021911

Spent a long day at Upper Echelon Fitness working on a mural for Portland Bicycle Studio.
Here's a rundown on the process......

   This was the initial roughly sketched design idea we agreed on.....I just sharpied directly on the photo, to get a sense of how the mural would look in the space.

 After looking over the first mockup, we decided another rider was needed to give some context for that suffer-face. This is the finished drawing and final design.
Once that's done, I use the projector to blow the work up, and try to find the best looking angle for the painting on the wall .....then paint a rough approximation of the original.

 Then I go back through, darken up lines, cleanup negative spaces, and generally try to make the blacks as flat and graphic as possible. This part is the most time consuming and tedious........

                                       Still in the early stages, but it's getting there.

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Finished up the final bits for Ira's NAHBS booth today.......the panels look good and the bikes look better.
Also got to see the illustrious Dan Sharp workin' his photo magic, recording the show bikes for posterity.
Sweet.

                                                 stole this photo from Dan's twitter page .......
                                      Tomorrow I'll get back to the regular dated drawing schedule.

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This is what I worked on for the 16th.......
The panels are coming along, just need to cleanup the line quality and refine some areas.

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Worked on Ira's booth for NAHBS today. Here's some pics.....

                                              overhead projectors rule

                                             blowin' it up

             getting closer to the finished product..........awesome.

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This drawing will be transferred to a larger panel ( a little project for the Ira Ryan Cycles booth at NAHBS{SPOILER!}) so I felt ok with how heavy handed it was.........figuring I can refine it when it's painted on a larger surface.

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020911

Although my Arizona trip didn't yield any amazing drawings, it did give me time to think about drawing, and this blog in general...
One interesting aspect of having a "drawing per day" blog, is the real or imagined audience that's created on the internet. It's positive, in the sense, that it forces me to stick with my plan of drawing everyday......however, it's negative in the sense, that it put's undo pressure on these drawings being "good" or accomplished.  I think this limits my willingness to experiment or push the boundaries of what I'm comfortable with.
I draw pretty slowly......which has always been a problem, and while traveling around AZ., I often was stuck with very little time to express what I was seeing or doing without resorting to cliches or formula.......
I won't improve by doing the same thing repeatedly........with that in mind, I'm gonna try for the rest of the month to work a little outside my comfort zone.
Bear with me.

                                                                juicer setup at the bar........

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                                                             When in doubt.....draw cats.

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I did miss this gal alot....

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                                                         man in airport, airport vehicles

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                                                                        vegetation 

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                                                                     The Van.......
                                                  It smelled very bad near the end

                                                               cole manes

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I had maybe five minutes to draw this before it got dark.....

It's hard to draw in the dark.

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                                                                         Corndog!

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So while my Arizona trip was great, as far as drawing time goes, it was kind of a bust.........
There was alot of travelling in the van, riding bikes, taking photos, getting food poisoning, and freezing in the Arizona desert at night.
Also, I brought two pens that both exploded, so I was forced to scavenge for pens in restaurants and in the cushions of rental cars......
It is what it is.

 Emi in the van.