Jolly Olde England: A Christmas Surpreeze (D)

This isn't exactly a Sunday Sketch, though I did original draw it over a series of Sundays, as I recall.  In any case, here is one of the Christmas surprises I planned for J.  We have such fond memories of our summer in London, and I did the sketch of this back then as a sort of visual record of some of our favorite happenings there.  We have a sort of English decor in the living room, so I thought (kind of at the last moment) that this might be a nice addition, so I colored it up, framed it, and she had no idea!  That's the best kind of surprise.

For fun, here's the original sketch.  As you can see, I added a few elements for the final version.  I'm a little surprised at some of the things I left out, especially since I remember several times kind of racking my brain to think of more of our activities.  Silly me, how could I forget Big Ben?

Cheerio!

A Hobbit (J)

Back in ye olde days of the past, I spent many many many hours drawing all the different characters from Lord of the Rings.  Wait, I still do that.  Anyway, I used to do it a LOT, and so with the arrival of The Hobbit, it seemed only fair to give it a little bit of the same treatment.

This was a faster drawing, done with just a mechanical pencil in my sketchbook, but he still seemed to take quite a while.  Somehow I started this without realizing his shirt is completely covered in stripes.  Let's just say it was a happy moment when I finished those stripes!  But it seems like every drawing has something in it that makes you insane--like curly hair, embroidery, sequins, what have you.  (If it features Mrs. Lovett, then it has all three of those things and then some.)

Anyway, I can't promise to follow this up with a bunch of dwarf portraits but we'll see.  I'll probably get more inspired with Legolas turns up again...

Sunday Sketches: Now With More Bending (J)

Let's not talk about how long it's been since I posted Sunday Sketches!  But here I am again, armed with a new sketchbook and the same pencil I've been using since 2006.  Except this week I used a pen.  I'm such a traitor to myself!

Recently we started watching Avatar: the Last Airbender.  (Side note: we're on season 2--don't spoil me!)  I like it and stuff.  I like how the different types of bending involve different types of movement, so today I drew a montage of benders.  You can try your hand as guessing which type each person is!  Maybe next week it'll be actual character drawings, though one character did sneak onto this page...

Yip yip!

(Also, trying to do a signature using the touchpad?  Not my forte.)

Merida and Mum, Take 2 (D)

As a sort of P.S., by "popular" demand, here is the preceding set of sketches colored!  I tried a couple of new techniques with this to make it look not quite as polished as usual, just for fun and to try something a little different.  That hair:  It's crazy.

Like I said:  Cheeeange yerr feeeat!

Sunday Sketches -- Merida and Mum (D)

When I first saw Brave, I thought it was pretty, but it didn't really amaze me or anything, though I thought I would probably like it better the second time. So then when it was released on DVD and we watched it again, I realized I had thought right. It's still not my favorite Pixar movie, but I liked it a lot more the second time (and Merida had grown on me a little more earlier on, and didn't seem like SUCH a brat for almost the entire movie this time, ha ha). So then not yesterday but the Sunday before I did some sketches of Merida and her dear mum, Kenai Elinor.

That foreshortened piece with the bow and arrow isn't fantastic or anything, but it turns out that angle and pose can be challenging to achieve (truth be told, that was my second take at it...  thanks for letting me erase my sketchy attempts that I drew over anyway, Photoshop).

Cheeeange yerr feeeat!

Sunday Sketches -- Halloween Edish (D)

If I love anything where reading is concerned, it's a good theme/marathon/series, so when it came time to choose some seasonal reading this Halloween I decided to re-read/read some of the classic monster literature. It was interesting to read the source material for so very many famous stories and characters and movie adaptations to know the true literary origins (and to note just how far dramatized/cinematic versions can sometimes stray from the originals, while sometimes staying surprisingly faithful in some ways).

So now, I present character sketches from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (review here):

... Bram Stoker's Dracula (review here):

... and Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris (review here):

I had read both Frankenstein and Dracula in my teenage years, and enjoyed them (probably a little more than I did this time around), but I had never even heard of this Werewolf of Paris thing.  I read it mostly because it reportedly does for werewolves what Dracula does for vampires, and it was the closest I could discover was the "literary origin" of the werewolf character.  It was pretty interesting, but at times surprisingly unsettling, though that probably shouldn't have been that surprising.

As a side note, these were also suitable reading for our recent Mediterranean cruise.  They just seemed so European, and covered so many countries and even continents.

Happy Halloween*, everyone!



* And remember, it's pronounced "Hallow-een", not "Hollow-een".  Just one of my favorite seasonal pet peeves.

Sunday Sketches -- Thomas the Third (D)

As I continue my epic Year of Hardy, I have another round of characters from the next three books (previous posts here and here have art from the first six novels).  Here are a few drawings that were done on Sundays from August to October.  These kind of run the gamut as far as my reactions go, from one I liked pretty well to one I thought was so-so to one I loved.

The Trumpet-Major (1880)

Those Loveday Boys, or, Beware Fess Derriman and That Sassy Matilda!

 A Laodicean: A Story of Today (1881)

Paula the Powerful, or, What's a Laodicean Anyway?*

 Two On a Tower (1882)

Tabitha Too, Just Because, or, Yes, the Tower Is a Character Too

* By now I know what a Laodicean is, of course, but before I read it, the reference was forgotten and therefore lost on me.