Fruity Artsy

So, what to say after about a week has gone by?  Not much has gotten done.  Still reading thru tax guides, still sorting thru old papers of resumes and art promos, and I'm still looking up possible web hosting sites.  On top of all that, there's my necessary chores to get done between shifts at my essential retail job, if I got enough energy and time for it afterwards.  So, yeah, not much done art-wise. The most creative thing I've done this week is sand and varnish a wooden foldable table stand that I use regularly so to have it be more water resistant and easier to clean. 

(This is another reason why I want to change from Blogger: struggling to get the composition I want in a blog scroller frame is tricky. I can't always get it to look the way I want it.)

Fruit Sketches

Fruit Vectors

I could at least show you what I got finished last month though.  I had the thought on drawing vector icons of fruits during the summer for a Keto Ingredient Guide I wanted to make as I'm regularly eating toward that diet to lose weight (down to 310Lbs or less now).  I've since found a better guide of it with Wholesome Yum (they're a great site for food facts and keto recipes, you should definitely browse the site for low-carb/sugar diet help), but I wanted to finish what I drew. I did also a quick water mark to see what I could do to deflect infringement, might need work still.

I thought to make a set of icons as stock assets to eventually put up for sale (once I worked out the market part of it). Was going to draw a few sets of foods for the guide idea but got side-tracked with finishing off other projects like the last of my Halloween Decor ideas.  I'm glad now to be all done with trying to use up old materials for the sake of avoiding wasting them, so now I'm mostly  about my artwork with the occasionally DIY house work.  

 

I'm not sure exactly when I'll be able to start freelancing as I got a lot to catch up on, even with my retail job being part-time (it can get usually exhausting on front cash, foot traffic depending). While I'm not wanting to stay on my current job permanently, I don't want to quit it cold-turkey and be without a steady income for a long time.  That was one thing I've learnt from being jobless for about 6 years, except for having brief temp jobs, welfare and my parents' support to fall back on.  Once I can finally make a sustainable living with my art, I can consider going full-time into it and quit doing retail work.  For now, I'll be building up my portfolio while getting more informed with the business side, providing I don't have to keep doing a lot of small things like restitching worn clothes or refurbishing damaged items in a DIY fashion.

That's it for now.  Going to apply that second coat of polyurethane so I can reassemble my table again tomorrow, part of it anyway.

Some Future Planning and Seasonal Planning

Hey Everyone! Sorry for the late update; I wasn't back home until this evening and wasn't aware that my images weren't on here. How are you faring for the coming winter?  Toronto had already got its first snowfall for the season. Not much had stayed around for long but it’s only the start of dealing with the snow for the next 5 months.  I’ll least have more chances to sip hot drinks from cafes around now.

I had wanted to get more of my Halloween decor plans done back before the end of October but my time-management to balance prep time with work was fluctuated at least. Plus the scarecrow angel had taken the most time to finish. If given the infinite desired time, I would’ve got these made as well.

Wanting to use my excess pile of fabrics, I had the thought of making other smaller scarecrows. Supposedly a bunch of old fabric scraps including some new materials to expand my seasonal decor.  I might’ve already said this but I would like to create/buy a new decoration piece for each year; just like to upkeep the same love for Halloween as my Dad did. As for these thumbnails, I’ll probably be working on them on & off thru the upcoming year so not to be pressed for time for next Halloween.

So Christmas is coming and I usually do a Christmas Card Illustration to mail out to friends & family.  I’ll be doing that again, along with working on other DIYs.  Eventually when a lot of my DIYs done (about 5 or 6 big ones left) and I've mostly purged out anything else that I don't want to be routinely dealing with, I’m going to have to start planning my career path for freelancing my Illustrator skills soon enough.  I have some general idea of direction but I really need to work out the business half of it, plus can't hurt to build up a buffer of savings should when I choose to go full-time again or stop having my part-time job for any reason.

Well, that's enough for now.  Got to get back to trimming away my perpetual To-Do List.

Computer Problems, Marathon Runners and More Halloween Decor

Oye! I'm having a hard time with my computer lately! My Photoshop CS2 via Parallels/Windows XP is slow as molasses (I say that instead of a turtle because I remember how surprisedly fast my late pet turtle Zack was when he wanted to be) and it was just making a simple sketch cleanup look like a hi-res filter application that take an hour at least to apply.

It may be high time that I start replacing or upgrading my computer studio equipment; though a gift from my brother, this 2012 Mac Mini is getting slower each year and these years old art programs aren't keeping up with the latest technology much now. I started looking into what to buy/get though the funding may take a while to get saved up. Cheap alternatives in the meantime?

And that's my personal rant of the week, now onto my work for this past week.

For sketches, I happen to been just getting off from work when the Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon was going by my workplace (Lake Shore & Leslie).

After grabbing a hot latte to drink, I sat on to watch all the runners going by and thought to sketch them while I could. It definitely a challenge to capture the runners' likeness within a minute before they completely out of view.

What I like drawing them the most was getting each runner's movement down on paper. By confession, I did winged some details by guesswork and memory.

I don't usually sketch real people too often; usually it's my made-up characters. This was one of those rare times that you could sketch a stranger without that person feeling uncomfortable of being stared at while being drawn.

Next is my Halloween Decor progress. I got my Scarecrow Angel all done! I chose to add a plaid cloth (originally dish cloths newly bought) with a couple of old throw pillow cases with the indian ink-dyed burlap dress and sew them together as such in the pictures.

A shawl was added as well including a handkerchief to cover the bamboo neck.

The wings were a hassle to not only clip onto her dress but to also to position accurately parallel to the bamboo shaft as well. I managed to get done though.

Getting her hands back onto the sleeves took some hand cross-stitching. 

After putting her old straw stuffing for her arms back in, I've hot-glued more faux leaves to give the look being "stuffed" with more of those leaves like I did for her head and hat.

Lastly, I've also hot-glued some shimmering maple leaf confetti onto her shawl and sleeve ends. To include a reflective element into her dress as I did for her wings and head.

Overall, I'm happy with how she turned out.  Before, she looked like a generic store-bought or a plain homemade craft. Now she looks like she's ready for a party.

The only other decor I made was decorating this store-bought black cat wreath. Originally a black tube-cleaner wrapped around a plastic frame with plastic yellow eyes and whiskers, I took some glitter berries, faux leaves and maple leaf confetti and hot-glued them onto it as such.  So now I have a Halloween Wreath that should grab attention from nearby treat 'n' treaters.

So that's all I got here for now.  This week, I have a pumpkin to carve into a jack o' lantern and may have some more sketches to show later on. Till next week then.

Fall Market, Inktober sketch and Halloween Decor

For this week's showcase of creativity, I did two sketches and work on a seasonal project that I wanted to be done before Halloween.

Leslieville's Flea Market, Simple Pantry

Due to using every day off that I could on clearing off backlogs of projects, I didn't go out much for day trips to outdoor events, let alone do urban sketching. I kept wanting to see this flea market that's in my workplace's neighbourhood, Leslieville, Toronto all summer so I made the effort to see its' last outdoor date for the year.  There weren't too much there, understandably due to the cooler temperature but it was a nice sunny day. There was one stand I really liked so I did my sketch on it.  I even bought one of the vendor's goods.

Inktober Sketch, Day 11 - Prompt: Cruel

I love the idea of inktober, getting to do small improv ink sketches or grander ones depending your time and creativity.  For taking a breather from house chores, I decided to do at least one ink sketch and that day's prompt was "CRUEL".  My main thought for that word while checking emails were seeing Change.org's petition updates on Tyson's cruelty to their chicken breeding.  So seeing a flock of chicken stuffed into a small cage was the sketch I went with (an earlier idea was having a pig stuffed into a rectangle cage that it was bulging thru the gaps).  There's unfortunately a lot of big name companies or farming practices that treats the animals that we'll be eating eventually more like commodities rather the living creatures that they are and it keeps happening often away from the majority of public awareness.  

Finally is my main focus for the week: my old Scarecrow Angel.  Unfortunately, I didn't think to take any "Before" photos of how it looked like before but it was long overdue for a makeover.  I think I first got it when someone was giving it away (maybe back when I was in the Girl Guides) and had used it for Halloween Decor since.  Rain damage and Ink dye run-off plus a bit on the plain side, I wanted to revitalize it for this Halloween. Starting with the head, lifting and tightening her burlap face (giving her literally a facelift 😉) I've hot-glued the burlap in place then repainted her eyes, nose and mouth in acrylic paints, adding some more head bangs with her straw hat.  Her hat was a bit plain so I've decorated it with raffia strands, dollar store decorations like faux leaves, styrofoam glitter berries with twigs and for the heck of it, a small styrofoam lacquer pumpkin. 

Another feature for me to fix was her torso/bust.  It used to have a plastic bag stuffed with newspaper that got thrown out.  For a replacement, I took an old throw pillow that no one really uses and with thick thread, cross-stitched it around the scarecrow angel's pole and shoulder dowling.  Much more permanent than the cheaper materials used before.

I've made more progress than this on it last week but I'll save that progress report for next week.  I have an early morning work shift next and I'm pushing it as it is with getting enough sleep tonight.  Post to ya then.

Sketches for the week (I'm back by the way)

More or less, my client's large mural project is done. As long as there isn't any complications with the printing on my client's end and I have to make more revisions to fix it.

I can fairly confidently say that I am back to making regular posts.  At least as long as I can build back up my content buffer.  I'm not going to be slowly down though; once I get caught up with what got neglected while I was on the mural project, I got to get on with some essential matters in my life.  Finding more sustainable employment for starters, even if it's with a temp agency in Scarborough.

Don't get me wrong; I'm fine with taking on jobs from Fiverr, but I rather be doing short works on there over 2-3 week projects for a measly flat rate.  I'm going to modify my Fiverr gigs to better suit my work style along with adding any possible gigs that's not very time-consuming to the point that I'm stuck neglecting other important things in my life.  Don't want to work myself sick when it isn't necessary.

I am considering selling stock images (despite being told I shouldn't in art university OCADU), assets, prints, anything that could bring more income for living expenses.  I've seen some sites to help with that, I just have to dig up any past work or create new ones to market them.

Anyways, enough of my own woes, here are my sketches from my TOUSK group on our last meet up trip to IKEA North York Store (near TTC's Leslie Station).

Cheesecake Treat, 2017

Father Waiting with his Daughters, 2017

IKEA Restaurant Cashier, 2017

Young Asian Boy w/ Toy Registrar, 2017

Sketches of the Week

Kew Beach, 2017

Beach Skateboard Park, 2017 

The Sidekick! Cafe, 2017

Sketches of the Week

 First Sketches of my New Sketchbook, A 6" x 4" Pentalic Traveler Pocket Journal 

(My last one got warped months ago while I was out on a day trip cycling

 by being caught out in a big rainstorm)

Shoemaker's Bench - Bata Shoe Museum

Bird Bone Needle Cases - Bata Shoe Museum

The Dirty Bird - Near Bloor & Bathurst

One-Day Character Design, plus a bestiary on Shadow Clowns

I managed to do the 4-piece image below in one day.  For anyone not knowing about this creature, it's one that I've made up of my balloon clown creature but as an evil ghostly clown version. 

One-Day Character Design - Inked Sketch (Top Left), Cleaned up Computer Image (Top Right), Fully Inked and Watercolours (Bottom Left) and Photoshop Colouring Image (Bottom Right).  

So I officially called it a 'Shadow Clown'.  They are airborne flyers like Balloon Clowns but with a more carnival goth fashion and notoriously terrifying.  Due to the use of an unknown plant resource for making a stronger rubber membrane, these alternative kind of Balloon Clowns became tougher and almost un-popable.  However it caused them to become less colourful, behaving creepier and mischievous and slowly gaining magical dark shadow powers over time. Becoming more drawn to these dark powers, they use them with their decorative yet frightening appearances to scare and/or place satirical curses on their victims.  They have also shapeshifting abilities to change into terrifying monster forms or into deceitful forms like an elder man/woman to mislead their victims into traps. The Balloon Clowns soon feared these "warped clowns" and forced them to leave from their homeland of Ballogna.

Their dark magic and their bodies are fuelled by fear and anxiety, the greater the terror they wreak upon people, the more negative essences they can harvest to strengthen themselves.  Some victims can ended up within some very warped chaos or be transformed into twisted new forms, depending on the clown's dark sense of humour and strength of dark magic, to be greatly mortified out of their fear.  It's even possible for victims to be converted into Shadow Clowns too for scares, though it is rare since the Shadow Clowns usually don't like to create rivals or share their "haunting" grounds with too many of their own kind.  They tend to wear obsidian amulets and other dark stone accessories to contain their victims' harvested fears, though they can just absorb or eats the fear essences mostly.

Their only surefire weakness is sunlight as the strong light on skin contact burns and boils on them.  Bright flashes of lights can be used against them to briefly blind them while victims flee or spotlight beams can pin them down to paralyze or disempower them.  They could then be burned with fire or even popped like Balloon Clowns. Bottling them into magic-sealing containers is another alternative to capturing them, even to be use for others' services like genie slaves by savvy owners. Due to their solar weakness, Shadow Clowns avoid being out during the daytime so to avoid being burned away to black ashes. The exception is when there's thick cloudy skies, thick smoke or fog to block out much of the sunlight.  

Anyone's hometown that is plagued with Shadow Clowns avoid being outside in the nighttime to keep from being cursed. As well leave on bright lights throughout their homes to minimize shadows that those creatures can travel through or hide within.  However the curses, no matter how terrible, are not permanent; after some time in the daylight, what or who was cursed is cleanse of the dark magic and revert back to their natural states. For Shadow Clown-converted victims, they can remain as Shadow Clowns if they so choose by avoiding the sunlight thereafter. The dark essences and magic eventually in time permanently settles into them as they haunt and curse others for power and longevity.  

I got inspiration for the look from a classical christmas special called 'Nilus the Sandman: The Boy Who Dreamed Christmas' with a character called the Toymaster (plus some other evil clown images).  

An earlier sketch and rendering of some generic Shadow Clowns.

Sketches for the week

Sketches of the Week

TTC Sketch - The Listener, 2017 

TTC Sketch - Produce Market, 2017

TTC Sketch - Streetcar Bay, 2017

Sketches of the week

Half Dark Bugs (LadyBug and Goliath Beetle)

Cyclist - TTC Sketch, 2016

Reader - TTC Sketch, 2016