Matchstick Bot

Remember last time I was talking about how I was drawing with matchsticks? Sure you do! Well here's another one that I did
Again, it's a combination of ink-pen and match-stick. All of the shading is done with burnt matches. I think that I like the treatment of this image better than the previous image, but I like the previous image better than this one overall, this being more of a doodle.

I have been thinking about the white border more lately, though. I hadn't given it much thought in the past, but I'm starting to think it has significance beyond "I like how it looks". For one thing, it gives the image a bit more definition, a space if you will. Something I'm generally searching for is a definition or space. But on another level, that definition is also a sort of a surrounding feeling thingy. Sort of like it's captured in that defined space, unable to move outside of it, where there is (often) color, or shading, or depth, or something more abstract. As such, I've added another tag "border" so I, or you, can look at all those things together and maybe get a better idea as to what's going on with it.

Or maybe it just looks good and it's easy to do.

The future . . .?

Well, recently my girlfriend in Iraq broke up with me. She said it was too hard being that far apart, especially with such a time difference. See the time difference made it hard to find a time for us to talk that wasn't cutting into the other's work or sleep or something. She started working more to occupy her mind and it just sort of pushed me out. Now I can at least kind of understand what she's talking about. And believe me, there's more to it than I just said, but I'm not going to go into her personal life with perfect strangers who don't even bother to post comments (yes, you!).

That all went down 'round the New Year. But lately, she wants to talk more. She's lonely and homesick and she's having a hard time finding a sympathetic ear. I can't stand to see someone reaching out and not finding anything. That just sucks. So I want to help her. I want to listen and be her friend and keep her spirits up, especially since she's serving our country in a desert combat zone. Regardless of feelings about the war, or war in general, our troops deserve to be supported.

But the tricky thing is, if I open back up like this, I'm likely to get hurt again. I tend to fall easily and she is easy to fall for. So I drew this in DS Colors!:

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And then the next day I drew this:

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You may notice that both guys are looking up into the sky. I kind of wanted to draw a UFO or something, but it would have been to close to them to reflect the idea that whatever it is that has their astounded attention is still a ways off. And I wanted to use the words "Not again", but I didn't want it to be that obvious. But the point of both of these drawings is along the lines of "I can see it coming, and I'm just standing here, watching it get closer. I'm not running. I'm not trying to get out of its way or get closer. It'll probably hit me, though, if I just keep standing here. . ." And that's about how I feel. Paralyzed with fear: Help her and hurt me and then hurt her? Hurt her and help me and hurt me? Hurt me, her and then help us both? Help her, me and then hurt all around? Some other combination of hurt and help? I just don't know. . . You may note that both are bald and have a "soul patch", even though they're "self-portraits". I still have some hair (and while my usual self-portraits are fairly bald, they still have some hair) and a full goat-tee. I have been focused on the chin area of the facial hair of late, but I doubt that has any real-world significance. It could explain the drawings a bit, though.

Now for a few words on media. The bottom drawing ("Shit") is a combination of ink pen and match sticks. The hard lines are all Bic pen, the shading is all matchsticks. I recently had a conversation with someone about the merits of charcoal and the merits of graphite. I generally prefer graphite, probably because I've all-my-life drawn with pencil. But charcoal is fun too. Partly because it's messy. You get done with a charcoal drawing and you know you've been drawing! Graphite is a bit messy, too, but not as bad. Graphite gives you a sheen that charcoal doesn't. Charcoal gives you a darkness that graphite doesn't. So it's whatever works for you that matters in the end. At any rate, I've been using stick-matches to light my cigarettes and I decided to draw with them. After a couple of silly little drawings all in burnt wood, I decided it would be cool to mix it with something that gave a more stark and definitive line: ink. I like the results, though I'm clearly out of practice with charcoal.

Toasty

I drew the image for this a couple weeks ago and then, since I don't have Photoshop anymore, I threw it into Photostudio 5.5 (which came free with my scanner!) and tweaked it, added the text:

I think that this would make for a pretty cool sticker, wot? Myself, I would assume it's a beverage of an adult nature and therefore quite tasty. One day, when I'm more motivated and less lazy, I'll get this made into a sticker. For now, I'll just pretend.

Dots-N-Lines

The drawing bug bit me again recently. Finally. So I drew this:

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I really wanted to do a drawing with the dots n lines (like this one) that had the robot in the middle of all the lines and dots. So I did that part first. Then I drew the box around it to give it a "completed" look. Then I thought that there should be more boxes with more stuff. So I drew the rest of the boxes and then filled them in. First was the one on the bottom right. The original idea was to do some of my columns, but I screwed up in ink so I wound up with what I have there. It's not bad. Next was the self-portrait. Usually I fill in the area around the head, but decided that I was too lazy/impatient so I went with dots. That seems to stick with the theme of the first two boxes (in the order they were drawn). The area up top remained blank for a couple of days, unsure of what should be in there. I knew I wanted a "scene" of some sort. . . but what? Then out of nowhere I decided I wanted to draw a mushroom cloud. They're easy and they look like they mean something whenever you draw them into anything. After the ground and the cloud were done, I thought it would be fun to put a sun in there. It was originally going to be a happy smiling sun, but I messed up the eyes (in ink, of course) and it looked a bit sinister. I figured it must be happy that the earth was finally feeling what it feels ALL THE TIME! I added the flying stickman (always a fun image to me) and the dialogue.

I want to do more with the dots-n-lines with the robot. I like how it turned out. I need to get the pencil set back out and spend some real time on it, make it look really nice.

Am I Green?

Hola, Gang! I haven't been doodling much lately. Or drawing. Or sketching for that matter. But I have been playing with Colors! some more. Here's one from the other day:

It's a self portrait again. The eyes are upside down and everything is green for some reason. I can't explain either of those things. Well, alright, I just wanted to see what the eyes would look like upside down. But I couldn't tell you why. And I like the color green. But I couldn't tell you why. The eyes don't really seem upside down, though. They're just there, seeming normal. I suppose sometimes our perspectives shift to something completely unexpected, but nothing really changes. Whether we don't learn anything from it, or we learn that "the other viewpoint" isn't really that different than our own. . . Something to think about I suppose.

Robot-Head-Thing

Just this past Saturday I was interviewed for a local 'zine called "Infolepsy". As a result, I now feel motivated to draw more frequently and to at least maintain status quo on posting to this blog. So I drew this last night.


Whenever I'm stuck for ideas, I draw heads. Human heads, robot heads, dog heads, cat heads. But no shower heads. I don't know that I have ever drawn a shower head, interestingly enough. I may have to change that. Anywho, I was pretty pleased with the doodle, I'd taken some time to do some shading on the 'bot-head and I like the cross-hatching, too. But the background was a bit dull. Now, it was just a doodle, it was never intended to be a Finished Piece Of Art or anything like that, but still I wanted something to make the image pop a little more. So into Photoshop it went, I selected the background and tweaked the Levels and voila! (Which, if I'm not mistaken, is the French word for "viola".) Now there is this.

Interestingly enough -to me anyway- I have done images similar to this one before, with the shapes around the head that don't really define a border to the space, but I have no idea what it's all about. Oh I'm sure there's something about balance in there. There's always something about balance. But I don't know what the rectangles are or the circles are. These circles aren't the "bubbles" I so commonly use, so I don't know what they're trying to tell me. I guess this gives me a little direction for new works: what the hell are the circles and the boxes all about? It can't simply be to make the picture appear more elaborate and meaningful than it really is. Or can it?

Mind of a Man, Heart of a Robot (In Color!)

Well, here it is all in color. I rather like it in color, don't you?

And there you have it. My first hybrid in a long long time. I like to draw something with pencil or pen and then color it on the compooter. Partially because I suck with color. I can't work with paints or pastels or anything like that and get the results that I'm looking for. But with Photoshop, I can tweak the colors until they are just right, plus do some other cool stuff that helps to "complete" an image. Take, for example, the cherry on the cigarette. What I did originally looked just awful. It was a bright red. Had I painted that, there would wind up being huge gobs of paint in that area and I would have ended up destroying the thing. But this way I could tweak it down to orange and mess with some other stuff that I barely understand, but still appreciate, and make it look good. I was also able to make the background (which is super easy and I love the way it looks!) and the frame.

Now that I have the scanner, I suspect that I'll be doing more pieces in this fashion. I'll spend more time shading the original pencil or pen drawing and then just color it after the fact. I know that can work really well because I've done it before with favorable results.