Sketch2Sketch #4 - The Squatter

I stood in line at Chipotle waiting to give my order when I noticed the man I passed on the way in at the drink station sitting with friends. Noticing not really that he was sitting with friends, but that he was squatting in his chair. Yes, squatting. His black sandaled feet were on the chair while black nylon pants covered long legs were folded up against his slim torso with his knees coming up almost to his chin. He wore a charcoal gray long sleeved t-shirt that covered his lanky arms down past his wrists. He smiled at his friends while talking. Coffee colored stubble speckled the lower half of his elongated oval face while matching long layered hair covered the rest of his face.

S2S #3: A Mother And Her Baby

Sorry to take so long with this S2S. It has been all crazy up in here. I have to say, the baby was much cuter before I messed with the color. Oh, and by himself. The proportion relationship between him and mom are just not where I would like them to be. Oh well, chalk it up to learning and practice.

A Mother And Her Baby

She stands quietly at the counter waiting for her drink order, arms wrapped around her plump baby boy perched on her left hip. The handles of a pink paper shopping bag from a nearby boutique hangs from her clasped hands. Her dark sandy bob is held back from her face by her rounded black sunglasses that fit snugly around the top of her head. A long nose sits between brown eyes on her oval face. Her lips sit flat like her affect and her color choices of a taupish-gray deep v-neck t-shirt and slate gray shorts. Black leather straps from her slippers cover her feet in a v-formation. Her baby looks around the coffee shop from under his white bucket hat with his arms dropped to his side. His clothes are slightly mismatched with a white polo shirt bearing one red and blue horizontal stripe with some white in between across his chest and white and light green horizontal striped cotton pants.

S2S #2: Hanging On

S2S #2: Hanging On

I decided to work this one in ink and watercolor pencils. He was pretty challenging to visualize. I love a good challenge. I hope I did him well :)

Attitudes Poster from Zazzle.com

Attitudes Poster from Zazzle.com

Funny Story

My husband and I were playing on our computers in the office. Here it is after 11pm and I had my play-list blaring. I decided to set my "Woody" (that's what our son calls my wooden artist model) to the specifications of the S2S: Holding On. Just then my husband looks up and goes, "What the heck?" all the while cracking up.

I proceeded to read the character sketch aloud to him. Explaining that this is why I had the model with arms, and legs, in the upward most position. He then let me in on the true nature of the position inquisition. Well, you see, I was positioning Woody this way, as we were listening to "Believe it or Not" by Joey Scarbury.

Yeah babe, the song inspired me to place "Woody" into take off position. Laughing my abs off! Yeah, I totally snorted :)


Listen Here:

Sketch2Sketch: Hanging On

The sandwich shop was quiet and he stepped from behind the counter to the opening that led to the kitchen. He jumped up and grabbed on to the ledge above the opening. He pulled his legs out in front of him so they were parallel to the floor. He kept his feet in his black tennis shoes flexed so the toes were pointing towards the ceiling. His baggy jeans hung low on his hips, almost sagging despite the worn brown leather belt he wore. A white work apron covered most of his black t-shirt and ended at his knees. His arm muscles revealed themselves from his effort to hold himself in this position. His short scraggly beard didn't quite fill the lower half of his face, either telling of his youth or that he would not be able to grow a full beard. He formed his pinkish lips into an O shape as he started to whistle. His nearly beak-like nose that wasn't quite so rounded sat between his dark sapphire eyes. A black cap with red "JJ" lettering outlined in white covered his short dark chocolate hair on an oval head.

The Student in the Coffee Shop

Here he is. Yes I need a LOT of practice. I really messed up on the face. Sure I could have corrected that in Photoshop, but that would defeat the purpose of this project.

 He was a pretty quick sketch with Sharpie Ultra Fine and some Prismcolor Art-Markers (the few colors I have).

I have dedicated this little 3.5in by 5.5 inch leather bound Mead journal for this project.

*I think I should have had the backpack sticking out from the back. My new rule...(No Re-doing is allowed) Let's bite this perfectionism off, and learn in the most humbling way :)

Sketch2Sketch #1 - The Student In The Coffee Shop

We're trying something new as Laura mentioned in the last blog post. This is an exercise for both of us to hone our skills and keep in practice. I welcome constructive criticism as I learn from suggestions as how to make things more polished. Without further ado....

The Student In The Coffee Shop

He walked into the coffee shop. "Hey man." he said to the barista as he approached the low black counter and engaged in small talk. Walnut brown hair sat short and clean around the back of his rounded head while the slightly longer hair on top was styled metrosexual unkempt. Day and a half old stubble framed the bottom half of his face. Reddish brown metallic framed glasses that his brown eyes peered through, sat atop his perfectly straight and average nose. He wore a dingy white LaCoste polo shirt with a heathered gray t-shirt layered underneath despite the 102 degree weather outside. His kept his thumbs hooked under the straps of his charcoal backpack with the rest of his hand lying softly over the top of the straps. His bare toes peeked out from under the frayed hem of his dirty wash jeans that hid the slippers he wore.

sketch2sketch

My great friend Debi Smith and I were hanging out at the Productivity Pad (our little group family on skype, where we encourage each other to get to productivating.) Well, she is an author and was describing her last character sketch outing to me.

We got to thinking it would be really fun (if we lived closer) to go to the coffee shop together and I could sketch as she described. Then we realized we could do that through the distance. This brings us to our new project. sketch2sketch.

Debi will write a character sketch, and I will attempt to create an illustrative sketch of the character.

I'm not amazing with people, especially faces...so bear with me here :)

May Fan Gift

To all of my Facebook Fans, Here is your May gift. A desktop background created just for you! The image was taken by Daniel McDowell, LMD's Photographer.



800x600
Instructions: Just click on the image that best fits your resolution needs and either "save image as" or "set as desktop background". If you need a resolution that is not available here, don't hesitate to send me a message on FB.






1024x768
















1280x800
















And the big boy: 1920x1200


















If you are not a fan on Facebook, join now :) LMD Studio Fan Page

When Time Gets Ahead

I was visiting with some friends this evening and realized that this is the last week of April. Then it hit me, I only have 3 days to complete 2 websites. Wow, if I can do this...I can do anything.

The saving factor is that I am still waiting on images and information for one of the websites. It is still a bit disconcerting that I have such little time to complete such large tasks. I have always felt that I worked best under pressure. Maybe this realization will get me back on task and help me to buckle down and getter' done over the next couple of days.

Here goes...

I'm Alive, I Promise!

Wow, it's been a long time since I have posted on my poor neglected blog. I had started a wordpress blog for the personal areas of my life. I wanted to keep them separate because the >Preoccupied is mainly meant to help me through the struggles of health and emotional issues that started a couple of years ago.

Originally I was blogging daily. I did really well at first. Then I got busy getting my business up and running. A business that I technically started two years ago, but just started "working" last month.

Right now I am extremely busy on two websites, and in dire need of updating my official website. It would be nice to be so busy on projects (paid ones that is) that I wouldn't have time to think. Well, that's not really the case. Obviously I am posting this blog. So I'm thinking...yeah, not busy enough :)

Going forward I am going to try to post all things art, design, and photography related in this blog. Maybe some general business info. here and there. I will have some new greeting cards posted in the near future, as well as items in my Zazzle store.

Until next time...lets productivate!

Facebook Addict...Sure

I love facebook...I basically am addicted to the apps. I noticed one day as I was making little designs in one of my favorite apps "FarmTown" that I was using my creativity in an unproductive way...okay, I realized the unproductive part a long time ago. The fact that I was using this as an outlet for creative expression, well that was new to me.

So I decided to make a collection of "FarmTown" inspired motif's. You are seeing the first one...a replica of a crop of pumpkins and plowed spots.


This one is what it would look like on a 5" X 7" notecard. I'm digging it, how about you? (yeah...pun intended :P).

EDM Challenge #3

 

EDM Challenge #3- Draw: Purses, Wallets or Bags.

This just happens to be my purse/bag...it's large enough to carry my sketchbook (Moleskine- this is the first sketch in it :-), my makeup bag, planner. Amazingly, it stays pretty clean an simple. I carry it messenger style, and love the camouflage interior. 

~This isn't in the as clean as I like stage, or as complete as I would like...but I decided, it's time to be more productive, and lest perfectionist. (I tend to put off my sketching because of profectionism...any body else?)

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Ready to Start Sketching Again

I have utterly ignored my poor sketchbook and blog over the past year. I am finally in my last week of school, and I am ready to start putting more effort into my sketching, illustrating, and all around blogging routine.

I am in the process of completing my webfolio, so that is taking all of my time for the time being. Stay tunned and I will share all the fun things that have happened this year, and my accomplishments.

Butterfly Fairy Princess

This is a photo of my daughter as a Butterfly Fairy Princess splashing in a mushroom.

The mushroom is commonly known as "Chicken of the Woods". I took this picture at Bennett Spring State Park, Missouri on July 22, 2007. It was roughly 14inches in diameter. The picture of Raevan and the butterfly was taken at Lake of the Ozarks State Park, Missouri on July 23, 2007.

Study in Repetition

This assignment consisted of creating either a design or motif for the first image. The second image was to be a repetitive pattern. The design could be flipped, mirrored, or tiled. Whatever it took to achieve unity and balance.

The first part of this process was creating the motif. I did this by experimenting with different motif possibilities on graph paper. This allowed me to make sure that the positive and negative spaces matched up precisely with each side. I then scanned the motif’s to which worked best as a pattern.

Upon making the decision for the motif that created the most balance and unity, I set to perfecting it in PhotoShop. This proved to be a very time consuming, yet rewarding, task. I chose to use contrasting colors of purple and yellow, and green as an accent color. Keeping it three colors, or less, I felt was important to maintain the unity and balance.

The next step in the process was to create the pattern. I had intended on having the edges vertical, and the middle two rows horizontal. This was too much movement, however. I then chose to keep it simple by tiling the motif, as if it was ceramic wall tiles, or fabric. I feel the end result to have the rhythm, balance, and unity in the repeating pattern that I desired from the beginning.

I do think I will try the other two sketches...So stay tuned :D

Posted by Laura McDowell at 7:06 AM

Study in Positive and Negative Space

The assignment in Positive and Negative space consisted of finding making an 8x10 image of a black alphabet letter on white background.

There were some requirements:

• The positive and negative space has to be close to a 50%/50% ratio.
• The image has to produce atleast 5 seperate shapes in the negative space.
• The letter has to touch all four sides.

There were some options:

• The letter can be of any alphabet in any language.
• The edges of the letter may be cropped out.
• The letter may be edited to meet the requirements above.

The process of deciding which letter wasn’t difficult. I was originally going to pick a thick cursive “L” with sweeping lines. However, when I came across the font Old English Text MT was exactly what I needed.

I did need to edit the original font to add some weight to make it approximately half of the image. I also added a few extras to soften up the negative space, and make the outcome of the second part more interesting. Finally, I thinned out the negative space in the center of the letter.

Original and edited font, for comparison:

For the second portion I completed eight design variations. The first one was balanced, but the negative space made somewhat of a character, thus changing focus to the background. This negated the concept of using the negative space in Image one and the positive space for Image 2:

Other tries seemed to be too random:

The one I finally chose was due to the balance I seemed to achieve. In this image, the balance can be seen from top to bottom, as well as left to right. I had one heavy piece, and by combining all but one of the other pieces, the finished image seemed to have unity and balance. The integrity of the white becoming the positive space is most prevalent in this one, in my opinion:

Study in Color

This assignment consisted of seven images. The images were to be made up of basic shapes arranged in a way allows the viewer to asses the relationship of the colors.

Image one and and two are made up of the primary colors against both black and white backgrounds:

Looking at the two studies side by side, one sees a definite switch of emphasis. The design on the black background is more balance with each color seemingly sharing intensity. The same image on the white background, however, intensifies the blue shapes, as the yellow circle in the center seems to blend into the white background. The vibrancy of the colors is much more intense set against the black background. The one thing that seems to be an interesting effect is that of the red circle in the center of the yellow circle. The set in the black background seems to have a receding red circle, whereas in the white the red seems to be in front of the yellow circle.

Images 3 and 4 were to be the same shapes as the secondary colors on black and white backgrounds:

Once again, the black background increases the intensity of the colors. The focus of these images has changed from the center circle, as in the primary, to the orange portions in the black background. The white background seems to make the purple portions stand out the most. The relationship between the colors are an interesting aspect of this design. The orange set against the purple takes on a cooler hue, and those set against the green take on a warmer hue. The green reacts accordingly with it’s surroundings, as well. However, it is the intensity that changes for the green. The green that is set against the purple takes on a darker shade than that behind the orange. These color relationship changes are equally seen in both the black and white backgrounds.

Images 5 and 6 were to be the same image, once again, using the 6 tertiary colors.

There is so much going on with this color scheme that it is hard to focus on one aspect. One thing that stood out right away is the trapezoids seem to be larger against the black background then those on the white. With the primary and secondary designs there was certain unity about them. The whole picture provide a focus, and the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines of sight were easily established. In this set; however, there seems to be a vertical line through the cool images, that separates the top half from the bottom.

As far as color relations, the blue-green does seem to be cooler as a background for the yellow-green then that against the yellow-orange. The red-purple in the center of the blue-purple seems to be an entirely different hue than that set against the yellow-green. In the past images the black background seems to intensify all of the colors. In this one the blue-green is less saturated than against it’s white counterpart.

Image 7 was to be the image that is, in my opinion, the most harmonious. The emphasis is to be circled and followed by an explanation on why:

This one is, in my opinion, the most harmonious of the six images. The colors seem to belong to each other, and to the black background. This image creates a sense of depth that literally pulls the eye to the center. However it’s not the center that is the main focus, but the action created by the trapezoids that catches the viewers attention. It’s almost as if a box has been opened, and the thrill is not what’s inside, but the act of opening it.

Conclusion

In my first design I chose just three shapes arranged as they are now. Once I came to the tertiary portion of the assignment I quickly realized that more shapes were needed. Both to fit all six colors in, and to adequately observe the relations between the colors. I am still not fond of the tertiary sets. I am accustomed to sticking with a two to three color combination, thus the tertiary sets seem to be overwhelming.