A Scribe - Gt Works Concordance

It seems that these days I find my time writing rather than drawing. The last few posts I've made have been on my writing blog  ascribetodescribe.wordpress.com rather than here but I still need to update this blog so that its not just sitting here collecting virtual dust. So this morning I was thinking about combining my written works with my artworks so that there is a correlation between my two blogs.

Boy Android - 2006

One of my recent written works that I have been putting on hold for a long time now, was based on...well on multiple sources of motivation, one of which is this drawing I made back in 2006 (wow 6 years!).


Although back then it was more of an idea, it's one that has been developing over time and one that I keep turning back to. I see this theme running with a lot of other artists of all classes from amateur artists and writers (like myself hehe) to the big guys in the movie and game industry. We have movies, books and TV Series like Terminator, Astro Boy and Deus Ex as examples of the big industry guys playing with the half-human half-robot theme as you can see here:

The idea of the half human-half robot or the Android, as is more popularly known (and is the correct terminology for such a being), is an idea that has been around for ages and so the problem when writing (even drawing) anything in that regard is the age old question: How can mine be different?


Well first I had to improve on my original idea so that the character looked more human rather than a cartoon and the final result was this new drawing below.

With a more realistic/human image of my protagonist (ignoring the intricately woven wires on the left side of his face hehe), the next step is to look at my previously written draft and see how it can be improved and made very different from the usual Android storylines. 

I'll be keeping you updated as I progress!

All images courtesy of: hollywoodsleeper.blogspot.com/2011/04/arnold-schwarzenegger-returns-in.html

http://www.thefancarpet.com/FilmGalleryPicture.aspx?mg_id=15505&m_id=1470

http://angryjoeshow.com/category/news-2/page/8/

http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20100209/astro-boy-electronic-action-figure/

http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Hell's_Flash

Time for an Update:

December found me in the not so freezing city of Dresden, Germany where my final project was to come to fruition. Both apprehension and excitement coursed through me as I looked to tackle this rather big project of painting a wall mural of Noah's Ark. Even with all my preparation...or rather lack of...I found myself faced with a large empty room with bare white walls that needed to be, within a month, filled with colour and cute friendly animals that little children will appreciate. When I left that last Monday heading back to South Africa, I returned with much disappointment in myself for having failed at this project. Let us review the month of December:

Preparation:

This was a fairly easy task to accomplish as I had to, with the help of my fellow artist Katie and the instruction of the pastor, remove light switch cases, cover with tape and plastic the floor, skirting and skirting edges, corners, the window, the light fixture and all areas that needed covering. There was also a strip of decor that ran through the middle of the wall separating the top white half of the wall with the bottom dark maroon half of the wall. This was a slight pain to remove as it left some residue on the wall that we needed to scrape off without causing dents in the wall or scraping the paint off.

We also bought various paints from Hornbach, with obvious miscalculation, but the main paint, the white paint was enough.

This is Hornbach:  

The painting:

The pastor of the church proceeded to show me a painting technique that would make painting faster, more effective and less messy. I must admit I am definitely grateful for that as painting that base coat all around the room went pretty quick and progress seemed to be moving better and faster than I had anticipated.

Next on the list was the painting of the sky. That was one of the areas I assumed would be easiest but was one of the areas that was not completed. With help from a fellow church member the ceiling was painted a magnificent sky blue (great colour) and nice big fluffy clouds were supposed to adorn the ceiling, giving the illusion of a mildly cloudy day however we just never got around to painting the clouds.

The rest of the wall was going well as I painted the blue sky and Katie was right behind me, adding a magnificent blend of blue and white to add depth to the sky. It was better than any blending I could ever do I must say. Unfortunately she could not help me for the full month I was there and had weeks when she was at work leaving me to work alone for the most part. Regardless, I managed to paint a three tone sky (which Katie would blend together seamlessly) and also added some hills in a dark green. After all this I painted the bottom area a light brown for the ground and all this should NOT have taken the 2-3weeks that it took. Maybe I should have taken my procrastination jokes a little more seriously.

Anyway in the 3rd week we started adding details to the wall, and I must admit that I enjoyed this part a lot. This was the painting of the stones, rocks and a tree.These actually turned out pretty good especially after Katie added further details to them using a sponge with just the right texture. As the nursery started to finally take shape, we had to stop work and no further developments were possible. No ark. No Animals but I do look forward to going back there and doing some decent finish work there!

As for pictures I actually have none and I, right now, do regret not taking pictures of the developing room. Anyway I can probably show the Before pictures now and the after pictures in a later post

In the mean time I'll be keeping my pencil sharpened!

The Plan pt 1: Gridlocked

Gridlocked:

                                                               

                                                                                      Image A

           As much as the word itself has a completely different meaning to what I mean (Image A), what I mean by Gridlocked I mean the picture below.

Yep, Gridlocked. A drawing locked behind a grid. In truth its merely taking a final image/drawing and adding a grid to it to ensure proportion and layout of the drawing is accurate. As you will be using measured grid blocks, you can work on a scale/ratio to make the drawing bigger or smaller all according to the ratio. This means you can take a drawing on a normal sheet of paper and transfer it exactly and proportionally onto a wall for instance. A great technique I think and one which I will be using to transfer the Noah's ark drawing onto the nursery wall.

Here are examples of how grids help with proportion:

Awesome for still life images

Great for photo to paper

Also great for paintings

                                                                             

Really looking forward to working on this wall mural! I know my partner on this project is also excited! 

Procrastination Humour

Nothing like a bit of humour to lighten up one's day:

Procrastinate I must not!

Colour Crime

In progress:

Been a while since I posted stuff here which would mean one of two things; Either I am very busy and can't post or there is nothing to post....and I would like to assure you it is NOT the latter. I actually have been busy and am in the final stages of this project which is setting up the Paper-to-Wall grid work. Since all this pencil work will need to be transfered from A4 piece of paper to a large wall space, there needs to be accuracy in order to make sure what is on paper is on the wall with no proportion mistakes.

Next on the list, once grid work is done, will be the colour issue. Most interesting about my artwork (which you will see immediately once all image posts are uploaded) is that I work well in shades of black and white. In short, I don't use colour....at all. BIG Problem. Big problem especially since this final Noah's Ark image will be in a children's nursery and therefore colour is Imperative. Imperative. I have three solutions for this:

1. I Google "Tips for colouring in for kids" and get all the basics. Then attempt to apply what I learned (which may take multiple draft works) until I have a somewhat decent colour scheme for the final work and then rely on my Partner-In-Crime from Germany to fill in the gaps :)
2. or I rely fully on my Partner-In-Crime from Germany to do the colour work and I assist where I can
3. or I actually take up a colour study course (not detailed but similar to first option) and apply that as well as rely on my Partner-In-Crime from Germany to help me out so that its a joint effort and we both get to learn from this.

Well actually the only option I was going to take was option 3 but I thought you might like to know how option 3 came about in the first place and what the backups would be haha. Either way, I've been looking to do a colour study for a while now and this is really a great opportunity to stop procrastinating and do it. No more just pencil/black+white/shades of grey work but time to add some colour into my work.

What will be most interesting is me working with paint. I can handle pencil crayons as I work well with pencil. I can handle pastel since I worked with pastels during school years studying art. Paint, however, has been a medium I've been completely avoiding as I am not good at it. This will be a real test, but one I look forward to. 

Either way, I look to the LORD, my LORD for strength.

Proverbs 16:3 - Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established

Baby Animals

The Ark:

Progress on the Noah's Ark project is steadily moving along. I will be sure to upload the sketches of the ark soon, all in different views as the scene could vary between the animals IN the ark already or the animals walking towards the ark. This is critical to the final composition of the work (as well as another factor I realized as I was brainstorming but I'll that'll be a separate post).

The Animals:

Two separate sources have spoken of the animals on the ark being baby animals, which is how they could all fit into the ark. I'm still looking into it to make sure all this is correct but I think it is.

Any suggestions, comments, ideas, please feel free to comment. Thanks!

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