Blue Studio

3D sketch - chracter lighting

2011-11-27T13:18:00.001-06:00

Experiment: for soft specular, use an ambient occlusion shader as the specular color attribute.

Red Walker with Car Paint Shader

2011-11-26T05:15:00.002-06:00

Christina

2010-08-03T20:24:00.003-05:00

Christina came over to my place to work on her projects. I asked her if I could sketch her while she was working. She said, “ok. But can you draw my hair down?” Her hair was up at the moment.

I draw with charcoal for about 20 minutes, then I realized that with her oval shaped face, and her eyes looking down, she started to look like a medieval icon. I said, “Oh, I make you look like Virgin Mary!” she took a look at the sketch and said, “Oh, I look angry! But it is a very nice sketch.”

I had fun. And thank you, Christina. :-)

Book Cover Design

2010-08-01T22:44:00.002-05:00

Staying Up Late Too Much.

2010-07-30T05:11:00.001-05:00

I’ve been staying up late, doing all kinds of things. So I drew this little owl. Owls are such beautiful creatures. I once had a baby owl standing on my finger, when I was visiting a petting zoo. He was so cute!

Moon Bears

2010-07-27T22:28:00.002-05:00

I went to the library to look for some book cover ideas. There was a book with a title of SEARCH FOR THE GOLDEN MOON BEAR. I found it rather interesting. So I did a sketch of bears and the moon.

Map

2010-07-27T04:36:00.003-05:00

Returned Theme

2010-07-23T21:40:00.002-05:00

Two years ago, I was painting a lot of night scene with lovers. Then I lost interest in them. Today, I was just doing some random drawing, this theme came back. I still feel frustrated with it. It seems like it wants to go somewhere, but really not going anywhere. There is certain tragic romantic atmosphere in it, but not enough to be anything.

Deadline Desperation!

2010-07-20T23:54:00.003-05:00

I have only 15 minutes to post a work before the deadline. I drew blindly on the paper without knowing anything. And this is what I got from my subconscious mind. I think it is the fear. The little cat hides under a plant. It is my fear of not being able to meet the deadline.

Color Study -- Years of Tender Youth

2010-07-15T21:11:00.005-05:00

These three little water colors were done quite accidentally.

I have a friend, Lei, who is an abstract painter. We often get together do artistic things, like drawing, painting, visiting galleries.

This afternoon, we wanted to do some small studies of flowers. But I am so into figure, they always show up on my paper without being invited. And flowers are sentimental subject for me, always. They symbolize all the fragile and fleeting nature of youth.

That is why I named these work as Years of Tender Youth.

All the colors used here is arbitrary. Since I am influenced by Matisse, who said, “colors are not to describe the realty, but to express the feelings of the artist.”

The palette of this one really looks like a Kleenex box design to me. And for that reason, I have trouble to like it.

This is a charcoal sketch of my friend, Lei.

Doing charcoal sketches of my friends is one of my favorite things to do. If anyone of you is interested in posing for me, let me know.

COLOR

2010-07-13T18:47:00.004-05:00

Finally, we are in color!!

I feel suddenly liberated. I bet you all feel the same. This is not a sketch, but a collage. The method was invented by Henry Matisse. He had all that fun with colors!

Problem Seeking and Problem Solving

2010-07-09T23:04:00.003-05:00

RUN LOLA RUN

2010-07-07T03:13:00.001-05:00

Creative Thinking

2010-07-06T23:55:00.004-05:00

Well, I guess I am really predictable by now. Everybody knows what I would do with my blog post. Only I don’t. Believe it or not, every simple graphic I did required some search. I’ve never know if I will have an idea or not.

Illusion of Space

2010-07-02T23:06:00.002-05:00

Working Process

2010-06-30T11:24:00.003-05:00

So far I have only been posting finished artworks. But maybe it is more interesting to post rough sketches as raw ideas that come to my mind.

This is how I normally start, just drawing as my hands want to, without any conscious thinking. Usually, I draw figures when I don’t have anything particular in mind. It is an art school disease you’ll never get rid of, because figures are so emphasized in traditional art training

And then I like to select a “quote of the day” from what I read on that day. I also start to draw with something particular. In this case, I was thinking about illustrating the concept of “balance”.

And then I will develop a visual possibility by doing some more sketches of the same idea. But for more refined rendering, I will use layout paper instead of sketchbook.

Now this is the start of another idea – “rhythm”, at its very, very beginning state.

Rhythm

2010-06-29T23:09:00.002-05:00

I found working with topography is very challenging. My hand lettering skill is poor, and I don’t have much instinct with letter forms. But on the other hand, one of the excitements of doing anything is finding out your weakness and trying to overcome it.

Balance

2010-06-24T22:54:00.003-05:00

This is another illustration following the previous one. I think I am interested in illustrating design principals with figures. I probably will go along this direction for a while and see what happens.

Positive and Negative Shapes

2010-06-21T01:53:00.002-05:00

This illustration is related to the topic of positive and negative shapes. Like all those who ever attended art school, I am especially fond of figures. I think human body has endless potential for all kinds of expressiveness. I use figures for my design whenever I can. The concept of this design is not yet clear. It is just a start of something, something I don’t know yet.

Exercise 1

2010-06-15T23:44:00.001-05:00