Sandwich and a Sketch

"Laptop Heat" Austin, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/105 sec, ISO200
“Laptop Heat” Austin, 2017

こんばんは。How’s it going? We made it through the week! 👏

Today’s photo is of my wrapped up sandwich. I don’t like to eat cold sandwiches, so I took it out from the office fridge and leaned it up against my laptop, where the fan blows hot air. In a few minutes (and one turn over) the sandwich is at a nice temperature. It kind of reminds me of cooking food on a car’s engine… but a lot less extreme.

This evening I worked on another portrait, but this time a 3/4 view. I was looking at a reference drawing from an amazing artist, Asia Ladowska, to work on the hair and the pose. I have a lot of trouble getting the eyes to match up, so after I got it close on paper, I took the sketch into Photoshop and adjusted the size and positioning of both eyes. The result is below, and you can see the original sketch at the bottom of this post.

"Adjusted Reference" Cedar Park, 2017
“Adjusted Reference” Cedar Park, 2017

I blogged a bit before about the “mannequin” look that my sketches often take, and you can see that in the original drawing below. With the adjustments in Photoshop, the portrait above is much more “manga” style, which I really like. It’s still not where I want it to be, but it’s progress.

I try to keep the phrase, “A line drawn is never wasted” in my mind, especially when the results are not going the way I would like them to.

"Original Reference" Cedar Park, 2017
“Original Reference” Cedar Park, 2017

To see all the sketches I’ve been working on, you can check out the Flickr album “My Sketching Journey”, or my Instagram account barron.sketches which I created just for posting sketches, watercolors, and stationery items.

I hope you had a nice Friday!

おやすみ

Salmon and a Sketch

"Salmon Dinner" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/20 sec, ISO800
“Salmon Dinner” Cedar Park, 2017

こんばんは。How’s it going?

It seems I have a recurring theme going on my blog: a food photo and a sketch photo. 😀

I think the salmon dinner photo is self-explanatory. Yummy of course, and healthy too. Or maybe all that butter it was cooked in isn’t the healthiest, but it was sure tasty!

And tonight’s sketch is something new in that I tried a little bit of shading. It was fun, and I think I’ll do some more. Maybe less line-work and more shading? And I need to figure out hair. 😜

"2017.10.04 Sketch" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/60 sec, ISO640
“2017.10.04 Sketch” Cedar Park, 2017

To see all the sketches I’ve been working on, you can check out the Flickr album “My Sketching Journey”, or my Instagram account barron.sketches which I created just for posting sketches, watercolors, and stationery items.

I hope you had a great day!

またね~

Sunrise and a Sketch

"Sunrise" Austin, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/60 sec, ISO400
“Sunrise” Austin, 2017

Can you see all those birds? It’s amazing and frightening to see them all… 😱

This evening I sketched another portrait. I’m getting faster at doing these little sketches… I’d say it took about 30 minutes, and I only used a compass for the initial circle, and one ruler center line. The rest was by hand, so I’m improving on that front. 😀

"Evening Sketch" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/15 sec, ISO800
“Evening Sketch” Cedar Park, 2017

I still need to figure out how to draw hair. It’s really hard! But fun to think about the best way. And research too. I really enjoy it!

To see all the sketches I’ve been working on, you can check out the Flickr album “My Sketching Journey”, or my Instagram account barron.sketches which I created just for posting sketches, watercolors, and stationery items.

I hope you had a nice Tuesday!

おやすみ

Sunday and a Sketch

"Morning Sunshine" Cedar Park, 2017
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/60 sec, ISO640
“Morning Sunshine” Cedar Park, 2017

こんばんは。How’s it going?

Today was super-busy, even for a Sunday! I woke up at a good time, 7:30 AM, which was first in the house, and made coffee, then got to work on the day’s activities:

  • Update our friends’ restaurant website with new menu items
  • Cook breakfast for the kids
  • Yard work
  • Splatoon break!
  • Update Mariko’s website header image
  • Drop off Koa at the movies
  • Take Bay to get his haircut
  • Stop by the bookstore to sell some books
  • Buy canned goods at the market for school donation
  • Pick up Koa from the movies
  • Work on Mariko’s website some more

And that was the day!

Well, almost… I did spend some time finishing a sketch I started the other day. Basically, I cleaned up the lines, and figured out how to draw the hair where it meets the scalp, and also after a bunch of trial and error, I drew the part in the hair. I think it looks pretty good!

By the way, today is the first day of October, so Inktober is starting. I will not be taking part in it, but I hope to see some cool artwork.

To see all the sketches I’ve been working on, you can check out the Flickr album “My Sketching Journey”, or my Instagram account barron.sketches which I created just for posting sketches, watercolors, and stationery items.

I hope you had a nice weekend!

またね~

A Fun Sketch

こんばんは。How’s it going?

Here’s the digital paint version of the pencil sketch I did a couple days ago. In the previous digital painting, I used the pen tool in Photoshop to create smooth lines for filling and erasing, which I found super-convenient (and fun). So for this latest sketch, I decided to use Illustrator to create the line art, then copied and pasted as Smart Objects into Photoshop.

I also found out about the Width Tool (Shift+W) to vary the width of a stroke. This blew my mind! I loved creating the line-art in this way. Check out the Smart Objects that I created using Illustrator and the Width Tool:

I think this version looks really cool. Maybe even better than the finished drawing. I guess that just means I need to practice more. 😀

Anyways, for the final version, I had a little fun by putting a Nyan cat on the shirt and giving the character a more goth look. Both my kids said she looks like one of the Splatoon girls, which I don’t really see, but I’ll take as a compliment. 😅

To see all the sketches I’ve been working on, you can check out the Flickr album “My Sketching Journey”, or my Instagram account barron.sketches which I created just for posting sketches, watercolors, and stationery items.

I hope you had a nice Monday!

おやすみなさい!