Friday, October 8, 2010

Drawing Lab Challenge One results

Our first week  and our first exercise. How did everyone do? I know my biggest challenge was actually getting anything done. There was no bed in my catdom, but there was kitchen table, couch, and coffee table.

I was going to post this post last night, but decided to leave it to Friday night (I'm in Australia, in most people's futures ::waves to NZ who are in my future, along with the Aussie east coast::). Upon reflection, I think I will stick to the original plan of posting my Thursday night for the results and issuing the next challenge on Fridays.

But anyway, I digress. How did you all do? I've seen two wonderful results already, both Kristin Dudish and White Violet Art were on the ball and had me oggling at their work earlier today. Great stuff, guys.

As for me, I didn't manage to draw all thirty cats. I think it was a combo of my complete inability to just scribble (I'm working on it!) and the two time eating children who live in my house. I will admit to not reading the instructions properly and using pencil instead of pen to draw most of my cats, and I forgot to try to use my non-dominant hand. So basically I just drew approximately 13 cartoon cats.

What I did do is fall into my old habit of working the idea. I needed to draw cats, but I have this thing where I can't just draw a cat, I have to have some quirk in it to make it worth drawing. I think it is a left over from graphic design school where one of the best ways to find a good logo/advertsing concept was to do exactly that and draw until you find an idea. Not quite what the Lab had in mind, but I did produce some bits and pieces that could lead on to better works, so I'm happy for the most part.

Here we have 'Stick Cat', my first idea. He's a character that is going to launch my career in t-shirts ::tongue in cheek:: He was followed by 'Fluff Cat', but he resembled washing machine lint just a little to much, so he got scrapped. 'Lion with mane in rollers' turned out good, I was really happy with him and may take him to the next level. I don't know where 'Egyptian Cat' came from, but he was fun. 'Menacing Cat' never really got off the ground because I was feeling a bit too lazy to draw in his detail.

'Dali Cats' had so much potential. I could have cats naturally floppy like Dali's floppy clocks in all sorts of positions. Only one got very basically drawn, and I'm sure the concept has been explored before, it feels like my brain is regurgitating something I've seen in the far past. 'Wide Load' is in honour of my Hubby's cat he had as a kid - big, fat, and owned his territory by sitting on anyone who got in the way. He also had the original name of 'Puddy'. Fortunately I was around to help name our children :D


'Castostrophe' was Hubby's idea. I also thought of creating an entire alphabet out of cats, hey, that would be 26 of the 30 cats needed. Never got there, and it has probably already been done by someone anyway. 'Catamaran' was the first 'word concept' sketch I did (Hubby discovered 'Catostrophe' shortly after) and is proof I'm positively evil.

All of the above were done in pencil, so really I managed to cheat without meaning too.  Symptom of me leaving the book out by the computer and not in the lounge where I was working. I did do some reeeeally quick note sketches of ideas in my idea notepad (a place to stash inspiration when I'm otherwise occupied). I dare you to be able to read my horrific handwriting - there were a bunch of ideas that never made it to the sketchbook.



























There was one cat that I did do in pen all by itself. I've found myself really attracted to the zentangle/doodle/mandala type art that I'm continually seeing about, so I got brave and threw off my pre-conceived art and drew a doodle cat. (No initial sketch, just pen starting from the top and drawing down.)

He's a bit wonky, but I like him and intend to try doodling some more in the future.

So how did you all do? I wanna see stuff! Link here in the comments and load up your stuff to the Flickr group. Did you enjoy it?

Nutty
(who had fun)

5 comments:

  1. I seemed to have missed out on the "pen" instructions completely too! Ooops! :D I really like your doodle cat, he's awesome! What a great idea! :)
    Off to go check out the next assignment!

    Cindy

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  2. Ha! Ha! I names some of my cats too - Detoxing Cat, Squirrel Cat, Eeyore Cat, couldn't help myself. I was pretty anal because I numbered mine as I went along to make sure I did 30. But by page 3 (I ended up doing six - small - ones) I noticed an improvement. I guess it's true that the more you draw, the better you get. Mind you, I still had a "chicken cat" on my page 4...I've uploaded to Flickr. I still want to take one or two of my sketches and elaborate. Now, I need to have a peek at our week 2.

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  3. Wow - what great variety... and I love, love, love the play on words - Fantastic! (Such great stories you have to accompany them too :)

    Thanks again for putting it all together - it's such fun (even though I've become a little obsessed) ;)

    xo
    Kristin

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  4. Hi there -- just dropped by via CED. I LOVE your kitties! I thought I'd post my link to the work I did for this lab in the summer:
    http://created2bcreative.blogspot.com/2010/08/drawing-day.html

    You'll notice that I, too, forgot the part about using pen!

    Alas, I haven't got past that lab -- but maybe now that I've found you, I'll make a point of playing with you all :)

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  5. I bookmarked your page a short while ago - just now made it back to visit. Didn't get the book (yet?) because I'm not sure I would get through the assignments with some of the other stuff I'm doing now.

    It's fun to see your progress with the sketches. I love the pen sketch of your "wonky doodle cat" so much. Lots of interesting stuff going on with that one. Love the cat's expression, the flow of the lines, the knubby ends to the whiskers, the series of dots along the tail, the effect of the negative space with the wavy lines on the body of the cat, etc. Nice job with this one. I'll check out more of your stuff.

    Doreen
    http://doreenbaros.com/

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