Tattooooo

I owe this post to my fellow blogger KSujulie. I read her amazing and funny blog the moment something new is posted. Her amazing way of writing draws you in, makes you laugh, and just plain makes sense! If it wasn’t for a reply she left to one of my comments on her blog, I would be putting this post off much longer! Thanks Julie! Without further adieu…

My girlfriend had long ago requested that I draw a tattoo for her. She had this idea for it, and told me the story behind it. When she was little, her Grandpa gave her a little red drum for Christmas. She loved the little red drum, and played it (annoying the pants off of her Dad, which was Grandpa’s goal). She asked me to draw a pair of hands holding the drum as a tribute to her Grandpa, and fond memories.

Opening the drum with Grandpa. Look at that stylish hair!

Banging the drum. Even holding the drumsticks the right way!

I started doing some research a couple of months ago. It was hard finding examples of hands in the position I wanted. It was even harder finding an older man’s hands! My girlfriend envisioned the hands cupping a tiny version of the drum, holding it gingerly. Finally, I found an image that I thought would work!

Hands to hold a drum – dreamstime.com

I spent a few hours working on a realistic sketch of the hands. I did about three versions. When I showed her, she told me she thought it was great. But I wasn’t happy. Unfortunately, we were in the middle of a move, so everything got put on the back burner. Once we settled into the new place, I had a little time on my hands to get the ball rolling again, and my pencil drawing again!

I decided to take a different approach, and simplify the image. I wanted it to be more original – and not just a boring, standard picture of hands. I wanted there to be something different about it. So I ended up with this drawing:

Comic-ish drawing of hands for the tattoo

I was very happy with the result! Now came the hard part. While researching, I managed to find an image of the EXACT drum my girlfriend had received for Christmas so many years ago. The problem was drawing it to stylistically fit the tattoo.

The little red drum!

I started drawing. I wasn’t sure how the colours or the lines should look. I wanted to incorporate colour, but have the drum look like it belonged in the drawing. My first attempt looked like this:

Line drawing of the drum in colour

I was ok with this, but I wasn’t quite happy. I decided that it needed to be outlined in black, like the hands. I set to work again drawing the drum. Some improvements were made:

Black outline of the drum

I was happy with the result! But now it needed some colour. I set to work scanning it and altering the finished drawing on my computer.

Colour version of the little red drum

Now I just had to put them together! Oh, the joy of computers and software! Here is the finished product! It’s great to draw again 😉

The final product. This will be tattooed on my girlfriend’s back. She’s gotta start saving her pennies 😉

Princess Chrysanthemum and friends

I’ve been doing my best to set time aside to do some drawings each week. Sometimes I sit there, pen in hand, and totally zone out. Other times, it seems like my mind is raring to go and you never know what’s going to happen. This week, two of my drawings are things that I saw and had to grab my sketchbook to draw right then and there. The third is something fun I drew on a white board for a co-worker that asked me to draw a “cute and fuzzy animal.” If you know me at all, I think you know what to expect… ENJOY!

This is my little dog, resting his head on a blanket and watching the goings on of the outside world. {CLICK TO ENLARGE}

I was sitting on my couch one day as the light disappeared from the sky. The room was almost completely dark (just light enough to draw!) and I captured the silhouette of my plants on their stand in the dusk light {CLICK TO ENLARGE}

Meet Princess Chrysanthemum! I drew her for my co-worker who requested a ‘cute and fuzzy’ animal. Ask and ye shall receive! Isn’t she cute?! {CLICK TO ENLARGE}

Photo day and bonus stories

Happy Friday!! It’s time to post some pics and throw in a couple of stories with the mix! Next week I will be resuming my regular schedule. I will (much like this week) be posting Monday, Wednesday, and Friday! Who knows what day will hold what, but I plan to do one photo day, one drawing day, and one writing day. If I get lucky, I might do more than 3 posts a week. Let’s see how it goes… On to the photos and good stuff!

First up is  a group of photos from my 10-day meditation retreat. You can read the full story here. But the short story is that I and about 90-or-so others went on a 10-day silent meditation retreat over New Years 2010. After 6 or 7 days, people began ‘entertaining’ themselves by making patterns and writing in the snow.

After some time, people began making drawings in the snow. -Click to enlarge-

This one reads "Change" which was one of the things we learned about during meditation -Click to enlarge-

Someone drew this on the last day, once the silence was lifted. -Click to enlarge-

One story that I neglected to include in my blog posts about my meditation was the “Love Boot” story. One day, as I was walking around the grounds on break time, I noticed a familiar symbol in the snow beside the path. As I kept walking, I noticed another, and then another. I went back to the first symbol, and realized it was a letter. Someone had written “love” backwards in the snow with their boot. I examined the boot pattern and decided to try to find “love boot!” I spent hours walking around during breaks, often glancing over at boot prints as people passed me to see if their boot print matched. It took me several days to finally find out who “love boot” was, but I did find her! Once the silence had broken, I had to ask her if it was her that had written love backwards in the snow, and it was! We laughed over the nickname I had given her.

The "love boot" print - it took me a few days to find the owner, but I SOLVED the case! -Click to enlarge-

Another story from  my meditation retreat… On the tenth day, a lot of people began packing and sorting out their things. One girl, Mini Shepra (read about her and how she got her nick name), did her washing in the basin at the residence, then thought she would hang them to dry outside. Being from France, I am not sure she understood what would happen to her freshly washed laundry in the Canadian winter. When we talked to her, she said she was “trying an experiment.” It was one of the funniest experiments I have ever seen! The next three photos document Mini Sherpa’s Canadian Laundry experiment!

Mini Sherpa hanging her laundry to "dry" -Click to enlarge-

Mini Sherpa's laundry blowing in the breeze.. it will dry soon, right? 😉 -Click to enlarge-

The "dry" laundry... OK so it DIDNT dry outside 😉 Every experiment yields results. This result was simply not a desirable one! -Click to enlarge-

Last but not least, a cool photo I took while wandering the grounds of the meditation retreat. It’s amazing the beautiful things you notice when you are not so wrapped up in who is calling you, making sure you check your email, worrying about the conversation you had with so-and-so this morning, and all the things you have to get done today.

This is a close-up shot I took of a really neat mushroom growing on a tree. -Click to enlarge-

Getting back on the art cart

I’ve taken a significant vacation from my sketchbook. I haven’t been doodling, drawing, or even painting. Before Christmas, I did some artworks for friends as presents (being talented comes in handy when budgeting for presents!).

Before I get to the drawings, I’ll get to the reason I decided to post today. I need to get myself back on the art cart! I’ve fallen off the wagon. I need inspiration. I need to start doodling again. I always carry my sketchbook with me, I just have to remember to make time to open it and draw! A couple of fun projects are coming up soon that will, hopefully, get the creative juices flowing. I’m doing three paintings for some friends of mine to go in their little baby’s room. Also, I will be doing a mural on a 10′ x 10′ wall in someone’s bathroom – a sunset!

And now, onto the most recent stuff…

I posted one in my last 2010 drawings post – a drawing of my friend’s dog, Brutus:

Drawing of Brutus

I did three other drawings for Christmas presents. The next two are of my friend’s Cats – Kauzmo and Differential. They are super cute boys. I put these two photos in one frame, each separately matted.

This is my drawing of Kauzmo the cat!

Here is my drawing of Diffy!

Last, but not least, I did a 14″ x 17″ drawing of my friend’s two-year-old. It took quite a while to finish this one, but I was really happy with the result! When finished, I matted and framed this one and wrapped it up for the proud parents!

My drawing of the kid

I see the art cart coming… I have my ticket! Time to get on and enjoy the ride!!!

Weekly Drawings: SANDAR THE HORRIBLE! and MSG

Here are the drawings from week 2 🙂 Two of them are silly sketches I did of “c” for my friend Sandra. I mis-spelled her name wrong, and this is the result – CRAZY drawings 🙂 The other three are just random weirdness. Enjoy!

Sandar the Horrible Take 1. Not sure about this one. Does he look horrible enough to you?

Sandar the Horrible Take 2. Reminds me a bit of Salad Fingers...

Don't ask me, I just start drawing and this is what comes out..!

This is often what I eat with my lunch. It's chicken stock, but the third ingredient (after salt and sugar) is MSG!

I was thinking about tentacles and then drew some... I added the finger last 🙂

Weekly drawings: chimps and carrion

Welcome to Week 1 of drawings day!

I managed 5 drawings, and they are all unrelated and random. Hopefully I can continue at least 5 per week!

Feel free to comment, like, share, hate, question, or critique! Click the images to see a larger version 🙂 Enjoy.

sketch of a character guy (and girl)

47, 69 (cancer), and my initials

a chimpanzee with human-looking face

A spiky weed outside the office

Randomly abstract - I was thinking of the word 'carrion'

Plans and rants… or are they raves?

YAY! Post number two. So I am formulating a blog plan, based on my to-do list from yesterday.

I officially dub Wednesdays to be drawing day. All the drawings I have done all week will get scanned in and posted on Wednesday with commentary. I Officially dub Fridays to be photo day! Every day I will take 30 (or a bunch) of photos. Out of those, I figure I’ll pick top 8 or 10 and post them Fridays with commentary. FUN!

Other days I think I’ll just write something… like today:

OK. So stress. It’s really in the eye of the beholder. It’s all about survival – and what we’d do to survive. And it’s about how we look at what we need to do.

*how manageable is it?*

How do we react when only 7 out of 10 things on the list are accomplished and we have run out of time? This gets compounded with how much importance we put on the finished and unfinished tasks. It makes us CRAZY! We don’t need this stress!

So I suppose we need to accept what we can and cannot accomplish. Only if we are not doing our best, should we stress about our performance. If we are doing everything we can to get our tasks done, and we only get to 7 out of 10 on the list, we should be proud of those 7 tasks – not disappointed at the three we missed 🙂

My question is: What will be finished when we are dead? Will it matter? I guess what it comes down to is: I’m here! I might as well enjoy it!

So rejoice at your 7 tasks completed! (or even just one!)

Stress BEGONE!