Happy Thanksgiving

I have been trying to draw more, create more. And just get myself out of a creative rut. It's slow going. Getting the motivation to take the small few minutes I have to draw is hard. There's less time for me to do things, and when I do have free time I tend to squander it on something easy and worthless like TV. Now, TV and reading and escape is great. Sometimes you have to just veg. But I do need to keep drawing, and using illustrator and photoshop, because they are skills that you WILL LOSE if you don't use them. There is so much you forget when you stop using it. I don't want to forget. I don't know if I will ever have a job that allows me to use my creativity, or drawing or hell anything I studied in college and spend years doing professionally. But, I can't quite squash the hope that maybe, I will be able to do them again as a job. Rather than as a hobby.

So I was doodling sketching (It's totally sketching if you doodle in a sketch book isn't it?) and came up with some silly illustrations for Thanksgiving.

So, this holiday is really just about eating for me. I don't usually eat much Turkey (give me mashed potato's, bread and stuffing, and I get all sleepy after eating enough carbohydrates to prepare me for a marathon. (More like a Doctor Who Marathon....AmIright???)

I came up with some silly ideas.

Doesn't everything look better in-between laurel leaves?
So official right?

I'm not a huge fan of roast turkey. Although I love me some buttery spuds. 

Turkey Leg Wreath lying on a bed of cranberry leaves and cranberries. (with outline)

No outlines

 I'm not sure which I like best. I tend to be pretty flat with my drawings. I don't always go for outlines, but sometimes I think it makes a better impact. Also, the shadows weren't looking very good, and drop shadow just looks sooooo.....drop shadowy.  I struggle with color choice, especially when using the pantone CMYK color book. YOU  try to pick out four great colors when you have 5000 at your disposal. There's just not enough value difference, and I think it gets a bit confusing to look at.

I was going to do a chalkboard look for this one but got a bit distracted and just trashed the idea. Maybe I'll add some chalkboard effects, or not.

A little peek at the illustrator work, plus to the right are only "some" of the colors I choose from.

Yep, a bit overwhelming sometimes.

Anyway, I guess this blog and the other one (eep, been awhile since I posted on my humor one-guess I wasn't feeling too funny) will be the repository of my creative work for the near, and possibly forever future. 

Happy Thanksgiving Ya'll. I'm so thankful that I have found sometime to draw again, and I'm also so very thankful I have a life that allows for such niceties as a big day set aside for gluttony and teasing your family members. It's a pretty stunning gift. My thoughts and prayers to the suffering and hurt. My thanks to those reading.

Rudy

projects for November

I've had a few projects I've accomplished this November.

I created a design wall with foam board insulation, batting and flannel. No more crawling around on the floor laying out my quilt pieces. I have been planning on this for years now. But there was never any space on any walls.

Design wall and mini minky blanket

It's not permanent, it's lightweight so I'll be moving it around whenever I get my office/studio in a better layout. 

In the meantime it sports some quilt pieces, and some of my kids artwork. Just wrap the foam board ($15.00 a piece of 4'x8'x3/4") with some quilt batting and cover that with flannel. The quilt pieces stick onto the flannel with no pinning.  The only issue I had with making this is that using duct-tape doesn't work that well, It just pulls off the paper backing and falls off the batting and flannel. The staple gun works slightly better but they pull out of the foam core pretty easily. 

I also recovered my hand me down office chair. It had holes in the upholstery, and the stuffing was starting to show through. So I found some fabric from my stash and with my handy staple gun re-covered it. It was left-over plaid from when I made a kilt. It was a fairly easy project till I had to re-upholster the back of the lumbar support. I ended up sewing it onto the chair which in hindsight was a lot of work when I could have just glued it on. (I didn't want to have visible staples on the back)

After.

I don't have a before photo because I'm just not that good a blogger. Just imagine it looking crappier and red. That's the before. 

I finished up a double sided minky blanket for my niece for x-mas. Minky sure feels nice but like all high pile fabrics it's heavy and unruly to sew. When I shook out the fabric to lay it out on the floor and cut it to the right dimensions, a huge puff of minky hairs just exploded all over my living room floor. My daughter didn't mind, she just wrapped herself up in the fabric and named it her "baba".

 When I took it away from her to sew she cried big fat tears and beat her tiny fist agains my studio door. The fit she threw at Hobby Lobby when I bought it was pretty epic as well. Lets just say that after it was cut from the bolt of fabric she draped herself in it and gave anyone who tried to touch it dirty looks. Since I had some leftover minky fabric I made her a tiny lopsided blanket. It's up there in the picture of the design wall. Just scroll up guys I'm not posting the same picture again. Gosh....

I didn't take a picture of the huge minky all laid out in it's glory because honestly draping the blanket on cute stuff and taking thousands of badly lit pictures was just too hard today. 

There you go, it's all finished and packaged up.

That's my other desk chair. It's the one in-front of my computer. It's made from bungee cords and is super bouncy!!! I love it too. 

Well, I've gotta go pick up the kids. Sorry for the typo's, lately my fingers are too frozen to type correctly. I should have kept those fingerless usb heated gloves. Oh well.

Rudy

Is it too late for Inktober?

Seeing as it's November I'm gonna say, yep, it's too late for Inktober.

It's a way for artists to push themselves to draw more.

But hey. I'm not very good at keeping up with trends. So I guess a month late is fine right?

I was working on trying to come up with cool ideas and drawings. It hasn't gone so well. 

My sketchbook for Inktober. 

I do not own nor work for Adam's extract.

I am not working for Adam's extract, I was just making chocolate chip cookies with vanilla extract (Adams's is what I have alway's used) and admired the bottle shape and style. When I ran out I put it up on my window sill to hold an ivy cutting. Well, I noticed the label hasn't changed much in 50 years. Not, that's not a bad thing. Brand identity is important, and the old style look is very popular right now. But I thought I'd give myself a project to keep up with my drawing skills (or procrastinate from mopping). I loved the glass bottle, the shape and even the label. But thought it could use some updating. So I came up with a silly idea. Reminder, this is just a personal project using stuff I have around my house. Adam's is a Texas based company. Their factory was on I-35 for many years and I would drive by. They've moved to Gonzalez since. 

Their bottle and logo presently.

You'd think with graph paper my lines would be straighter, oops.

Green ink is fun, I may just keeping using it.

So my work for Inktober, a month late. I even tried doing a nice rendering in Illustrator but so far it's a damned mess. Why is text so hard!!!!!!