flour

Sketchy Poo

I was finally able to scan some sketches today! Yee haw.

Sorry about the bad quality of the scan, I'm still trying to figure out how to best scan drawings. And as for the lighthouse...I swear it wasn't crooked when I was drawing it...the lighthouse moved. I swear.

Crappy day for drawing

My animation didn't do so well as I hoped. Oh, well, at least there's do-overs!

Here, have an emo art. I can't draw at all today.

Emo Liesl: drawn in blue for extra mopiness!

Before the day ends

I didn't draw for two hours today like I should've, dang it. But here, this is what I put on my other blog:

Oh, and I've been working on that one babysitting drawing I've been doing, too. I would show it to you, but I'm too lazy. Sorry.

What I worked on for 7 hours today

Pretend there's a video animation of a bouncing ball I did for my class. Strangely enough, basketballs are extremely difficult to draw. I first did a basic outline of the animation and then drew nothing but CIRCLES AND ELLIPSES WHICH ARE THE DEVIL. Then when I finally finished animating, I saved it on Quicktime on a computer at school, copied it to a USB, and was dismayed to discover that I actually don't have Quicktime on my own laptop. Sigh. Sorry I can't give you an animation.

Here, have an exclusive self-portrait I drew in about 5 seconds. I value it to be about, oh, $200, more or less (probably less):

past, present, future

Okay, here's some stuff from the past. Not exactly from my childhood, but still oldish. This first one? 2009. The rest are from 2010, though.

 Okay, here's where we enter into the (mostly) present stuff of 2011:

The first picture is a depiction of my brother and I after a fruitful night of studying at the library, me dancing to "Mrs. Robinson" that they play at the HBLL to kick you out when it closes at midnight. At least, this is the IDEALIZED version. The one below it is probably more accurate.

This one is actually from October 2010. Ugh, I cringe at the anatomy in this one. I drew this for a contest in a group I'm in on DeviantART (I got 2nd place, actually, but it's a growing artists group) in about two hours. It's supposed to be two of my brothers after a successful basketball and/or football game. Or any other sports game, really. The one on the right is my brother's wife, while I'm on the left, laughing at my brother. Man, I would totally redraw this if I wanted to...but getting 2nd place was good enough for me.

Hah. I doodled this one while trying to study logic last September. I'd say it's pretty accurate.

I drew this one in Photoshop the other night after roller blading at Classic Skating. There were kids EVERYWHERE. It was impossible to go faster than .0000134 miles an hour. This picture is still quite a WIP, but the guy's expression makes me laugh.

This one's my baby. I don't know if you can tell what's going on, but there's a hole in that girl's chest and she's holding her heart in her hand. This is also VERY much a work in progress. That guy is a killer to draw. Guys are hard to draw in general. I MUST KEEP PRACTICING.

Hopefully by the end of the week I'll be able to upload stuff from my sketchbook for my animation class. And then if all goes well, I can put up my SUPER EXCITING animation video of a bouncing ball! WAHOO

Geez.

It's a little-known fact that I want to get into BYU's Animation program. Reasons why I don't usually bring it up in everyday conversation or on my other blog are as follows:

1. I'm embarrassed because I've never considered myself to be particularly artistic. I'm a writer. A WRITER CANNOT BE AN ARTIST IT'S JUST NOT DONE. (Okay, that's totally false, but it's weird telling people I draw a lot. It's just weird for me, because most people are either A) surprised or 2) not surprised at all, which weirds me out because I'M weirded out that I do this. So should they be.) I have a difficult time getting past stereotypes and am constantly going through an existential crisis about my major.
2. Whenever I tell people I'm majoring in animation, they act like I just told them "I'm a top secret agent ninja who works in at least 20 different countries a year specializing in finding a cure for cancer while saving orphans and puppies - all while wearing a short skirt and a long jacket high heels. Oh, and when I eat curry and garlic I never get bad breath. And my hair is shiny and flawless." In other words, their reaction is, "HOLY CRAP THAT IS SO COOL." And then I feel like if I ever changed my major to something else or didn't get into the program, I would have failed them. So it looks like I STILL care too much about what people think of me.
3. Man alive, drawing is hard. I may or may not have talent in that area; that's not really what matters. What matters is that I have to bust my freaking butt over this stuff every day, drawing loads and loads of crap until I get that one drawing that actually works and that doesn't happen nearly often enough. I have to sift through LITERAL CRAP until I get to the good stuff. Well, not literal crap. That's disgusting.

So then, since drawing is difficult, that also means I don't always find it very fun or enjoyable. And so that's where I'm also going through an existential crisis about my major because then I'm asking myself, "If I'm not having FUN, then why am I even IN this major? WHY???"

Here's why.

It's because art is hard. Because I want to get better at a skill I actually didn't grow up doing. I want to tell stories through art. I have a passion for stories, and I'm inspired by so many artists, especially comics as an art form. Animated movies and TV shows bring me just as much joy - if not more than - as live-action movies, and I have such a passion for stories. They changed my life. So maybe I can do the same for someone who likes my art, and maybe I can do that with animation.

Plus, there's nothing like the satisfaction of having successfully drawn something that communicates what I've been trying to get across.

So here's what this blog is here for:

1. To get my art out there. I feel that with this blog, even if nobody reads it (I actually really hope nobody reads this), I will be motivated to keep a promise to myself to get my art on here every day. 
2. To become a better artist. If I keep drawing every day, working on all things creative and anatomical and digital and traditional and animational, I'd BETTER improve or someone will have to pay. It'll probably be me.
3. To be free. Quite frankly, I'm sick of holding back on my other blog and caring too much about how many comments I get. In my private journal, I write about whatever the heck I want and I want to be the same with my art. I want to be happy even when my art is purely rough and ugly - not necessarily at ease, because I want to keep pushing myself - and I want to concentrate on what's more important than just getting pageviews or comments. Besides, if I change the layout and name of this blog 20 times, WHO CARES.
4. To yak about art. Whether it's about how hard drawing is and how much my art sucks or how an idea came into my head or what inspires me and what I love and hate about art, I want to talk about it. Because I clearly just don't talk enough.
5. To push myself. To PUSH PUSH PUSH and keep on truckin' and be inspired and all that crap. I want this to be my haven and to work harder than I have ever worked in my life. The application date: April 1st. Let's see if I can be BYU animation-worthy by then.
6. To have fun. It's kind of fun to see what kind of stuff I can pull out of my brain.

Oh...and don't expect high-quality art on here. If you'd LIKE to look at high-quality art, please examine the blogs I've linked to on the sidebar. Now those people are skilled.

All clear? Good. The next entry will actually have art on it. And as I've mentioned before...don't expect great art. I'm just here to have fun.