Thursday, June 30, 2005

VIRTUAL UNVEILING...

After 4 weeks, is my magnificent drawing of Piccadilly Circus finished? Not quite, and I intend to fix a lot of small things about the picture in the future, but I'm getting just a bit bored working on it and I want to start on a new drawing for July either tomorrow or over the weekend, so I'll post my 99% finished picture here and I will hope you think that it doesn't look too awful:

Piccadilly Circus in July 2000; Please click on the picture for the full-size drawing.

Weirdly, it looks almost photorealistic when shrunk down to this size, but, upon closer examination, it's "impressionist" at best. The closer you look, the less "real" it seems. It's like Cameron looking at that painting of the kids in the park in the Chicago art museum in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

I wish this hadn't taken me a month to do, but this is the first full-fledged coloured pencil drawing not based on an anime that I've done in something like a decade. The next one should take me a lot less time.

I talk about the drawing a little more in the description for the picture:

This is a coloured pencil drawing I did over several weeks in June 2005 based on this photograph of Piccadilly Circus in London which I took in July 2000.

It's 99% finished, but there are a few things about it I want to fix. I just felt like I wanted to have something to show to the world before the month was over. (And I was getting a little sick of drawing it and wanted to take a break and start a new drawing for July.)

Even though I drew a lot of guidelines based on what I thought were precise measurements, a couple of lines seemed to have been slightly "off", and I had to fudge the perspective a little.

Also, the Coca-Cola logo especially is a pain in the butt to draw "freehand".

Still, I like the motion and depth in both the original photo and in my drawn version of it, and, for some reason, I'm particularly proud of the way I drew Shaftesbury Avenue winding into the background. And something about the way I drew the GAP store seems slightly "Disney background"-ish with the shading. That pleased me.

I apologize for the way I scanned it; the picture is so big that I had to scan it in three sections, and they don't quite match up perfectly, especially in the sky.


Anyway, I dedicate this picture to the many artists, illustrators, and graphic designers whom I consider an influence or whom have touched my life in some way. To name just a few: Eric Chase Anderson, Pierre Bernard, Mihona Fujii (藤井みほな), Kosuke Fujishima (藤島康介), Henry Giroux, Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎駿), and Eric Rimmington, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few this evening, but I'll add them as I remember them.

posted by Steve Brandon @ 7:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

CHILLY WEATHER WE'RE HAVING... IN MY BASEMENT!

Ah, the wonders of central air conditioning. Here in my basement where I've been sheltering for most of the time since December for the past couple of days, I don't think it's above 22ºC, and, with the fan next to me, it feels even cooler. I got goosebumps earlier, and even had to put on a sweater. (We had air conditioning at the old house too, but just in the living room.)

Outside of my house, it's a different story.

From the Ottawa Citizen

"Grab a bottle of water and pull up a seat next to the air conditioner -- the heat is still on.

The city's medical officer of health issued a heat warning yesterday and advised residents to drink plenty of water, stay out of the sun and find a cool place to spend the day.

A heat warning is automatically declared when Environment Canada forecasts a humidex of 40C or more for two consecutive days. Environment Canada said the temperature in Ottawa peaked at 32C and with a humidex of 43C at 3 p.m. yesterday.

"Heat is hardest on the elderly and chronically ill," said Dr. Patricia Huston, associate medical officer of health.

"If they have no protection from the heat, such as access to air conditioning and plenty of fluids, they can develop serious health effects and even die.""


Actually, I did face the sweltering heat yesterday for about an hour to mow the lawn. That's enough "sweating it out" for a long time.

Luckily, the rolling blackouts don't seem to have hit Nepean yet.



Anyway, I've been in a lazy, procrastinating mood the past few days, intending to write but... eh... not quite getting around to it. And I'm almost, almost, almost finished my drawing, but even "finishing touches" take longer to add than I had anticipated.

I promise that I will at least have either a scan of the completed drawing or my (currently half-written) Howl's Moving Castle review up by suppertime tomorrow. But MY suppertime, meaning between 8 and 9 p.m., since our family isn't exactly a "five p.m. dinner" kind of family (why do some people find it weird that I don't eat dinner by 7 p.m.? I'm not even usually all that hungry at that time of day.).

posted by Steve Brandon @ 6:19 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

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