My contribution to this weeks Illustration Friday topic.
Showing posts with label melissa mae art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label melissa mae art. Show all posts
10/25/12
9/27/12
Film vs. Digi
I was browsing through my old deviantART account and came across these photos from my college photography class. These were from back in the day when we used something called film and developed our pictures in the dark room. I feel really old right about now.
I miss film/dark room photography. I swore I'd never go digital, and a few years later, I bought my Nikon D80. I was in love, I must admit. Being able to see your shot moments after you take it is convenient, but I believe overall it made me lazy.
When you were spending a fortune on film, every slot on that roll counted. You took your time to set up your shot, using your grey card to find the perfect exposure, fiddling with the settings until that line was dead center, framing everything perfectly, then *click*- that shot you just took IS. IT. No turning back. And you just prayed it turned out as amazingly as you had dreamed it up in your mind.
Then you took that film to your local Inkleys (sooo expensive but sooo totally worth it) asked for white borders (because they looked so profesh) and proceeded to wait 3-5 horribly long days that just seemed to drag on forever. When the day finally came to pick up your prints, you opened them as soon as you got into the car, not being able to wait another moment. Flipping through the pictures, you see some that are totally radical and some that just completely suck. But doggonnit, you worked your tush off and now you get to go spend 53 minutes in the complete dark trying to get that freaking film out of it's canister and rolled onto a developer roll, swearing under your breath and sometimes crying out of frustration. (You didn't cry? Oh...me either...) But then as soon as you got that film developed, clipped, and made into a proof-sheet, you got to go into that stinky dark room where you got acid burns from the developer and smelled the rest of the day. But what fun! What FUN! After going through an entire pack of photo paper that cost a whole weeks allowance, each crappy print crying as it fell into the trash, you finally, FINALLY get exactly what you've been trying for. One print. Perfect exposure and composition. That baby got a special frame and you couldn't help but stop to stare at it each time you passed by it. So proud. "Look at my photograph! I took that..yes, me. I did. Accomplish," you would say proudly to visitors.
Now, you take 367 pictures of the same flower, take 3 hours to narrow it down to your very favoritest and then head over to photoshop to curve, expose, blur, saturate and crop. Or HECK! You can have photoshop do the work for you with preset actions! When you're all done, you completely forget about it and don't care about printing it because you have the file on 18 different websites and you can print it anytime. Plus, you have 145,345 pictures you still need to print out, so screw it. You can just enjoy it on the computer screen.
Don't get me wrong. Photography still takes a great amount of skill and you can't take a bad picture and make it a good one in Photoshop. I just felt like being dramatic. I'm still in love with my digital camera and Photoshop. Holla.
I miss film/dark room photography. I swore I'd never go digital, and a few years later, I bought my Nikon D80. I was in love, I must admit. Being able to see your shot moments after you take it is convenient, but I believe overall it made me lazy.
When you were spending a fortune on film, every slot on that roll counted. You took your time to set up your shot, using your grey card to find the perfect exposure, fiddling with the settings until that line was dead center, framing everything perfectly, then *click*- that shot you just took IS. IT. No turning back. And you just prayed it turned out as amazingly as you had dreamed it up in your mind.
Then you took that film to your local Inkleys (sooo expensive but sooo totally worth it) asked for white borders (because they looked so profesh) and proceeded to wait 3-5 horribly long days that just seemed to drag on forever. When the day finally came to pick up your prints, you opened them as soon as you got into the car, not being able to wait another moment. Flipping through the pictures, you see some that are totally radical and some that just completely suck. But doggonnit, you worked your tush off and now you get to go spend 53 minutes in the complete dark trying to get that freaking film out of it's canister and rolled onto a developer roll, swearing under your breath and sometimes crying out of frustration. (You didn't cry? Oh...me either...) But then as soon as you got that film developed, clipped, and made into a proof-sheet, you got to go into that stinky dark room where you got acid burns from the developer and smelled the rest of the day. But what fun! What FUN! After going through an entire pack of photo paper that cost a whole weeks allowance, each crappy print crying as it fell into the trash, you finally, FINALLY get exactly what you've been trying for. One print. Perfect exposure and composition. That baby got a special frame and you couldn't help but stop to stare at it each time you passed by it. So proud. "Look at my photograph! I took that..yes, me. I did. Accomplish," you would say proudly to visitors.
Now, you take 367 pictures of the same flower, take 3 hours to narrow it down to your very favoritest and then head over to photoshop to curve, expose, blur, saturate and crop. Or HECK! You can have photoshop do the work for you with preset actions! When you're all done, you completely forget about it and don't care about printing it because you have the file on 18 different websites and you can print it anytime. Plus, you have 145,345 pictures you still need to print out, so screw it. You can just enjoy it on the computer screen.
Don't get me wrong. Photography still takes a great amount of skill and you can't take a bad picture and make it a good one in Photoshop. I just felt like being dramatic. I'm still in love with my digital camera and Photoshop. Holla.
9/17/12
Gollum: Part Two
(See: Gollum: Part One)
I love working from home for the very reason that I get to hang with my kids.
I've always had a hard time with color. Black pen is my comfort zone. But, I really felt (okay, I literally just typed out "fart" instead of "felt" just now. I should have just left it, right?)
Anyways, I felt like this needed some eerie color emanating from the ring. I have a range of colors that I'm comfortable with, that I always seem to lean towards. Having to step away from that palette is really giving my brain some good creative exercise.
That being said, I miss the black and white. I hate the middle stages of a painting because it always just looks muddy and unfinished. I just have to be patient, because I know in the end, adding the color is necessary for the emotion I want to create.
Gollums profile has also been a challenge. I drew him without any references, so in order to get his profile right I'm going to get out my Gollum figurine and pose him.
[Nerd alert: Yes, you read correctly. I have a Gollum figurine. He comes with a rock you can pose him on, interchangeable heads (one for Gollum, one for Smeagol) and a fish. OH! AND...there are even audio buttons on the rock if you want Gollum or Smeagol to talk!]
Onward:
As an artist, all of these challenges are good. It's really pushing me out of my safety bubble and forcing me to enhance my skills. And no matter what, whenever I am drawing/painting, I am a happy camper, so the amount of time I'm spending on this piece has been so much fun.
I'm really excited to finish it and post it for you guys to see!
9/9/12
Gollum
Drawing Gollum for "The Hobbit" design contest.
Here is my progress in pictures via instagram:
Getting into character...
9/3/12
9/1/12
Just for fun
In between commissions I did a simple, fun piece based off some drawings in my sketch book.
I finally got around to windexing my scanner. No more goobers.
I finally got around to windexing my scanner. No more goobers.
8/25/12
Beach Baby
Renee commissioned me to do an illustration of her daughter. She wanted a silhouette on the beach at sunset, with her little girl holding a surf board, and she requested some obvious diaperage and the Volcom logo on the swimming suit. I thought the idea was so cute!
Once again, let me just complain about my crappy scanner:
BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Wait..hold the phone...HOLD. THE. PHONE. I just realized my scanner is a filthy mess. Maybe if I would just pull out some Windex once in awhile my pictures wouldn't look like I smeared boogers on them. Mystery solved, case closed, amen. I'm sorry, leetle scanner, for hurting your feelbads. You have been there for me through thick and thin. I'll give you a nice wipe down and I'll even use my good rags. *pat pat
Once again, let me just complain about my crappy scanner:
BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Wait..hold the phone...HOLD. THE. PHONE. I just realized my scanner is a filthy mess. Maybe if I would just pull out some Windex once in awhile my pictures wouldn't look like I smeared boogers on them. Mystery solved, case closed, amen. I'm sorry, leetle scanner, for hurting your feelbads. You have been there for me through thick and thin. I'll give you a nice wipe down and I'll even use my good rags. *pat pat
8/8/12
Angel
The following is an illustration based off a passage in my cousins book "Emerald City":
"I could see now that it was a figurine, carved out of a solid piece of white stone, possibly marble. It was a faceless figure lying with its head buried in its hands as if defeated. On its back was a set of small, ivory wings. An angel. The saddest angel I had ever seen."
If you haven't read "Emerald City" yet, do it!
"I could see now that it was a figurine, carved out of a solid piece of white stone, possibly marble. It was a faceless figure lying with its head buried in its hands as if defeated. On its back was a set of small, ivory wings. An angel. The saddest angel I had ever seen."
If you haven't read "Emerald City" yet, do it!
7/27/12
Illustration Friday-"Carry"
The topic for this weeks Illustration Friday is "Carry". I thought I'd be clever and put a little twist to it.
"Carrie Carrying Carrie"
BWA HA! Get it? Carrie from the movie "Carrie" is carrying Carrie Fisher, aka Princess Leia.
Well...I thought it was pretty funny....
On a side note, one day I'll purchase a marvelous scanner that won't make my artwork look like total poop.
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