Simplicity

Simplicity. Sometimes things don't have to be complicated or intricate to be worth understanding. Sometimes people don't need to explain tiny ideas with big words just so those ideas can be acknowledged. Circumlocution is what it's called when you dance circles around the point so you don't have to admit what you do or don't already know. This picture was wrought with simplicity. I was given several written paragraphs and told to illustrate the scene I envisioned when I read them for a project. That's all there was to it. nothing fancy, or complex. No circumlocution whatsoever.

I was going to share the paragraphs here, but they seem to have gone missing in action. No matter, I shall merely edit this post later on once they are found. The scene depicted three characters sitting around in a circle deep in conversation. One was a dwarf-like creature, another a painfully thin and skeletal "man" and the last seemed like a harbinger of death sort of guy. I added the fire and trees, since their setting's description was neglected and being the artist I'm allowed a creative license.

This unfinished picture was illustrated with a regular number two pencil, as always, and was drawn on some sort of common white scrap paper found in my art class room.

The Infamously Elusive Mural Design

This was part of the original design me and a few other select students crafted with the intention of eventually  painting the hallway that runs through our high school's commons area. Warrior pride is the theme, but alas we must compromise. As you can see, I try to make things more dramatic then they actually are. Our design was simply a tad too creative. We don't have to start from scratch, however. Knowing what we now know we can start again and find the desired blend of creative innovation and subtlety that is necessary.

When exactly the perfect mural design will be completed is still up in the air. Whether or not it will be painted this year, or perhaps next year as a senior project type deal is still to be seen. Perhaps it could be the premiere project for the art in residence club that the high school was considering to start?

This picture was drawn with a regular number two pencil on scrap paper. I then traced over the graphite with a cheap fine-point sharpie pen.

Special thanks to Shelby, who helped with this project.

Sometimes words aren't enough...

What I mean by the title of this post is that sometimes words just can't explain what it is you want to say. We all reach a point in our lives where we do something or say something that seems careless or stupid at a later point in time. However, when I had conceived the idea for this sketch, it was not one of those times. I have logical reasoning behind this peculiar drawing as well as a simple story.

The character pictured below is named "Rock Lee"- he's one of many ninja in Masashi Kishimoto's manga Naruto, which is also a well-known anime series. A good friend of mine, who was in my art class last semester, loathes this character's eccentric oddities with an intense passion. So, as a joke, I drew this picture of him (attempting to make him appear as ultra feminine and bizarre as possible) and gave it to her and told her she had to put it in her school binder. Having a sense of humor, she accepted.

I photographed this for my electronic portfolio presentation (aka spiffy powerpoint) that was required as a final for my art class. The only medium I used was a regular medium two pencil on lined notebook paper. Actually, to be honest, I'm not even sure what type of pencil exactly it was. It was white with an interesting motif consisting of black and gray paisley reminiscent swirls.