Words, Art & Science by Anthony Francis
Another Goldman study. Interestingly, I had to use Photoshop's perspective warp to make this image have a square box, compared to its original, which I photographed rotated and a little off-angle:
So, this may be my last image post for a bit, as I am traveling to Con Carolinas soon, and even though my web hosting provider says I have 15 megabytes free, Wordpress is perceiving me as having no bytes free.
Regardless, I'll keep drawing every day.
-the Centaur
More studies from Goldman. I'm liking how these are turning out. Apparently repeated practice is doing something for my ability to render - whodathunk.
I'd say, "I'da thunk" except I am actually a bit surprised that there's a cross-training effect going on: that is, I'm getting better at things I wasn't really trying to get better at, just because I have to do them in order to do the things that I really want to do - sometimes improving in surprising ways.
But the drawings are turning out well, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
More studies of negative space from Goldman. Yes, yes, I know "wza y'ei" means negative conceptual space, not negative visual space, but these hands really do look Lovecraftian to me.
So tired. Onward.
-the Centaur
ACTUALLY, there are no more "positive" and "negative" shapes in the real world than there are actual "lines" in the real world (well, even that's debatable, but ...) as the right diagram illustrates: yes, you can say that the hand has a shape, but its "wza y'ei", the negative conceptual space surrounding a positive concept in the Aklo language, does not actually exist for the hand: that negative space itself is both limited and shaped, broken up into negative and positive shapes like the stands for the hands or the frame of the picture. Or, to riff more on concepts from Alan Moore's version of Aklo, defining negative space can be seen as the extended creation of a new positive form.
A little punchy after that debugging session.
Drawing every day, posting every day my website works.
-the Centaur
Photoshopped version of the "C Lion" neck pillow that I drew the other day ...
It is interesting how strange shapes get compared to what we imagine things to look like ... it took conscious effort not to cartoon this and to try to make it match its referent, even given that it was a quick sketch.
Even then, I moved the binder clip in the drawing to aid the composition. Breakin' the law!
-the Centaur
I wasn't satisfied with the fingers on yesterday's drawing, nor with the fact that I didn't have time to render it, so I tackled it again, as a subject in its own right. I think it came out better, though the thumb is pointy.
Overall, I feel the shapes of the fingers I draw tend to come out fat or thin - I don't have a great grasp of their shape and thickness yet, and perspective is particularly hard.
But then, that's why I'm drawing every day, starting from Goldman's Drawing Hands and Feet.
-the Centaur
Another Photoshop study, of a chocolate shop in Oakland. Here's the original:
Pity that most chocolate isn't vegan, but it sure is a nice storefront with the chocolates and the origami.
-the Centaur
No rendering for you - I got the line drawing finished just before my late-night walk with my wife, and was about 50-50 on whether I would shade this when I got back - but it was raining, and we did a short walk, and, to our surprise, after our short little walk, the fridge in the kitchen was leaking.
So! Instead of rendering this, I helped my wife move all our food out of the dying fridge and into alternate refrigeration - fortunately we had enough room to save everything except for some freezer-burned home-made ice cream that really wasn't ever good enough to eat anyway.
Drawing every day; adulting as best as we can.
-the Centaur
Pictured: Another study from Goldman.
It's late, and I anticipated a cat would end up in my lap, so just a quick sketch for you. This is Mom, from a photograph back in the day - this is actually the photo we used for her funeral. We think the photograph was colorized and retouched, which was the style back in the day.
Interestingly, the photo was so blurry due to movement that I had to retroject the cleaned sketch back onto the notebook page, which I think turned out pretty well, though you can see a bit of the blurriness left in the notebook page texture. (Update: hit post too soon, thanks to cat, fixed now).
-the Centaur
Another Photoshop study, this one based on a doorway on College Street in Oakland.
So many wonderful shapes and patterns present themselves to us every day, but if we don't stop to look around once in a while, we might miss it.
-the Centaur
Flying back from Silicon Valley Open Studios, just a quick sketch for you.
Drawing. Every. Day.
-the Centaur
Another Photoshop study based on some of Sandi's art, which we finally got around to hanging after the renovations. Fun fact: both the lion and the wall are Sandi's (a sculpture, and a faux).
-the Centaur
P.S. The original is below ....
Ya know, I could render this better, but, it's 3 in the morning, so, I'm not.
Enjoy another Goldman study.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
I'd gotten out of the habit of doing these quasi-comic style art pieces based on photographs, but I've taken a few really good candidate pictures with the right layout for it, so I hope to get back into doing that. This is a picture of one of Sandi's art pieces she completed this weekend at Silicon Valley Open Studios, and it will now be on display at Kaleid Gallery in San Jose. Neat fact: this little guy is actually a cabinet!
Still, he's a little guy.
-the Centaur
Pictured: One of Sandi's sculpture cabinets, to be on display at the Kaleid Gallery.
Digging through my photos, looking for things I had forgotten to blog, I found some nice pictures of some cherry blossoms, and decided to Photoshop-rendition them into an illustration.
Please enjoy this bonus illustration!
-the Centaur
Pictured: Um, I said it already, cherry blossoms, seen through a window, then Photoshopped. This is about 8 layers of perspective tweaks, color / tone / contrast adjustments, filters, masks and layer effects.
Long day helping clean up after Silicon Valley Open Studios and taking art to Kaleid, so here's a quick sketch of Jeremiah, based on a drawing of Jeremiah that happened to be sitting near me, after I had mostly assembled the furniture which goes in my new home-away-from-home office out in California:
You can barely see her next to the chair there, but it's the same drawing I have used for a variety of JW things, including the upcoming Jeremiah Willstone audio dramas:
Still, kind of appropriate that a character whose catchphrase is "Quick, now" (and who complained about her author reducing her strategies down to just the quick-strike) would be rendered in a quick sketch.
Drawing every day, even if I am shy of time.
-the Centaur
Pictured: Quick sketch of Jeremiah, with a little photoshoppery to jazz up the red scribbles around the Kathodenstrahl pistols, and my new home office, plus some of Sandi's sculptural furniture - believe it or not, the freaky egg thing is a combination hatrack / cupboard / jewelry case.
Well, that's a wrap for Silicon Valley Open Studios. After-action report will have to wait - it's late and I'm tired.
This was our celebratory meal from Craft Roots, though - almost identical to the one I failed to take a picture of a few days ago (yes, we went to Craft Roots just three days apart, it's that good).
-the Centaur
Pictured: Sandi's brochures on an unfinished table, and a meal at Craft Roots.
"No, it's not Master Strange, or Mister Strange, but Doctor Strange!" It still cracks me up that Dr. Strange's actual name is, like, Doctor Strange. "So, Stephen, what do you want to do when you grow up?" "Imma gonna be a doctor!" "Great!" "And then become a wizard superhero!" "You run along, Stevie."
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Cue "It's Happening" meme: Silicon Valley Open Studios is this weekend, May 18th and 19th, where my wife Sandi Billingsley will be showing off both her paintings and mixed media including furniture!
Our friend Diane, a glass artist, dropped in to help us manage the day, bringing snacks and champagne!
Sandi has a lot of artwork and furniture on display today, including some very nice large-format art. Above you can see "Kirsten Piig" and "Jim Dairy" from Sandi's "Animals are People Too" series, and one of the geode tables (along with Diane on the left, Sandi on the right, and my toe at the bottom); on the other side is "Missy Elephant" and several of Sandi's other pieces with custom art boards made to look like stone:
Another room has more pieces and some works in progress:
Below you can see "Collie Parton", "Yeti White" and another striking geode table:
This is an open studio, so several of Sandi's in-process pieces are prominently on display, like this bar and chairs set (and also the finished art "Moo Paul" and "Mllama"):
In the back room, this enormous piece is going to be a conch-shaped day bed:
It is so big that Sandi's actually going to partially take it apart and make the top into a removable cabinet:
Not because it can't fit through the door or anything. Not at all. Sandi also let me have a space to display my books, since we needed to find a place to put that bookcase (which I designed and built, I'm proud to say). The giant egg creature is actually one of Sandi's furniture pieces - a hat cabinet!
At the back there is the final geode table, which I think I showed yesterday ... oh, no I didn't, here you go:
We will be here working on art today and tomorrow from 11-5, so please come on by!
-the Centaur
Day 139, still going through Goldman's drawing techniques section. Again I appear to have hit the (admittedly foreshortened, yet barely visible) thumb with a hammer. But, it's a good exercise. For example, the texturing technique I used for the grey background got a little misaligned in the bottom middle, creating an apparent discontinuity where it should be continuous (and making the pipe or stick the back hand is resting on less visible in my drawing, though it wasn't too easy to see in the original).
Drawing on average every day; scheduling posts to go up once a day if I can.
-the Centaur
