Just doodles

Since this is essentially my sketchblog and "digital sketchbook", here are some of those random doodles from random pieces of extra papers and backsides of work documents...

Also it has been a while since my last doodle collection...I don't just draw enough nowadays!

Hot in the Face

A quickie, to keep this up and going. Sometimes I try to shake my "comic drawing" sensibilities and try to draw in a more classical way. That means a bit more naturalistic and no outline -type of drawing. Well here I failed miserably 'cause I have some outlines instead of just shadow/light. I also couldn't skake my feathering habit or that laying in values with separate strokes/lines.

But I lov drawing on a tinted paper. If anyone comes by a sketchbook that has all the pages tinted in grey for example and proper paper quality, please let me know :)

OMG lifedrawings

It had been a while since I did traditional life drawing and it also took a while to get going this time. I still tend to stop to think too much thus slowing the pen down and often that results in stiff drawings, poor weight and bad proportions.

I should also start experimenting with new media and a bigger paper. These were done an a A4 pad, about one per page.

Burlesque all night long

Some drawings from Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School from last friday. Dang, it was something special. Again held in bar Dubrovnik which is a great place to have these. It's got the mood for this type of thing...
Since this "Dial B for Burlesque" was also part of the Helsinki Burlesque festival, they had more shows than just those for drawing. Really fun and colorful performances!

Here's some collections of drawings I did of them glamorous ladies.

All it needs is a little bit of paint

A friend of mine commissioned a painting from me. There were few requirements. It had to fit the frames that she already had and those were of challenging proportions, really wide and quite low. I needed to have a certain color palette that fits with the interior of the room. Also the subject matter was set to have lovers lying next to each other.
I think the proportions were the toughest bit. I took the color palette a bit too seriously and went almost monochromatic. The subject was nice and I did go at first to the more sexual approach but settled (had feedback) with the more cuddly approach.
I hadn't painted in many years, at least not in traditional acrylics. I kept looking for the undo button and digital eraser. I got the colors almost right in the first pass and they had a fresh transculent glow...but then I fucked up. I saw that several proportions were of with the figures and I just couldn't mix the same colors on the palette that had come up with the thin layering of colors. So painting off the mistakes was producing colors that differed from what I originally wanted. I didn't remember that traditional painting was so hard...with lack of practice obviously.
If it had been just my own painting I had gone the other way but now I had to stay true to the original sketch and the required palette.
I definitely want to paint again so this didn't put me off it but it came close :D! And here's some sketches and "in progress" pics which I forgot to take from the first phases. I'm not completely satisfied but gald that I got it done..

"Political" Cartoon Tryout 2

Updating the blog for a CHANGE! Another cartoon that did for the competition mentioned here. With this I skipped the sketching to avoid excess noodling which is apparent in the previous one.

Again, this was not intended as ha-ha funny. Partly 'cause I couldn't come up with one but because of the subject. So what do people (especially the 40-50's generation) still generally think or react when talking about the climate change.

Text translates: "The increase in rainfall is caused by the climate change."

Dead or Alive?

Heellooo, remember me? I just can't believe that I previously updated the blog in November! Obviously I didn't make any serious "I'll update my blog every week and be a good boy" -New Year's resolutions.
But hey! Happy New Year to everybody let's get this show on the road, ONCE again!

Last night was again Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School session here in Helsinki. I must say, the show was the best one yet. It's gonna be hard to top this one. It was held in the Theatre Museum and on this little stage with red curtains we saw scenes from the movies of David Lynch come alive! Angelo Badalamenti's scores led the atmosphere as the permormers took poses in costumes that were all obviously hard work and commitment. Great job, thank you!

This time I was more just looking than drawing. The amount of decent art from me in this session is minimum.

There's this really tall guy in the Helsinki Burlesque crew that I just knew had to at some point appear before the red curtains. Wearing a white shirt and a red bowtie he stood in the spotlight and said: "It is happening again...it is happening again". I didn't even draw that classic scene since I was just staring and thinking "this is great!".

Of course there were interpretations but I think the Lost Highway "scene" with the girl looking like Patricia Arquette, holding the telephone in her hand as a menacing figure appeared behind her was spot on. A stark mood that I tried to capture in the very limited times that we had again on each scene.

Another tryout

I did this political cartoon for an editorial cartoon -competition a while ago here in Finland. It didn't receive any accolades. I was a bit lost when once again I really started working on some pictures for this only a few days before the deadline. I hadn't really found a suitable style and all three that I did ended up looking a bit different from each other. I think I also raised my standard too high in the sense that I looked for inspiration and level of thought and execution from Quino :)
They really would have had more feeling to them if I had developed a bit more on the style but would also have avoided overwriting ideas into one image.
I was the most content with this one, it has an international subject matter and no need for translation. But is it funny? Not in particular. I wanted it have more a satirical slap in the face -feel and criticism on the policies of particular countries.

Crestock tryout

As these things usually go, I decided to start doing an entry for a competition the night before the deadline. Quick and dirty then.

The idea in the (annual) Crestock Photoshop competition was to make an apocalyptic christmas "card" based on the given stock images. I went for a kind of an animated short -feel on the characters here.

One irritating thing was that it seems my monitor at home shows colours a bit too dark, especially in the red area. I realized this when I checked the image on the monitor at my work place. It looked like crap. I did a couple of quick fixes and sent it off.

I'm just happy that I did something. Makes me want to do more digital painting again.

You can check it out here and cast a vote if you like it and want to go through the trouble of registering :)
http://www.crestock.com/blog/photoshop/contest2008/entry.aspx?id=8678

There's this one image that I feel is a sure winner. It has a good consistent style, conceived with care and a refreshingly not so bleak take on the subject:
http://www.crestock.com/blog/photoshop/contest2008/entry.aspx?id=8542

Damn those lifedrawings

Croquis for a change (sorry Kaltsu ;). I tried to loosen a bit but these did end up looking a bit...hmm..stiff? (The model is alive and well of course).

Burlesques Muertos

I went to the Dr Sketchy's again last night. The theme for this time was Dia De Los Muertos. So this time it was more on the mexican macabre than on erotic tease :) The models were posing as a dead married couple with masks and heavy make-up.

I found out that drawing people with clothes on is actually much harder than drawing a nude model. I was also sitting at a not-so-good angle so I relied more on the feel, theme and stylization instead of "model drawing".

These were pretty fast poses of 5-10 mins but I did put in some gray values afterwards. The fast sketch I did when the couple was dancing their last dance...

Lifedrawing Tonic...

for this blog. I ought to name this blog "Janne's nudes" but what the hell these lifedrawing keep this thing alive at least and my nudes wouldn't atract a crowd of any kind.
I try to start the at LEAST one post per week pace (better if more).

So a couple of fast nudies here, enjoy.

Cintiq doodle 2

Sheesh, I had the Cintiq on my desk for two weeks at work but other things that really didn't require it's use, came in the way. So when I actually doodled something this is the other one that came out of it...a semi-nude girl. As far as subject matter goes it can't get better than that.

Stiffdrawing

As the autumn progresses here in Finland, also the lifedrawing classes continue. So I'm back with some of those. The break has done it's bit. My drawing felt really stiff and I only started to get the hang of it only at the very end of the session.

So here's a couple of those.

Cintiq doodle

OMG a post! Yes it's been a while since my last outing here. Nothing extra special this time but I did get to make my first marks with a Wacom Cintiq. It's not my own (although I started to think about it...). They got a couple of the 12" versions at work now and I tried it out.
It wasn't that great at first. The feel of the pen or the offset between the pen's point and "canvas" with the screen material in between kind of annoyed me at first.
But here's my first ever quick doodle with a cintiq anyway!

Nightly Burlesque

Helsinki Festival's large event, the traditional Night of the Arts was held again last friday. Among the night's numerous events was the Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School, organized again by the Burlesque Festival of Helsinki.
Thankfully I did find the time to pop in to do some drinking and drawing again. This time it was special because the founder of Dr. Sketchy's, Molly Crabapple was there to give a presentation about the phenomenon and her art. Then she performed for a packed class of artists a great show, celebrating Weimar Berlin. Boy, was she something ;)
Here's now a couple of my drawings again. Molly picked her favorites from a female and a male artist. I was pretty much in the front row of a packed room where it was hard for her to navigate so she didn't probably see the really good ones in the back and so instead, she picked mine! She also signed it for me. Which was nice.
The one she picked was actually my favourite too 'cause I did it in the start of the show, when she was dancing and moving. I didn't pay attention for the likeness but I think I did catch some feel of the elegance and movement. The others here were drawn from a still pose and because I had more time on my hands I tended to start overdoing them. Too much thinking will only slow you down!

Machine Bliss

This is actually a kind of a new thing in this blog. The normal stuff that I've thrown around has been doodles, old stuff etc.

Picture's name is "Tollous" which translates roughly "stupidness of a jolly kind" :) I did it as an entry to a competition where the brief was to illustrate a poem by Arja Tiainen. The title was "Rakkaus koneisiin" = "The Love for Machines". I went the feeling route on illustrating it to avoid the word to word -type of illustration. It's still in the same universe as the poem :)

I didn't win any prizes but I was happy the get something done for a change and I got to be part of the classy exhibition surrounding the competition. The exhibition is open at the Art Museum of Mikkeli until the 21st of October so if you happen to be near the city, I recommend that you check it out.

Sketchville

I think I'm getting back up to speed with this blog, at least in terms of publishing frequency (quality is another matter).

Well here is at least one Dark Knight -inspired doodle (excellent movie!) and with that Eeyore goes together nicely. The doodle about Eeyore came about when I watched a couple of episodes of soviet produced Winnie The Poohs. The design of Eeyore was way more appaling then the Disney one. This doodle is something of a cross breed of those two donkeys...

(Now that I look at the two doodles at the bottom-left corner, they remind me of a scifi-version of the Hunchback Of Notre Dame.)