Pencil Lines

When I was about ten, we moved onto a farm in the middle of nowhere (which happened to be the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived) and suddenly we were forced to make due with one single channel via antenna. That channel? CBC. We came from a home with full cable to a house with only CBC.

Needless to say we watched a lot of “The Red Green Show”, “Royal Canadian Air Farce”, “This Hour Has 22 Minutes”, the morning children’s cartoons, reruns of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”… oh, and “Just For Laughs”.

That was my favourite. The Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal… we saw so many episodes it wasn’t even funny. Anyway, a few times we were lucky enough to catch the episode that had Jeff Dunham as a performer, and he was one of our absolute favourites. After watching his show my sister and I would go around claiming everything was “on a steek!”

Anyway, I found this excellent website, MoviesFoundOnline.com (They have “The Plague Dogs” on there!!!), and along with numerous other awesome movies, they had both of Jeff Dunham’s videos which I watched the other day and laughed my ass off.

I also brought out my sketchbook and drew a couple pictures of the puppets.

I always thought his puppets were some of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen, but after looking at them from an artistic point of view they’re oddly charming. They’re wonderful caricatures, representations of stereotypes, and like I said in my last post I love that sort of thing. Bubba J. reminded me a lot of that old Howdy Doody puppet that used to terrify me. But I loved the shape of his nose and his teeth, and just had to give him a quick sketch.

Of course, Peanut had to follow. And then Jose Jalapeno on a Steek. I’m still wanting to sit down and draw a picture of Walter, hehe!

My drawings are always too safe. I never “stretch” things or exaggerate things enough. Which is why drawing these sorts of things are so much fun; it forces me to think outside of my comfort zone and draw crazy and whacky things. I still need a lot of work, but I thought I’d share anyway. =)

Next!

I’m also a huge sucker for animated movies. My sister and I both are absolutely obsessed with Disney, and pretty much any animated movie released in the late 80’s or 90’s we’ve probably seen and obsessed over. Anyway, we were also huge fans of The Chipmunks, and the movie “The Chipmunk Adventure”.

I still watch it a lot to this day; it’s one of my feel good movies. I rediscovered it on DVD a couple of years ago and I’m so glad I did! Every time I watch it I have to make a sketch or two of one of the characters, and watching it tonight was no exception.

I actually paused the movie and drew the frame as I saw it, just for practice, so I lay no claim to the pose or anything awesome like that. It’s just a reproduction. Already I know of a lot of things wrong with it, especially looking at the original frame. It was more exaggerated, and I messed up the proportions somewhat… but it was still a tonne of fun to do.

Here’s an old sketch I made of Jeanette (My favourite ‘munk!) about a year ago:

That time was drawing with just the moving movie in front of me, without a direct reference like I did tonight. You can see my own style come through a lot more in this one. And it’s not so much on model either.

Anyway, they’re a hell of a lot of fun, and the songs are so catchy, even so many years later. Here’s the cult favourite from the film, if you’re curious (also, it’s just plain awesome):

I’m not sure I have much else to say, except yay, second art post!! Woo! Sorry I’m so slow… this is seriously the only things I’ve drawn since my last post. Yeah, I’m that slow with this stuff. But that’s what I’m trying to work at, so… go me?

As I mentioned in my introductory post, I’ve been in a bit of a slump creativity-wise for the past couple of years. I’ve had many urges and wants to draw, write and otherwise create, but my brain would be empty of ideas to actually put down, and anything I did come up with would be ruined by my impatience and frustration.

So when I pulled out one of my pens the other week and started randomly sketching on a whim, I was very excited when I actually managed to draw something. Something other than a mess of confused and irritated scribbles! Yay!

So here is the result of that sketch fest that lasted about a half-hour:

No references, and certainly no ideas. Just random sketching. Had some issues with the character in the lower left corner, as you can see; I have a tendency to deface the sketches I immediately hate. The horse at the bottom of the page and the figure with it’s back towards the viewer on the right were contour line drawings; drawn with a single line, without lifting my pen. I thought it would be fun!

Here’s my favourite part:

Creature. =)

A day later I did a second page:

I used a reference picture from DeviantART for that eye there, but I have since lost the link to it and my searches are turning up nothing. How unprofessional of me.

The mermaid was a remix from an old design of mermaid I used to draw constantly when I was fourteen. I must say, they’ve gotten a lot creepier since then!

My favourite part:

I really do enjoy drawing with ink. There’s something so beautiful about a single line, and being forced to use what you put down without the ability to erase. The drawings seem so much purer somehow, and it’s always fun to add more and more detail. They come out looking so delicate, and it really helps to teach you how to steady your hands.

Next we have a drawing of a horse I sketched with blue col-erase pencil a couple months ago. I inlcude this because I am known for drawing horses, and I thought I’d show people the fruits of my labour in all things equine from the past year or so:

‘Eh. Could be better. I’ve fallen behind a lot in my quest to be better at drawing equines, though I hope to try and pick it back up again! I have done better than this, and I want to get back to that.

Next is what I came up with yesterday, after watching “Enchanted” and “Mary Poppins” and being inspired by memories from my youth spent incessantly rewinding VHS tapes in front of the TV. Didn’t draw anything reminiscent of my youth, or anything really pertaining to the movies (except for a bad cartoony bust of Mary Poppins), but I’m glad I had the drive and the patience to draw anything at all!

I apologise for the vulgar language- er, actually, no I don’t. I’m actually quite proud of that there derierre, I’ve been trying for the longest time to catch those curves and I think I might have acheived it this time.

I love caricatures and stereotypes, and love drawing them. The lady in the center is one of my attempts at depicting a stereotype, and I’m quite proud of her. I imagine her name is Mabel, and she works in the office of an elementary school. Perhaps she brings in home-made cookies every Friday for the staff and her favourite students to munch on. I imagine she’d be the kind to play favourites, while doggedly asserting her fair nature. Hey, everyone has to have faults!

That’s it for my first sketch-dump. I promise, future entries will be smaller; at least, I hope they will be. I just wanted to share all these things at once, and see what happens.

Thanks for reading. =) We’ll see what I come up with next!

Hello! Welcome to my blog!

My name is Heather, though I go by the name of Rheall at most places in this big wide web. I do some drawing, mostly for fun, but have found myself in a bit of a slump that has lasted for a couple years now. Drawings just don’t work, and ideas never come.

Well, today I had a bit of an epiphany. After enjoying so many other wonderful art blogs out there (see the links in the margins), why not try my own? The idea sparked a flurry of excitement, and I feel like I’m busting at the seams to create. Well, we’ll have to see what happens.

I hope you’ll join me! I cannot guarantee you’ll like what you see, since I am quite a n00b at all this art stuff and I’ll be sharing both my best and my worst attempts here. But I do hope you enjoy even a little bit, and maybe feel inclined to do something creative yourself.

I’m planning on including not only my drawings, but also work in progresses of digital and traditional stuff, musings and discussions on various things in the art world that happen to be on my mind, links to helpful guides and tutorials and wonderful books that helped me out immensely, as well as links to my fellow artists and friends and to works that inspire me. It’ll be fun!

Well, no time like the present! Let’s start on that first post, shall we?