Rushing...

At the end of a semester in Etching, everyone is running around like a chicken with their head cut off... myself included. Trying to get those editions finished and last minute proofs through the blotters. It's cool to see the lab working like a well-oiled machine with everyone pushing out a ton of work. I finished/got sick of my grapes and moved on. Actually, I literally got sick. Massive head colds are not good times. Ugh. While I blew my nose into oblivion, I worked on a couple of plates.

First, a 9x12 zinc plate with a layer of soft-ground wax. The Prof. introduced us to this technique earlier in the semester. You make a rig for your plate with cardboard so it doesn't shift, then lay a piece of paper over top. I used charcoal paper, but generally you use something less dense. Then you draw right onto the paper and the marks you make get transferred into the wax ground on the plate. I used a ballpoint pen, since I'm so comfortable with them.


Got it to the lab without messing up the wax and dropped it in the acid for a while. I flat-etched mine for something like half an hour.

The result...

Having never used this technique before I was pretty blown away by how well it worked. It's not a great composition or anything, but WOW I didn't expect it to read the pressure with that detail. *amazed*
I added a bit more value in places and some very rapidly drawn branches (last printing day rush ^^) and kicked out a few of these.

It needs a lot of work, but I rather like the overall idea so I'll keep working on it when I have time in the Spring.

I took a little doodle from a sketchbook and put it on a tiny 4x5 plate. I haven't done anything abstract with any of my etchings, so I thought this would be fun. Not much to it. Only a couple of states, but I enjoy it. The blue is true to life. Very quickly mixed it thinking I might use it on the Scrub Jays above. I like it on this one though.

Needs some aquatint and further tweaking. Reactions from classmates were really interesting. It evoked very different images/ideas from each person. So...

what do you see?
:)

meticulous

I suppose most artists have a tendency towards OCD. I certainly do. I live for tedium. Zoning out in a field of gradation is my idea of bliss. Cheap ballpoint pens are completely awesome. I didn't know about biro art until recently. I started doing these in 2005. They're crazy fun, but you go through a lot of pens.

This is Miyavi. He is a guitarist of Japanese Rock fame, in a genre referred to as Visual-Kei. I enjoy the energy of his music. I enjoy that he is such a spaz. Strange as it sounds, of all the sets of tattoos I've seen, his are my favorite.


We might as well stay in the same genre for these two. Above: Aoi-san is the rhythm guitarist of a band called the GazettE （ガゼット）. He's decked out in kimono here. All of these use photo references, by the way. Below: Yoshiki-san is the percussionist of the legendary jrock band X-Japan. This piece was my entry for a contest at jrockrevolution.com. I won it, which surprised me to no end. 　



From Japanese Rock we hop over to Korean Pop. I got into TVXQ (5-member boyband) in 2007. This drawing is one of the members, Xiah Junsu. I cried uncontrollably the first time I watched him sing 'Beautiful Thing' in a youtube vid. Been obsessed with the group ever since. Figured I ought to draw him.
Both Junsu and Yoshiki are drawn with mechanical pencils.