So I don’t use those expensive moleskins that are so popular. Instead I just personalize the cheap ones and make them look pretty: I cover them in wood grain vinyl.

And now you know why.

A (not very good) caricature of Mr. Dollarama, back when he was more shaggy and unkempt.

Why do I have Kelly Clarkson’s magnum opus: “Since U Been Gone” stuck in my head?
I don’t listen to her, or anything that plays her music.
At very least, I’m like 14 months behind the times.
It’s always right before I try to go to sleep that these things implant in my head.
There should be a law against repetitive pop music being played anywhere near any human being less than 2 hours before bedtime.

My OCAD interview went good. Nothing terribly exciting (except for the one reviewer that shared his love of Arrested Development).
I don’t know what my status is yet though. Apparently they’re sending out emails in the next couple weeks. So at least I won’t have to wait too long.

My favourite preliminary sketch for my sofia coppola portrait.
I think she looks most like her self here.

If I’m working creatively (on the right side of my brain) I have this habit of completely screwing up things I’m trying to incorporate that are more intellectual (and utilize the left of my brain).
Like when I’m drawing things, if I add in little captions with pretty lettering, chances are I will misspell something grossly.

Exhibit A:

Sofia Coppola spells her name with an F (not a PH).
I know this.
I have purposefully memorized this fact.
I even named my dolly after her.
But then what do I write down?
Sophia.
I could have photo-shopped it out, but that would have just been a lie.

Turns out I’m not the only Toronto based (or soon to be), OCAD attending (fingers crossed), name dropping, sketch-booking, self-portrait painting, female in my family.
Genetics are weird.
And this is really cool. But image heavy. So you’re forewarned and stuff.

(more…)

(please excuse my atrocious French, probably horrible spelling and wonky little characters – I do think they’d make an awesome childrens book someday though)

Third and final of the fruit series.
Now I think I’m gonna make some ornaments.