Ocelot

An ocelot.

Blue-Footed Booby

Quick paint to test out Painter 11 on my new Macbook pro (!).

Muybridge sketches

More sketches from the Muybridge annals.

Web series? TV? How do I get this story out there? (a history)

Thanks again for everyone who watched "Kanook" and gave comments. If you haven't seen it, seen the previous post.

I wanted to get out some of my thoughts, ideas, plottings ... so you can tell me if I'm crazy or not ... (warning: long!)

Kanook – Episode One (Draft)

I'm working on a series called Kanook.

This is a draft. I welcome feedback and collaborators.

-Heather

Understanding Evolution – Flash Simulation

CLICK HERE TO TRY THE FLASH SIMULATION

Intro: I started working on this simulation a few days ago and I'm pretty excited about it. I'm looking for feedback so if you have anything to say about it, please share!

Goal: I think that evolution and natural selection are simple yet powerful concepts that are often misunderstood. The idea for the project is to make a clear and engaging simulation that shows the principles of natural selection in action.

For now, I just want to get this thing out on the web for feedback, so I'm not going to go into a big explanation about it. Here's the basics:

“I could buy a LIGHTBOX!”

For the longest time I've been trying to come up with a process of creating well-rendered art that maintains the spontaneity and liveliness of my sketches (I'm still working on it). One morning, I was really grinding away, thinking about how I could do this, when I had the idea of buying a lightbox, an item I hadn't used since my high school art class. In my sleepy head I was thinking ... "That's it ... I know ... I'll buy a LIGHTBOX!" And immediately I started plotting how I would go to Utrecht and buy it, and plan my whole day around this important event. When I woke up I told my boyfriend about it. It seems really silly now to be so excited about a lightbox, but at the time, my boyfriend said I had the "crazy eyes."

Copic Marker and Colored Pencil Sketches

More Copic marker sketches, but with a layer of colored pencil on top! I had a lot of fun doing these guys. I'm considering using this kind of thing for my comic.

It feels like a fun process because I'm building the image three ways, making it stronger each time. In the ink drawings I was doing, it's hard to build a cohesive image because I have to think about how all the pieces will work together separately (like the ink linework, the ink shading, and the tones). With these drawings, I start with a rough blue sketch, going for good shapes. Then I block in the values with the warm gray Copic markers. Then I just lightly go over all of it was colored pencil. Because the tones tell most of the story, the color is just spruces it up. And the colored pencil glides right over the marker. Fun!

Copic Marker Sketches

I'm working on a comic book. I'm trying to figure out what process will work for me ... I'm looking for a good balance of speed and quality. While waiting for my computer to handle working on several 300 dpi 9" x 12" files, I started doodling using an erasable blue pencil and warm gray Copic markers. I liked the process, so I continued and did a few more. These are the better of the lot.

Something about the cool blue of the pencil and the warm gray values felt nice. Complete. More so than the labored black and white inked drawings I was working on.

10,000 Hours of Practice

Yesterday, I was reading Malcolm Gladwell's book: Outliers: The Story of Success. He hypothesizes that in order to really master something, like a sport or instrument, you need at least 10,000 hours of practice (about 10 years of practicing many hours a day).