Sunday Blues

(note the rainbow shiny hands, they've been in my scraps for a year, waiting to be used)

In all honesty, I hate Sundays. Granted I do hate a LOT of things, but Sundays are more a generally disliked thing. They're the day I waste. Saturdays can be productive. Sundays, Sundays suck.

So after reading a shitload of comics, watching Beauty and the Beast, Charlotte's Web and about 6 episodes of The Grim Adventure's of Billy and Mandy I decided I'd ink something. Originally I was making Katy Perry fan-art, but I will save all Katy Perry related shenanigans until Halloween. So, all done in ink except the lips which are plain ol' acrylic paints (I loathe acrylic paint, it reminds me of being a six year old) but of course, being the left handed buffoon (real word) I blobbed some red on her cheek, hence the lightning shaped markings which made me think whoever the girl is is dramatic, so I started giving her really thick eye-liner marking without waiting fr the ink underneath to dry. Major bleeding occurred so I just made her a shadowy domino mask type thing and flecked white ink into it. 

If something is mess, fleck it. It makes it look deliberate. 

Also, this is my third consecutive day posting something on here, I now officially declare this month to be: 

Postoberfest 2011.

That's right, hold onto your hats and all other loose accessories, I will be posting something EVERYDAY this month. Sheer madness. Also beware as I'm invading Sarah's uni on the 8th and I'm not 100% sure how I will post from Liverpool. Perhaps if I post the morning before I leave and the night I come back, we'll see.

CLOSE-UP:

Open Days and Valerie Kyle

Sophie took me to an open day at Staffordshire Uni today it was lovely, I looked into a course based on comics, which is kinda cool and although I know that one day I DO want to write and draw my own comics, I'm not entirely sure I'd want to do such a focused course at this time, especially when there's SO much else that I'm capable of and Illustration in theory could better prepare me for more variable work, WHO KNOWS, it must be mulled over.

Anyway moving onto the piece above, for my personal project in my Graphics class I'm focusing on comics (after what I've just posted above it may make hypocritical but you know, shut up.) and I've been messing around with ideas for narratives and the likes and some how I mentally gave birth to Valerie Kyle, an angel who's been given the chance at a second life, if she can devour the pure heart of a human. It's supposed to be a narrative that deals with morally grey areas such as;

'Is it right to do the wrong things for the right reasons?'

It's an aspect of narrative I always find fascinating and identify with personally and made this quick little sketch  of Valerie who is protantagonist of the piece, in the story itself she doesn't wear a big feathery dress but I like me some symbolism.

Neil Gaiman's Delirium

So this week I read the Brief Lives volume of the Sandman comics and it is the perfect example of how comics can be so much more than super-heroes and they can make you think and feel just as much as any regular book.  

I'm officially in love with Neil Gaiman.  

He's cropped up quite a lot over the years in stuff I've seen and (later) read such as Coraline and Stardust, and an episode in this series of Doctor Who (The Doctor's Wife) which was one of my favourites.

So anyway, Brief Lives. Easily the best volume (I've read) so far, other's could just as easily take over it but whatever. Delirium is a lovely, chaotic change from Dream, where he always knows exactly what to do and where to go, she appears more or less unable to sort herself out. The piece above is inspired by the scene in her hotel room when she "simply lets herself go" and her head looks like her mind is screaming  and its just lovely.

 I've tried making her look a little more modern ( The Endless are supposed to look how we think they appear and therefore should reflect the times a little more) so I made her wander through a charity-shop and pick out bright things that would grab her attention. I originally coloured this with ball-point pens which is why it looks extra sketchy, I then made the colours brighter in Photoshop (I hate how scanners make everything so pale!) I'm not entirely sure why she's falling apart, probably something strange like she created ice-cream that tasted like porcelain cats.  

So Tired

I win points if I manage to keep this short. Man Points. 

So basically, today I have endured an epic 3 hour day withing the world of education and it's mega-drained all my energy. I spent the time sketching skeletal hands and scanning pages from comics (for analyzing) and the college scanner was unbearably slow. I think it took me nearly an hour to scan 25 pieces. And doodle a Zombie. 

That was a hella short post! 

...Oh wait I should explain the above image... damn. well it was a inked version of something I sketched in Sketchbook Pro (the hobo's Photoshop) a while ago: 

Which was gonna be a little group shot with everyone having kick ass powers based on what we did in college, so like I had my pen and ink, Lauren was being Drama-ish and Sarah had special Math based mojo.

Anyway, I changed it in the traditional version as I wanted to experiment with circular frames and people were going to be in the circle but I'm lazy and replaced them with purple monsters.

Less short but still short!

Sketchbook Sunday: Sarah in Fabric

Look at me, posting so much within a single week, surely a sign of worlds collapsing. So having forgotten about all my old weekly shenanigans ( Music Monday, Fan-Art Friday) I've decided to start on more general topics, so every Sunday I'm going to post something from one of my sketchbooks whether it's a personal one or one used for college work, a seemingly easy task due to getting through so many of them.

This week I bring you something from my Fine Art book, a portrait of the lovely Sarah (I'm going to stop using her and Sophie as subjects, I simply draw them far too much.) She scarpered off to Uni last week so in order to make up for her lack of tangible presence I've taken to drawing her face, so I'm going to go visit her soon, perhaps using her DNA to create a 'lack-of-Sarah-patch'.

    Moving on, the piece was done on a piece of scrap fabric I found in the store cupboard, it was a perfect little square of cloth that someone had tried to dye yellow and completely missed the corners which made it look lovely and like it needed something drawn into it. The drawing itself was done with a thick black multi-liner and then I used a white gel-pen to add some details such as freckles and hair.

I enjoy working on scraps and there's so much scrap pieces at College, that I generate a decent amount of stuff to work on every week by looting scraps from the guillotine used to cut large paper. I once found around 20 strips of really thick black card just about half the width of a5 paper ( I used them to make the Sophie comics ) and I have some of the paper they've been using to dry dyed fabrics that I have plans for. 

This it all for this post, every time I start one I think "Keep it short, Corey. No one's reading all this madness" yet here I am, writing on and on and one. 

30 Posts and a New Layout

So, once again I am determined to update more frequently and due to my severely diminished social life this should be an easy enough accomplishment. So here it is, my 30th post (do-do-DO!) I should really be on double that number by now, I've had this blog quite a few months really. ( I will update, I will update!)

Onto the new layout, I've swapped the polka-dots for some high-res inky paper texture I have in a big ol' folder of textures, who knows where it originates from. I also traded in the greens for reds, I'm into reds at the moment, like washed out faded reds. There's the banner too, I chose to recycle my old Gaga portrait despite not liking her that much anymore but I have yet to come up with a piece specifically for the purpose of being a banner and my portraits were in red and blue. I moved my 'gadgets' to the side to, proudly displaying my 5 followers and inviting you to follow me through email, which let's face it is just plain classy.

Now for the picture above, I'm not entirely aware of when I made it, it was in a folder full of things I've made from when I decided to try and organize myself. I forgot about the folder a few days later but it has some stuff I can upload between other pieces. I'm pretty sure I was experimenting with blue and I'm pretty sure I regretted adding those butterflies to the piece but I can handle the tackiness. I may start uploading college work soon, I've been making some portraits with sewing machines which are kinda cool. 

That's all for today, my blog posts are too long.

Shamelessly stealing memes

A. Age: 18
B. Bed size: Double, though I am single I like to spread out.

C. Chore that you hate: All of them, but of all the things I hate doing dusting is the most disturbing to me.
D. Dogs: Are lovely I own 2, a Toy Spaniel named Pepsi and a Furball named Judy
E. Essential start to your day: Rolling into the shower and listening to loud music
F. Favorite color: I don't believe in having favorite colours, reds and blues are always lovely but I can't stand yellow, its ugly.
G. Gold or Silver: Gold if you want to be ironically tacky; see Ke$ha and silver for everything else.
H. Height: 5’11"
I. Instruments you play: The iPod.
J. Job title: Layabout.
K. Kids: Are vile things of which I was never one of
L. Live: Burnley, England. Where time stands still.
M. Mother’s name: Jacqueline, I hate the way its spelt
N. Nicknames: None. I don't think I'd allow it. I also won't allow anyone else to have my name.
O. Overnight hospital stays: Hmmm one if I count the time I woke up in a hospital at night
P. Pet peeves: People in general
Q. Quote from a movie: “You haven't seen the last of me" - Cher - Burlesque
R. Right or left handed: Left for drawing right for anything else, because I'm awkward
S. Siblings: Three, an older sister and two annoying little brats
U. Underwear: I wear it :D
V. Vegetable you hate: Broccoli.

W. What makes you run late: Genetics u_u
X. X-Rays you’ve had: Teeth, those crazy things get X-Rayed all the time
Y. Yummy food that you make: My specialty is Mac and Cheese
Z. Zoo animal: All of them, I enjoy watching them do crazy shit

AND NOW..... A picture of me! GASP!

I visited the Lowry in Salford on... Monday! Where I saw some lovely pieces by L.S Lowry and Andy Warhol including his print of Debbie Harry that was bigger than me which was amazing, I went with Sophie who is going to make some sock animals with me soon. They shall be posted on here for sure.

Marilyn Monroe print, easily the most iconic piece of art in my opinion.

Not the Debbie Harry print I was on about but still it's her!

A wall that had some Warhol in fright wig prints on them.

And then Sophie and I found magnets for children and spelt out our names.