That's right!

That's right! Another post! 500 days of Summer isn't the only thing I geek out about - I'm also a massive, unashamed Trekkie. It runs in my family. And I was lucky enough to find someone in Berlin who is about as big of a Star Trek nerd as I am to annoy everyone else who couldn't give a damn what the strategic weaknesses of the Crystlline Entity are or what class the Enterprise-B is (Ambassador, if I remember correctly). Sadly, he's going home, so this is his goodbye card. It's posted in three stages of development, because I like things like that and I kept scanning and saving it, just in case - might as well do something with those other files! It's an idea I had way back when our other friend left for the first time, and it's supposed to be a bunch of us as the crew of the Enterprise of the Original Series. Go figure.

Clockwise from top left: "Uhura", "Bones", me hopelessly trying to channel Mr Spock, "Sulu", "Chekov" and Captain Jimmy :] (it's a bit hard to tell who's who without the uniform colours)

HB pencil, black biro, heavily photo referenced from Facebook and also with reference to various images of the original cast of the television series - uniform, Uhura's hair etc.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and damn if it wasn't fun to do! I'm going to have to reign in the geek again now though (I almost went overboard quoting inside the card...) and get back to work. 

Live long and prosper,

G x

EDIT: Starfleet ship class fail! The Enterprise-B was an Excelsior class ship - it was the Enterprise-C that was an Ambassador class design. I'll be leaving again now...

Finally

It's been ages since I last posted and I've had a couple of things knocking around for about that length of time, so I decided to finally finish one of them today so I can start on something new. Because I'm (suddenly) so impatient I actually skipped a more difficult to finish page in my sketchbook to upload this one now, so I'm going to have to backtrack a bit at some point - my work ethic functions in odd and unpredictable ways! Anyway, this page was some doodles of hopefully oblivious people on the U-Bahn (the quote was in reference to that), plus one of Momo <3, bottom right, that doesn't actually look like her. Oh well. The other page is some 500 Days of Summer photo-referenced fanart, because I absolutely fell in love with the movie, having missed it in cinemas when it was released (I watched Inglourious Basterds instead, which was well worth the extortionate amount of money the O2 charges) and neglected seeing it for about a year. I love HMV sales. £5? Bargain! The soundtrack in particular is fantastic - recommend. So, for geeky delight, Tom Hansen and Summer Finn :]  :

Left: HB pencil

Right: HB pencil, drawing ink, nib pen, coloured fineliners

Photo references here: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEM4BwAAX-b0EZcIh8SbhZgE8K1ih457qAN8jXpVXPeMXXg7_6H2aUiKy4OD8N2HSrPSKGW1G-6cWvlsiebDEzd7t6SR25efCMsKex6lo5XpoTwmoiBoopcuDDKpDJVZSxhiHmxZ8vxdQA/s1600/tumblr_le5uzoh8mt1qcm9a5o1_500.jpg

and here: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKVmQDPs57ETerXbLSr0YXbCn1CzaL3TmIO7atSrfZvx9tZOqlB2_ALXnGMfYWm1HHBpR1F8l5_ItS6mJ7DeyP5aTYHAVs_92j_d-UyVpcCWCax7spvDI1nRickfXQ3T9QwNlTHTNxh9NX/s1600/500-days-of-summer-500-days-of-summer-11124694-2559-1706.jpg

Don't judge harshly!

Hopefully the next wait won't be so long.

G x

EDIT: Argh, I hate spotting mistakes after uploading. Also, regrets for the bad quality pencil scans. Looks better in sketchbook, especially after sneaky corrections to bad anatomy.

The back catalogue!

I'm supposed to be going to meet someone now but I really really want to post these! They're from the back of my sketchbook but drawn by some truly lovely people I know :] I love them and wanted to share! They include 2 portraits of me, on self-portrait, one mash-up and one, err, landscape. So, quickly, here goes:

Me, by Momo! :]

The artist on a giraffe, by "Jim" 

She's not actually 5, just has an active inner child :]

 Somewhat similar to this: http://s3.amazonaws.com/kym-assets/photos/images/original/000/127/137/TrollQuote.JPG?1306421985

at which I actually laughed out loud I think!

I am a massive Trekkie and totally have the hots for Mr Spock,  so points to "Jim", the Bearded Glider

Me, by Elsa :]

They are too amazing not to be here :] Sketchbooks: fun for everyone!

G x

Sketchbook #2

The page a day thing hasn't really been working so far, partly because I'm so lazy, but this one's finally done. And it only took about a week! What really shows up how slow/inefficient/distractable I am is that it was only the borders I was working on: I'm a sucker for cannibalising old sketchbooks and sticking drawings into new books, so I extracted and brought back some older work from the UK. The biro drawings are from a small sketchbook I had over a year ago, but this time I wanted to try and integrate them properly so I can combine hold and new work and have it all in one place. That's the plan anyway. 

The kid was an idea for a comic book character but he ended up looking too much like a short-sighted version of Micah from Heroes. It is admittedly a bit perverse to have him surrounded by scantily clad women but that is apparently what I have been into doodling recently. The new drawings were done fairly quickly, but I like how they turned out. You can kind of tell I got a bit bored in the bottom left-hand corner though. And excited by the forgotten Copic black multiliner I found lying around.

 HB pencil, 0.4 black fineliner, black brush tip, Copic markers

Below is a re-post, originally included in my first image entry - another sketchbook transplant. Mixed media in sketchbook, January 2011. Tweaked a bit in Photoshop, photo reference here: http://www.loveartdeco.com/nudelyingback.php

In other news, the friend who left before came back after about a week for a holiday! It was great, but it did make the going away party seem a bit like overkill! She ended up staying with me for a few days but left again today. Miss her already, plus now I'm going to have to get myself up in the mornings! Hopefully she'll be back to visit again soon though :]

G x

Sketchbook #1, hopefully of many...

I keep posting older things, but I have been trying to work on something new as well, the main thing of which being that I've started a new sketchbook! (Another one... I'm notorious for starting sketchbooks, then quickly becoming disillusioned and abandoning them.) One of my major inspirations at the moment is James Jean (check him out at www.jamesjean.com - his work is truly amazing) and I read an interview with him where he said that he aimed to keep up a steady stream of sketchbook work post art school, where new students were supposed to complete at least one page a day and push their boundaries. It sounded like a great idea and hearing it from the man himself was an added incentive! So, here are the first two double spreads:

Left: white pencil, watercolour and scraps on (really nice, although not so scanner-friendly) wrapping paper

Right: blue ballpoint pen (more inspiration from James Jean) and watercolour

Flying fish are incredible - they really look like birds in some of the reference photos I found! The girl is a take on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid", which I admittedly haven't read, but really should do. It's very different from the Disney version...

HB pencil and blue ballpoint pen

Quite a few artists whose blogs I've been looking at take advantage of quiet moments or travelling to draw their surroundings, and I always love those drawings, especially of confined spaces like planes and trains. This was my first attempt at something similar, in pencil, on the plane from Berlin to London. I ran out of time a bit - it's a very short flight! And the blue ballpoint drawing is of the view from my desk at the office in Potsdam in which I usually intern. Hard evidence of what a slacker I am... I definitely need to work a lot harder. I think my co-worker figured out what I was doing though... Busted.

P.S. Apologies for the uneven font on the second page. Typography is evidently not a strong point for me!

G x

Life drawing blitz

It's been a while since my last upload but I now have both some old stuff and some new things to post! It's pretty late and I should be studying, but I can't wait any more!

So, I went home to the UK this weekend just gone and had a great time hanging out with my family and friends for a couple of days :] While I was there I went looking through some old sketchbooks and found one full of life drawing from last year at university, when I attended an evening class with a friend. We'd normally go for noodles afterwards - it's a great combination! I actually originally posted two of the drawings under the vintage-y post, but I thought they'd make more sense here. Anyway, here's the rundown, roughly oldest to newest:

2-20 mins, mixed media

20 mins, Conté on Z's hand dyed paper 

Long pose, HB pencil

Long pose, graphite (re-posted)

Long pose, black smooth pencil (re-posted)

Long pose, HB pencil and coloured pencils

20 mins, HB pencil

Long pose, graphite

And some larger pieces I also kept from the same class (longer poses, assorted media on paper):

I miss life drawing. I'd like to find a class here in Berlin and so far I've come across two possibilities (I don't think they're the same one!). One was a heads-up from a friend, so massive thank you to her for that :] I saw some of her drawings today and she's really talented - I can't believe she's throwing them out because she's got so many! What do the ones she's keeping look like?!

G x

Procrastination can yield results

Well, sort of. I'm at work but slacking off (have to stop doing that) and I was looking at some amazing caricatures on another art blog, which I have now closed without saving the link, well done me. Then I realised I forgot to put up some other older drawings I did, these from my final year of secondary school, for our yearbook. Uploading them now makes me feel a bit better about having nothing else ready to post yet. So here they are, a blast from the past.

From top to bottom: our Head of Sixth Form, the Girls School Headmistress, the Warden (aka the top dog - it's a confusing system) and the Boys School Headmaster. Done in pencil on paper, from photographs. My favourite is the one of our Head of Sixth Form - I spent the most time on it so it's more exaggerated than the others, which came out more like straight portraits. I don't think any of them were offended though, Mrs G. even kept the original one of hers. I really hope it's still in her study, grinning at girls getting told off for wearing too much mascara and too little skirt.

G x

The Many Faces of... it's a mystery!!

This is something new that I worked on for a couple of days over the weekend. It's an illustration for a goodbye card for a friend who's leaving Berlin today, and I managed to finish it in time this time, which I was feeling pretty happy about! She's hopefully coming back fairly soon but this means that she technically won't be living here anymore for a while, which is sad... Going to miss her here :[ Anyway, I hope she likes it - it's a compilation of some of the weird expressions she's been caught on camera pulling while she's been here (there were a few!).

Watercolour and coloured pencil on paper, fiddled around with a bit in Photoshop; referenced using photographs on Facebook.

The final card. I blurred her name out so she won't hunt me down and slaughter me for breach of privacy.

G x

Vintage stuff

Thought first that I'd upload some older stuff that I already have on my laptop. Of varying ages, most recent first.

EDIT: I've re-posted a lot of the images that were here in later posts, so now it looks like it's down to mainly shoes and graffiti!

Pencil on printer paper. This is actually more recent - it's a drawing of a friend that I was doing for him as a going away present. I was in the process of inking it, comic book style, and I was actually very happy with how it was going when I accidentally left it in a bar, never to be seen again... Serves me right for showing off. So all that's left is this photo I took before inking, although I intend to start work on it again for him and try and improve on what I had last time.

Spray and acrylic paint on primed wood panels, summer 2010. These were for a student production of Rent, which itself was amazing; I was really proud to have been a part of it :] The story surrounding their creation is fairly epic, involving drunkenness, theft and (mostly accidental) vandalism, all in the course of one night! I ended up giving them to the site manager of my university accommodation, who hung them in the common room. Apologies, new residents.

Rejected logo design for the show. I like it though.

Fabric paint and pigment fineliner on white sneakers, Christmas 2009, for Z x. We didn't realise the paint was UV until we got the shoe near the Christmas tree lights - cool surprise! Laces to match :]
("Liberty" tag reused for the Rent graffiti boards)

Prototype shoes: fabric and Copic markers on white sneakers, fixed with water-resistant spray, ribbon laces, summer 2009. Now owned by the inimitable VP.

Also, because I like collage <3

For Z, 2009.

G x

What it is

About an official an introduction as it's going to get, so listen up!

Who: Georgie 

What: Art-related blog

Where: Right here 

When: Right now

Why: I'm a student, though not of art. But when I'm not studying my chosen subjects (which is way too often) I harbour secret dreams of becoming an illustrator or pursuing one of a number of other creative avenues. I want to try and get my work, or at least some of it, in one place so that I can get a rough idea of any progression that's going on, and also to hopefully get some feedback on it. So please feel free to leave comments, especially if they're critical - I'd honestly really appreciate it!

Also, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY0A-15JQ8k

Because I think he's the bomb :]

G x