Chesire Cat

Back to Uploading

So it's been almost 3-4 months since I last posted. Sorry for the serious lack of uploads. I kind of fell out of habit of using the computer during the summer and so fell out of habit of uploading. But I'm back to uploading-I have tons of stuff to upload, I just need to find a scanner to do a proper job of scanning b/c my scanner is in the process of dying (oh joy :/ ).

But for now, here's some photoshop doodles I did this weekend while watching Recess on youtube. Nothing too serious, but they were all fun to draw. Enjoy!

Weekly Assignment #6

I realize pretty much no one else from my school is doing this anymore, but I think it's good practice and it's helped me add some great life drawing pieces to my portfolio, so I'm just going to keep trucking along with the weekly assignments. This week was to draw 3 landscapes. I took over my sister's nannying job for the week which gave me lots of time and new places to draw. So here it goes:

At one of the kid's baseball games. I need to learn how to draw straight lines.

At Cascade Bay, a community pool. Fun but challenging to draw. Could have attempted drawing the water better than I did, but otherwise, this is my favorite of the 3.

Weekly Assignment #5

Another weekly assignment-draw 10 people. The first two are from the nursing home my grandma is at. My mom and I went to visit her and my grandpa and they had this happy hour event-a good time to draw lots of old people (who are incredibly fun to draw....even more so than morbidly obese people!). The third set is from Dunn Bros. and the last one is of a rabbit at Petco (first time drawing a real rabbit!). I'm happy with how this turned out, I didn't have the stiffness problem like I did with the last set up of the people I drew.

My grandparents enjoying Happy Hour.

~Lauren

Summer Sketchbook

Here are a few of my favorite pages from my sketchbook this summer.

This was too big for my scanner to scan, so I had to just take a picture of it. I created the body of the squirrel(just the gray parts put together) fall freshman year and I just came across it when I was cleaning my room this summer, so I decided to finish up the squirrel and make a background for him as week.
Materials-Paper, Glue

I wanted to draw the fashion from the two decades in time that I'd love to visit if time travel was possible-the 1900's and the 1930's. So I decided to draw Katie and The Flying Aardvark as if they lived in each respective decade.
Materials-Col-Erase Pencil, Copic Markers, Micron Pens

I drew this picture for a good friend of mine after her corgi, Duchess(the dog on the right) suddenly and unexpectedly died. I wasn't planning on drawing my friend a picture, but after seeing this picture of her two dogs, I just had to draw it. I hope her family likes this drawing a lot, it was a pleasure to create.
Materials-Col-Erase Pencil, Copic and Prismacolor Markers, Prismacolor Colored Pencils, Micron Pens

"Spirited Away" always wants me to draw dragons after watching it! I first drew the eyes and thought they looked cat-like, so I made a tiger dragon.
Materials: Col-Erase Pencil, Micron Pens, Copic Markers

~Lauren

Weekly Assignment #4

Ek, sorry this is in late. My internet was out last night and I've been out all day today....but anyways, here's my assignment for the week. We had to watch a good animated movie and also a bad one and then make 5 comments about it. The good animated movie I watched was "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" and the bad animated movie I'm going to comment on but truthfully I didn't watch within the past week is "All Dogs Go to Heaven".

"Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

• First off, brilliant editing between live-action and animation. It wasn't like that was entirely new concept (it actually started in the 1919 with Koko the Clown) but somehow, they managed to reinvent that idea and improve upon in and made it convincing. Very hard to do I'm sure.
• Love the use of camera angles and camera, especially when heavily animated(like in the beginning Roger Rabbit cartoon). It's not something that's usually done quite to the extent it was in this movie so it made it even more entertaining and inspiring to watch.
• The idea and story behind this film was genius. It was very clever and I love the fact that it was set during the Golden Age of Animation. And it's pretty awesome that SO many of the studios gave the right to use their characters in this movie. It's great because they are all such iconic characters, but even more entertaining if you know a bit about animation history. ;)
• Animation and character acting was dead on, especially since it all had to be animated on one's (ouch).
  
• Lastly, I'm going to comment on the script. It was a very well written script, something that many generations could enjoy watching. It was well-paced, it knew when to throw the right humor into the story and how to build up suspense. Beautifully put together story. Bravo.

All I can say is if you haven't watched "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", you have to-it's such a classic that definitely helped bring about the Animation Renaissance of the 1990's. You are missing out if you haven't seen this movie.

"All Dogs Go To Heaven"

Although I do enjoy most Don Bluth films, this one I just didn't like which was too bad because it had animals in it....and that's such a sure-fire way to pull me into a movie. I honestly wish I liked this movie, it has so much potential, but the main reason I didn't like this movie was because of the story. I enjoyed the character designs and color schemes for the most part....but ugh, NONE of that matters if your story is weak! Here's a few things that made the story weak, as well as other reasons why this movie was kind of a flop to me:

• The main character was incredibly unlikeable and didn't change too much. When Charlie died at the end, it felt forced and insincere and I didn't buy it. It was like he changed because he had to and not because he truly was a changed dog.
• Most of the songs were pointless and didn't help push the story along at all. Most just seemed forced and broke the viewer away from the story.
• The story ended really suddenly, I feel like Charlie's time in heaven again could have been give just a little bit more screen time....maybe a bit more dialouge (I think part of this is why I feel like he never really changed whole-heartedly)
• Just some odd scenes that didn't neccesarily have to be in the movie in the first place (ie. alligator scene), made the movie at times feel choppy
  
• Character acting was medioacre. Not good or bad....just okay, especially compared to other Bluth films, not their best animation-wise. A lot of times it felt lifeless.

I'd still say this movie is worth seeing at least once, it is such a cult classic for some people (which is why I think in part why I was just so disappointed with this movie). And it's always good to see something different than just Disney or another majorily popular style of animation. Though if you're going to watch a Bluth film soon, I'd recommend you'd watch another one of his films made in the 1980's over this one.

So that's all. I plan on writing a post about Disney's first 5 films sometime soon. There's something increbily rich about them everytime I watch them that is just absent in other Disney movies, but I have to watch the other Disney movies so I can somewhat figure out what is it exactly that makes those movies so different from other Disney movies. I do so enjoy writing about animation. :)

There shall be some sketchbook art in my next post.

~Lauren

Weekly Assignment #2

2nd weekly assignment. Draw 10 people/animals. I'm just going to somewhat comment/critique all of these since I'm not very happy with any of these.

Drew this page at the Lake Calhoun "sunning spot". I wasn't in the mood to draw when I did these and it shows. People look stiff, there's not very good dimension and I rushed. :/ Good place to draw though!

Minus the cat, all of these folks were drawn from the Edina Art Fair. I was bummed the weather was so crappy this past weekend because I couldn't draw the people (and there was such a good crowd too *sigh*). I'm somewhat happy with these, but still....I can do better, especially with capturing more personality. Oh and I wish there was a pause option in life....people move too fast sometimes, especially the interesting ones!

Haha, oh my last two are memory sketches (basically you stare at whatever you're looking at and then draw it from memory....usually ends up with a bit more exaggeration because you're drawing from the impression you had of them). So first the lady....I'm okay with how it turned out, it's just that arm is totally fake and stiff. It could use a bit more shading too. And the dog, I like the sense of motion I kind of captured and my mom said that my leash I drew kind of looked like a cape, so I somewhat turned it into a cape.

Anyways, I need more practice....and more practice than just 10 people a week. I just need to get off my lazy butt and get drawing, which should be a bit easier seeing the weather is getting a bit nicer. Oh, and I'm going to start going to a life drawing co-op in Minneapolis which should help lots.

~Lauren