Sketching Daily: Self-Portrait

 One of the challenges someone gave me a few weeks ago was to do a self portrait. It has been a long time since I last sat down a did a sketch of myself and it got me thinking of some of the old pictures I drew. Of course like we all do when we run across a binder full of old pictures (or in this case sketches) I spent a good two hours just flipping through them. I was really big into anime when I was younger and it got me thinking of what it would look like if I tried to draw like that now, and besides it is still an "in" style.

So this is what I came up with. It is simple and I added the watercolor touch that I have been playing around with the past few weeks and I have to say I am rather pleased with the simplicity. All of the rats featured in this sketch are the rats I have now and the two that have passed away.

To read more about my rats, check out the blog post they wrote a while back, click here!

On the far left is Kira, who is my oldest living rat. She is the second rat I ever had. She is getting old and likes to spend most of her time sleeping, but she has always been a snuggle bug.

Climbing my pant leg is Hershey, who is one of my newest rats. She is a big goofball and loves to chase my feet.

Marshmallow, another newbie, is on my head like usual. She is a little ball of energy and likes to play.

Patch is sitting on my shoulder and is one of the rats that has passed away. She was sweet but a little slow at times and died of a sudden illness that she couldn't get over.

Shorty is sitting in my lap hiding. She is really shy (due to the fact that she is blind) but while she is a scardy cat when it comes to new things she is tough and is currently my alpha.

Kita is my first rat and she is seen trying to get under my leg. She died from old age one evening and is very missed. She was goofy and adventurous and liked to get into everything.

And last is Phantom who is seen on the far right chewing one a piece of food she found. She is my little scavenger and while she is starting to slow down as she gets older she still will jump across the room when she discovers a little treasure.

Hope you enjoyed this Sketching Daily Challenge. As the semester gets closer it has been harder to keep up with my challenge,  but I will still try to get to everyone's suggestions. So keep them coming!

Lunamal: Occshell

Meet the Occshell! This Lunamal was one of my first creatures and I didn't even know it at the time. He is inspired by one of my sketching daily challenges. He is a turtle-octopus hybrid and while it is built for the water, it does surprising well on land.

His body is built just like an octopus with no major bone structure. This gives him the flexibility he needs to be fast in the water, but leaves him venerable while on land. He protects himself by squeezing his body into his shell and can manipulate his skin and shell pigment to colors in the families of grey, brown, purple, green and blue.

He has 8 tentacles, 6 positioned on the back end of his shell and two that are attached to his body just below his head. The front tentacles are shorter and have suction cups running along them that they use for climbing and holding on to objects. When moving he will stand on his back tentacles using the front two for balance. While he travels very slowly on land, he is one of the fastest creatures in the water. He uses his shell like a pump and will push water out of his shell for quick take offs or for quick bursts of speed.

Similar to a turtle, the Occshell will lay its eggs once a year before the ice moon enters the atmosphere. Unlike turtles who can mate with multiple partners in one season, Occshells will mate for life. Once their mate dies they will then find another partner. During the time of the crater moon, the mated pair of Occshell will dig deep into the earth to lay its eggs. Once the eggs are laid they will pull them into their shell and keep them safe while hibernating during the ice moon. As the ice melts and the water moon appears in the sky, the Occshell are flushed out of their holes and will release their hatchlings into the water. They grow quickly during the water moon and will reach 6 inches in length by the time the moon leaves the atmosphere. The Occshell will continue growing its whole life. Once it's shell reaches 8 inches in length, its growth will slow and it might only grow half an inch a year after that.

During their first few seasons, they will stick to bodies of water until they are large enough to fend for themselves on land, and even then will live in large groups until it is sexually mature. The occshell has very keen eyesight and sense of touch, it uses both of these to locate his food. While an omnivore, he prefers to eat small Lunamal they can find in the mud and sand. On land and during the dry seasons, they will stick mainly to vegetation. While they grow quickly the occshell will not reach sexual maturity until 15-20 years of age, and can live until they are 80-100 years old. There are some that have been reported to live upwards of 150 years. However once they are 80 years old, the female occshell will stop producing eggs. Their male partner will stay with them until ether the female dies or it dies. If the female dies first it can then find another partner and continue breeding. If the male dies the female will join other older pairings. Small colonies of old female occshell can be found living together.

The Occshell is very social, and it is rare to see one living alone. They have been known to follow other large  Lunamal until it finds other Occshell to colonize with. It is not unusual for an older Occshell to be seen with young hatchlings. While the parents do not teach their young how to survive, rogues will adopt a young group and teach them what to eat and how to live. This is crutial to the young Occshell's survival and without this guidance a colony of hatchlings will not make it through their first year.

Chalk isn't just for kids!

The past few weeks, I have had a wonderful opportunity to work with my fiance AJ on a photo shoot he had planned. He need to come up with an idea to advertise their new line of clothes at his work. An idea came to him to create a back to school theme using a chalkboard backdrop. We don't have very many opportunities to work together on a project (got to love living in two different cities!) so I jumped on the chance to help him. If you are interested in the photography and advertising part of this story you can check out AJ's Blog.

After quite a bit of planning and lots of trips to Home-depot, I made a trip up to San Angelo to get the boards prepped and ready to go. The idea was simple, we used two 4'x8' pieces of plywood and turned them into giant chalkboards. This was a lot easier than it sounds thanks to a really cool product by Rust-Oleum, chalkboard paint, and the best part is it really works. Make sure you read the instructions before using the product though because it is a little different than normal paint. Like all paint make sure the room you are working in is well ventilated or you can just paint outside. AJ would recommend working inside on a hot Texas summer afternoon, but I really preferred the cool breeze to take away the fumes rather than a stuffy room. Where ever you decide just be careful it had a different smell to it that I was a little wary of. Oh and don't forget the primer. We used latex primer like the instructions on the box said and it worked like a charm on natural untreated wood. Just so you know, we used a small can of cheap latex primer and about 1 1/2 cans of chalkboard paint to cover one side of both boards.
One coat of Primer and two coats of chalkboard paint later, I was on the road again back to the Falls. Though not for long. AJ had the shoot planned for Saturday so I needed to head back to San Angelo only a few days later. That is when the real work began. We spent some time discussing ideas before I got my hands dirty, literally. Using a rag and a few pieces of white chalk I coated the surface with a layer of chalk dust. While it seems kind of weird this actually turned out to be an important step. First, it actually helped prime the board and helped the chalk flow better. I noticed a big difference between when I first scratched the chalk on to prime it and later when I was actually drawing. Secondly, it gave the boards an old used chalkboard look. Despite putting three layers of paint on the boards, you could still see some of the knots and grain texture in the wood, and the dust helped even out the look. It also helped later on when I was sketching the layout of the scene and erasing mistakes. If you want that crisp dark black of the paint to show then you definitely need to have a lot of water handy and be ready to use some elbow grease! While the paint allows you to have a clean board again, I don't think I have ever seen a clean chalk board so it was not the look we wanted. Also, I do not think the images would have been as successful against a perfect board.

The layout for the image started out simple and allowed for more creativity if time allowed. One think I have learned while working on murals and projects when you are in a time crunch is you need to have a complete look quickly. It will be a lot less stressful when the time starts ticking away and you still have half a piece to finish. This way you can enjoy what you are doing and spend some good time working on the fun details. My idea was to split the boards into academic on one side and fun traditions on the other. I made sure that both boards could easily work together and flowed from one idea to the next by keeping the overall theme welcome to ASU! In the center of the piece there is a road winding across the boards leading your eye into the piece towards a horizon line that connects the two boards. On the left side "Back 2 School" is written in large letters and is surrounded by everything academic, and on the right a ram stands in the field in front of a stadium and stands in for some of the traditions that Angelo State holds close.

While this project was really challenging it was a lot of fun and I am as pleased as an artist can be with one of their pieces. And it turned out to be a perfect backdrop for AJ's photo shoot. You can see some of the final images on AJ's Blog. I love the way that the models interacted with the mural and it really makes a wonderful and fun background.