Birdman: Day 169

January 24, 2015 by Robert Chapman

Oh man, I tell ya, the more I use these colored pencils on this paper the more I fall in love. I’m really starting to feel comfortable using these tools, and even though I’m still pretty early on in this drawing, everything looks marvelous so far! I still have to meld the colors a bit better on that tree though, because I’m noticing that the lightest color stands out a bit too much. It’s really nice to feel confident enough to know how I can easily fix that issue if I just apply myself.

That disgusting “water” there looks pretty good. I was attempting a ripple effect with those lines there, but I’ll work on that more tomorrow to hopefully get it looking even better. I’ll probably also begin coloring the large fallen tree in the center of the image tomorrow as well. So, doing the math, this should take me just two or three more days to complete.

I watched a movie last night called “Birdman”, I’m sure you’ve heard of it as I’ve been hearing a lot about it lately. I believe it’s up for several awards. It stars Michael Keaton and a whole other group of well-known actors and actresses. This movie was extremely impressive. This has got to be the most immersed I’ve ever felt in a movie’s story. I’m not going to talk about the actual story or spoil anything, as none of that is really what I want to talk about here. What I want to say though, is that I’m not really much of a movie fan in general. I’m in my early 30’s and I feel that I’ve seen it all. What I’m saying is that it’s very rare that I find a story that isn’t predictable. And predictable often means boring. Well, I don’t really watch movies expecting to be impressed, when I do watch them I hope to be surprised. Show me things that I would never have thought of on my own.

Birdman really got my brain going. It’s definitely one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, and I’ll likely watch it a second time sooner than later. Which is quite rare for me. I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about the story, and I’m not… technically, but I just want to say what I liked best about it. This movie reminded me of why I don’t usually enjoy movies. It has a fantastic moment where Michael Keaton’s character talks about (and vividly displays) how the art of telling stories has changed. We see the epic blockbuster, the theater, and the independent film. In contrast they’re, of course, very different. But they’re still just telling stories in the end. It’s like comparing a novel to a comic book. I find it rare that a movie like Birdman can successfully mix all my favorite elements together.

Anyways, Birdman surprised me. I heard that it was good, but I thought that was solely because of the unique directing style. However, this wasn’t the case. The directing was what immersed me in the story, but the characters are what wanted me to stay there. If you saw the movie, what did you think? If you haven’t, do you have any interest in seeing it? Why or why not?

My First Sale: Day 168

January 23, 2015 by Robert Chapman

I’m still working on this old Dagobah picture 😉 Today, I added some more pen in some spots that I believe really needed it, and obviously I added a bit of color. The color is looking alright, though I realize now that I really do need one of these to help with smoothing out the colors. I’m also going to probably have to darken the grey between the green there in the background. I don’t think it’s showing up so great in photographs, but adding the darker grey will probably look better on paper too, so no real worries about changing something just for a photograph.

I’m a little disappointed at how the colored pencils look on this paper, when compared to the paper I used the other day for that little spaceship. That spaceship paper was expensive Stonehenge stuff. No matter which paper I use though, my artwork will still look a lot better than what I was doing before. Not to mention the colored pencils themselves are just perfect. They’re still sharpening really well, and they’re nice and vibrant. However, I’m noticing that there were no grays in the set! Kind of weird, eh? I guess I would rather have 34 proper colors, along with a white and black, then like 2 or 3 of those colors removed and instead have a couple gray variants. I don’t use grey all that often anyways. Oh! It did come with a silver pencil, which I used in that little spaceship the other day. Whenever I can make some money and decided to order more stuff, I’ll definitely pick up a couple grays to add to my collection. The gray I used today was a cheaper Prismacolor pencil I already owned. “Cheaper”, probably why it doesn’t show up as much as the green does!

I’m kind of looking forward to trying out the smoother side of this paper I’m using. On the back of this “Dagobah” picture is a side that feels a bit different. On the front of the sketchpad it states that there’s, “Two distinct bright white surfaces, one smooth and one textured.” So I’m interested in seeing how my pencils and pens look on that smoother side.

So, that’s about it as far as this drawing goes. The other thing I need to mention today is that I sold something on Redbubble! I’ve asked around a little bit and I don’t know who made the purchase. It was a throw pillow with one of my images on it. The painting I made that looks like it should maybe be on the cover of a horror novel. I know my mother actually really likes that piece, but she didn’t purchase it. So I’m not sure who did! I would love to know who and find out if it turns out alright. I really don’t know too much about Redbubble besides that it’s used by a lot of artists, and I heard good things here and there. But, of course, I’m very curious if the item quality is there and if the prices feel alright.

I made almost $3 for the sale, which isn’t bad at all. I won’t see any of it until I hit $20 though. I’m feeling that my goal should be to get a single purchase once per day. My mind is trying to be cautiously optimistic and that’s not how I usually think. If I want something bad enough, then I put the time and effort in and get it. I feel that way for most things. However, this really relies on what consumers want, and also brings in Redbubble as a third party. It’s not completely up to me to succeed. I wonder, how many users actually make a decent amount of money selling things in this manner ?

Dagobah: Day 167

January 22, 2015 by Robert Chapman

Alright, well this is turning out to be one of those “epic” pieces I was talking about. For a couple days now I’ve been wanting to draw some type of bog or swamp, and I stumbled upon a picture depicting a scene from Star Wars. Or at least a location from the Star Wars universe. It’s the planet Dagobah! You know, where Yoda lives. The entire planet is a swamp! I’ve included the reference drawing at the bottom. I believe it’s a digital painting, probably drawn with Photoshop or a similar application.

Little UFO: Day 166

January 21, 2015 by Robert Chapman

Today’s drawing turned out to be a pretty good exercise. And, to be completely honest, it didn’t really take a whole lot of work. I used my 0.2 Micron pen, my new Prismacolor Premier colored pencils, and my little Stonehenge pad of vellum paper. All of those items combined turned a regular doodle I would normally do on any given day, into something that looks kind of special. There are some things about this drawing that I’m not too fond of (I wish I made a rainbow beam rather than the little cloud puffs, as one example) but the pencils were fun to work with and sharpened really well. Especially when compared with the supplies I’ve been working with since I started my year long project. What a massive difference!

I think next up, perhaps even this afternoon, I’ll use my other pad of 9 x 12 bristol paper to try and make that Dagobah (It’s a swamp planet from Star Wars for those not in the know) idea I had the other night. I’m quite confident that I can pull it off, and I’m excited to get started on it.

Doodles: Day 165

January 20, 2015 by Robert Chapman

Well, on one hand this was a very unproductive day, while on the other I learned a bit about myself and my creative process. My package of new art supplies arrived today, and after unpacking everything and getting setup to draw, nothing happened. I stared at a blank page of this new high quality paper and… nothing happened. I had all these new fancy colored pencils to work with, my HB pencil was all sharpened and ready to go, and I had an awesome pen selection with these new Micron pens. I just didn’t know what to do with them. Nothing felt worthy enough to try.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had trouble getting started on something. I do remember pretty early on in my creative habit project that I had something similar happen to me. A blank page can be extremely intimidating, and I was feeling this ten fold today because I was using all new supplies. I don’t think I felt like I could do anything worthy of this nice expensive paper, or use up any of the ink in these new pens, etc. I didn’t realize any of this at the time though, and instead I was just stressing myself out by trying to come up with a way to approach this strange situation.

A short time later I got a message that I had company coming over, and so I decided to put things away and slowly work on it little by little as the evening went on. I didn’t touch my new colored pencils or paper, and instead I went back to my old sketchbook. I decided to ease my way into using the new stuff by starting off by trying out one of my new pens. This way I don’t really feel as bad about wasting the new stuff on some little doodles. I had no time, nor the concentration, to pull off anything epic tonight. So I kept things pretty simple by just trying out these pens. The detail I’m able to do now is pretty insane. I made a teeny tiny smiley face with one of the Micron pens. You actually had to squint to see it properly.

Sometimes I find I put too much pressure on myself to keep drawing consistently epic projects. I write about this once every other week it seems. I need to keep reminding myself to take it easy, and although over the last several days I’ve been forced to take it pretty easy due to the lack of art supplies, this time the situation is a bit different. I know I don’t ‘really’ need to explain myself to anyone, especially to any of the creative people out there. They get it. Sometimes you have it in you to do something awesome, and sometimes you don’t. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I felt uncomfortable with all this new stuff today. I’ll get used to it in time, or have some amazing idea that I’ll want to put to paper. Eventually, I’m sure. For now though, I want to enjoy the new tools and just test some of them out. Today was about messing around with the pens.

I’m not sure how I’ll feel when tomorrow comes (this post is already really late as it’s 11pm!) but I am excited to really get working on something cool down the road. My buddy, Brad, the company I had over today, actually helped me get some neat ideas together for a project I might start working on soon (Dagobah!). So we’ll see how that goes!

So, my first day with my new toys didn’t go so great. The day itself was great, but as far as building upon my creative habit, not a lot really happened. Today’s drawing is a pretty good indication of that. But that’s okay! I learned that I need to carefully feel my way around when it comes to trying something new. Sometimes it’s productive to just jump in head first, but carefully dipping your toe in is occasionally the answer too.

Dots: Day 164

January 19, 2015 by Robert Chapman

I’m having some fun with today’s work, and so I’m doing something different than the pieces I’ve been drawing lately. The entire image will eventually be comprised solely of dots. I’m kind of figuring it out as I go along though, so I could potentially come up with some interesting ideas and go off in a different direction. Right now though, my plan is to stick with various sized dots and take my time with it. I’m attempting to make every dot meaningful, if that makes sense sense! However, because it’s going to take so long to finish, I’m going to work on it the rest of the evening during tonight’s NHL hockey game and just post what I have so far.

I think because I need to use my crappy tablet camera, I can’t really get much of the detail to show in a photograph unless I get real close to the page. It’s not much so far anyways, as it’s really just a bunch of green dots for now. I have an idea in mind though, I just hope it all turns out well and good.

Fluffy Tree: Day 163

January 18, 2015 by Robert Chapman

What an odd looking tree. I name thee “Fluffy Tree”.

Anyways, I’m pretty satisfied with today’s drawing overall. I’m so used to outlining everything with a black pen/marker but… maybe it’s fate that my pens all ran out and that my new art supplies are showing up a bit later than expected. I should attempt drawings like this one more often, I think. I kind of wish I didn’t do the roots like that, but that’s actually where the drawing started, and it kind of evolved from there into what you see now. Lesson learned, I guess.

I hope everyone’s having a fantastic weekend! Throughout Friday and Saturday my weekend wasn’t so great for me. I was feeling a little depressed, and I’ve been having trouble putting my finger on what the exact issue was. I think I just needed to do some actual work. Take the time and get things done, you know? Because now I’m feeling better.

Last night I spent a good few hours setting up a Redbubble store, and although I don’t expect to sell anything besides a few items to some friends and family, it’s something I’ve been talking about doing for a little while. My store is now active and it looks pretty nice too. Thankfully a lot of the images I uploaded were big enough to fit on pretty much any item available. Namely, throw pillows and iPad cases, which seem like the best looking items to me. iPhone cases and actual prints look terrific too.

The link to my store front is right here, and please, let me know what you guys think! There is still a lot more work to do this week and I need any advice I can get. What items would you be interested in? Are the prices pretty high on Redbubble? Suggestions are very appreciated.

Robert's Creative Habit

Daily Artwork / 365 Days

Monthly Archives: January 2015