serhc (Chris Liang)

[serhc]

Week #1

Hey guys, I've mostly just been a lurker around the art areas of this forum - I spent most of my time trying to look smart and making wisecracks in the Lounge.

So, about myself, I'm a sophomore at college right now, hopefully on track for a marketing/business degree. Still, my interests mostly lie in the arts, and I'd like to gain enough skill to seriously consider some freelance illustration, or something more structured.

But...I lack patience. I get bored really, really easily so I usually never do any proper studies, read through an instructional book, or even try the exercises they recommend. The lack of patience also spreads in other ways to my art, especially in my seeming inability to paint properly, because I'm too lazy to render, as well as learn color theory or blablabla, and now I'm rambling. So basically what I'm saying is I need someone, or some people, to kick my ass and force me to work.

Having taken a look around at the sketchbooks of all of you guys, it looks like I'm at the bottom tier of the skill level, so any kind of help I can get from you people would all be great. :]

Here's a link to my sketchbook



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Three works that I've done, that I like...that's really hard. I'm not very happy with most of what I put out, but I suppose these are three that bother me the least:

1) Hey look color! I like this one because it was a speedpaint that turned out better than most digipaints I work hard at. And yeah, this is one of my better ones, haha...

2) This was referenced out of a copy of Vogue; the likenesses aren't quite there, but I still like how the girl on top turned out. Something about her eye and lips, I think.

3) I realized recently that I hardly ever work in compositions anymore, and the is the product of me trying to counter that.

[steve kim]

I need someone, or some people, to kick my ass and force me to work.

not to be a nagging nanny or anything but that is a really, really bad way to look at things. hopefully when all of this is over you will feel differently!

[serhc]

Shifting the 5 original pictures down to this post:

Three things that inspire me:

1) This is representative of the greater part of Jin's body of work, most of which I find absolutely fascinating for their eyegasmic qualities

2) I just really like this one, as well as a lot of his other things

3) I think this inspires me by the mere fact that it is a real creature - kind of representative of all the sorts of things that exist out there that we haven't discovered yet, and of how much further our imaginations can stretch

Two things that don't:

4) Along the vein of a lot of you guys, I can't stand a lot of modernist/'conceptual' stuff - and Cy Twombly has got to be among the worst offenders. I mean, come on, scribbling like a child? Maybe he was the first, but it'd be far easier just to give your kid some art supplies to make one.

5) I originally had something about philosophy/ethics here, but I decided I disliked this thing more. There's little that annoys me more than tired expressions, useless cutesy little things, and the heart-on-sleeve syndrome so many people I know seem to have. What's not to dislike?

[serhc]

The scan came out brighter than it actually is, so it looks a little grayer than it should be. The picture I referenced is by Jonathan Brown, I think - used to post at eatpoo...hope I'm not violating some kind of etiquette or law or something :|

edit: looking back at it now that it's posted up, I see I missed some of the likeness, as well as a lot of what make the actual picture so compelling...the dynamic light and shadow and those eyes.

[serhc]

Heres the reformatted version, though it's only 625 pixels high

[serhc]

Week #2 Homework:

1) Free Illustration

Not happy with it, it's not very interesting to look at, and there's no substance there either.

I'll attach the 30 minute portrait tomorrow, after I get it scanned in

Edit: Freak, sorry, flaking out seems to be my forte...I've been too lazy to walk to my school computing facilities to get this scanned. And now that I put the two side by side, I see how far off the likeness I got, bleh. Won't happen again.

[serhc]

I've got the 3rd week's assignment done, though probably not to the best level of completion...for bad reasons. Anyway, I'll scan and upload them tonight, technology willing

[serhc]

My goal was to partly to improve my grasp of functional anatomy, and to try and draw some more active poses and different perspectives. I know I might be putting the cart before the horse here by practicing active poses before really learning standing ones, but my logic is that a drawing needs something visually interesting in it first before it can be ruined by bad anatomy. Not that I don't plan on continuing to practice anatomy a lot - I know it need it, badly, but I'd like to mix it up a bit

My sketchbook was too big for the scanner, so for several of the earlier ones, I had to cut off parts of the whole. They're not that interesting anyway, so I guess the harm done is minimal...lucky me, haha. The greater problem was that I couldn't get the scanner to scan the pages evenly, so if you see funny tones anywhere, it's where I couldn't clean up without the risk of ruining the integrity of the drawing












These bottom two are the ones I'd like critiqued, if possible.