Tag Archives: Illustration Friday

Mimi Watch The Stars

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Mimi & the Stars
(I posted this image on the C365 blog as well, so I hope you’ll forgive me for the cross-posting… I figure the extra yammering makes it worth the double-take…)

Just so you know, I’ve not only been neglecting this blog, but I’ve also been staying away from createthreesixty5.com. That way, nobody gets jealous of me favouring the one over the other. Because let’s face it, doing anything at all these days is just too much work; I blame it on constant migraines and attendant low spirits. Excuses excuses, I know. Today is no exception and the throbbing pain is very much present but I somehow managed to get enough motivation to participate in Illustration Friday, something I hadn’t done in much too long. Every day I tell myself I’ll draw or paint something. This time I’m very proud that I actually followed through since I promised myself that by hook or by crook I would contribute something to IF this week.

I had every intention of illustrating this image with ink and watercolours, but since I started working on my submission at the very last minute, I thought it would be faster to do a photo-illustration on Photoshop instead. It wasn’t exactly a breeze since my knowledge of Photoshop is mostly limited to photo retouching and colour-correcting, but had I taken out my paints and brushes, I would have still been at it by the week-end, and I would have missed the boat on the Star Gazing theme, which would have been a shame. I think this theme especially inspired me because stargazing is something I very much miss doing—there are very few stars visible in the city, even on a clear night. To me, the idea of stargazing also evokes fresh country air, so altogether, it’s not a bad concept to be dwelling on.

Photo-Illustration and original pic by Smiler.

p.s. the title for this post is inspired by this song by Air. For more of my past IF submissions, click here.

Illustration Friday: Electricity

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"Electricity"

I based this drawing on a Man Ray photo aptly named Electricity (1931). I used dry pastels this time — the first time ever as far as I can remember, and I can’t say I’m enamored with that medium. I’m not crazy about the final result either, but what I am happy with is that I’ve gone out of my comfort zone and experimented a little which to me is the whole point of participating in Illustration Friday.

To view other my other Illustration Friday entries, click here.
To view other participants’ work click here.

Drawing by Smiler

Illustration Friday: Wrinkles

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Colette
Collette Burns, born July 2nd 1923.

I met Colette on a cold spring day last year as I was taking a walk on a busy Manhattan avenue. She was inexplicably parked in her wheelchair on the sidewalk, apparently taking in the sights, with a small boy by her side, who turned out to be her grandson. For a fraction of a second I thought she was a homeless person, especially since she looked so wild with her hot pink lipstick liberally applied well past the contours of her lips, but I quickly realized this wasn’t the case. We talked for a long time about life and death and metaphysics and I told her I felt like I’d met an earth angel. She seemed pleased by this, and not terribly surprised.

To view other my other Illustration Friday entries, click here.
To view other participants’ work click here.

Illustration by Smiler

Illustration Friday: Primitive

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Black Girl Study

Primitive: not derived, original, primary. Assumed as a basis.

Aside from being stunningly beautiful and the fact that I would have drawn her regardless of the prompt, I find this tribal woman from Africa to have the kind of features which are so well proportioned that she could be a template for women of all races.

To view other my other Illustration Friday entries, click here.
To view other participants’ work click here.

Illustration by Smiler

The Things I Worry About #5,475,368,975

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I’ve been struggling with the latest Illustration Friday prompt all week and consequently been stuck in research mode for too long. I need to get drawing already. Not too sure why it is I have issues with it, but the word in question is “Primitive”. Plenty of other participants are fine with it apparently judging by their entries. Some of them show primates and cavemen and various tools and pottery. A few dinosaurs. There are surprisingly quite a few robots. Lots of portraits of people from various parts of the world who are still known to wear traditional dress. And lots and lots of stuff which, as far as I can tell has nothing at all to do with the word “primitive”, not even if you stretch the definition a whole lot and make extra allowances and special exceptions.

I thought of drawing this beautiful African bench that my mom has left with me. It’s quite old and has figures all around carved right into it, and it actually is an authentic tribal piece. But I’m not really wanting to draw an object right now. Some other time though, as I’m sure my mum will get a kick out of seeing it. I have funny primitive-looking little figurines from somewhere in Indonesia, but again, not enough life, maybe for another time. Then I thought Aha! Maori face paintings, and I did a whole bunch of research which yielded plenty of references, but then decided if I’m going to draw a portrait this time, I’d rather draw a woman rather than a male warrior. So then I searched “African tribe women” and found a few interesting images (all this via Google and Flickr, understand) until I found Her. So beautiful. She was the little spark of inspiration I’d been looking for.

I wanted to do a very loose interpretation of her portrait and get wild with colour, maybe to suggest face paints and/or naive art, but then from yesterday evening until now, I’ve been paralyzed with doubt. Would that be racist? I don’t want to imply that this woman is primitive, God forbid. As basis for a drawing she effectively become a symbol for womanhood, for humanity for ancient customs and rituals… but I can practically hear the PC police breathing down my neck. Maybe that should be part of the reason for painting her, because after all, I’m just doing this drawing for my own amusement and there won’t be an approval committee. Amen to that.

Illustration Friday: Fail

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Illustration Friday: Fail

What gave me the idea for this illustration was last week’s Illustration Friday prompt, which was “Save”. I quickly realized I wasn’t going to finish on time, but then when this week’s prompt was revealed I realized it was all part of the same story.

One day I was walking along a footpath lined with trees when I found a small baby bird in distress. I was barely eight years old, but understood that it must have fallen out of it’s nest. I gently picked up the little bird and ran back to my father’s place, eager to show him my finding and start taking care of it myself. Since we didn’t have a cage to put him in, we decided to keep the windows and doors shut so the bird wouldn’t escape before it was strong enough. In the meantime, it could practice flying in the apartment.

I told three or four friends about ‘my’ bird, and they were eager to see it. After I’d shown it to them we all gathered around the couch and started playing games. When I noticed the bird wasn’t making any sound, I got worried, so we started looking for him everywhere. I was suspicious that someone had let him out, but then I noticed that the large piece of cloth which covered the couch bunched up on the floor. That was the one place we hadn’t looked yet. I’ll never forget the terror that gripped me when I realized the bird must have made it’s way under there as we trampled around all over the place. And sure enough, when I lifted the fabric, there he was… dead.

So there you have it. My intention was to save the bird, but because of my lack of attention, I failed to do so. There were other such small animals who met an untimely death under my care, but this bird (and another little creature I may or may not bring up in another story) have always stayed with me for some reason, even though they would have both have naturally expired close to thirty years ago now. I wanted to make sure the bird I drew was a decent approximation of the one in the story, and looking up small birds living in Israel found this lovely Olive-Backed Pipit, though of course the baby bird I found was smaller still than that. May he (or she) rest in peace.

To view other my other Illustration Friday entries, click here.
To view other participants’ work click here.

Illustration by Smiler

This is a Sketch

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Sketch Birdie350
I did quite a bit of research to find this specific bird. It’s called an Olive-Backed Pipit. I was looking for a small bird that is found in Israel, and this is one of them. I’ve never drawn a bird before, much less researched the various species, but it’s for a specific project I have in mind. It might fit into the theme for Illustration Friday — which is “Fail” this week — if I finish a version I like on time. In any case, there’s a bit of a story that comes with the bird, which I will recount when I show the final version. Whatever it ends up looking like, I almost don’t care because doing the research was the part I enjoyed the most so far. Oh, and drawing too, that was okay.

Illustration Friday: Save

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Blue Ball
Solo was a special dog. He belonged to on of my ex-boyfriends, but I grew attached to his dog who was probably more attentive than the ex in question. When Solo left us, this painting is the best way I found to save his memory. I’m sure he’s playing with that blue ball in heaven. He was crazy about that ball. Now when I look at this painting, it makes me think of another Boxer I had after Solo. Her name was Lola, she was crazy as a bat and I loved her.

To view other my other Illustration Friday entries, click here.
To view other participants’ work click here.

Illustration by Smiler

Illustration Friday: Homage

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Crayola (stage 2)

Crayola (step 4)

I thought I’d pay homage to Pop Art in general and Andy Warhol in particular. I still can’t decide which version I prefer.

To view other my other Illustration Friday entries, click here.
To view other participants’ work click here.

Illustration by Smiler