Short trip down memory lane

Pencil craze. I decided to re-do a drawing I made back in 2008, which I remember I had a lot of fun with -- I mean, it featured an aquatic creature, a human in high heels and headphones and lots and lots of frills. That's almost all my guilty drawing pleasures in one piece (I'm simple like that).

Pencil on board, 25x40 cm

I had a hard time getting anatomy to the point it didn't hurt to look at just because I couldn't be bothered to find any reference pictures. Pff.  Lesson learned!
And the drawing from over 4 years ago:

Pencil on paper, around 21x29cm

I think it's fun to look at progress pictures, both other artists' as well as my own. Certainly gives perspective!

A quick skull study

A couple of weeks ago I went to one of Warsaw's antique/flea markets and I got a hold of a small deer skull.

I set up a small still life right away, I even made an initial block-in... and left it at that.

Today I woke up motivated to give it a go and I ended up finishing it. :)

I'm actually quite happy with the result -- I haven't held charcoal in my hand for a couple of months now, I haven't really been drawing anything bigger in a while either. So even though it's not a polished academic piece, it's more than I could wish for given the circumstances and amount of time and effort spent on it.

Pictures were taken with my cell phone so excuse the quality :(

And another shot just to show the skull as well.

I hope you liked it and I hope to continue surfing on that drawing wave!

Take care!

Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel

Crazy weather in Warsaw today! But I'm cherry picking and forgetting about snow, hail and rain and I'm focusing on the sunny parts of the day. Since it's springtime I've been feeling more energized and I even started drawing some more than just doodles... which is actually very good for my sake, haha. ;)

Well, without further ado... the drawings!

Both are pretty small (around 13x20cm), drawn with pencil. (Or rather, two pencils.)

Red Riding Hood (with a bonus caption in Polish)

Been in my sketchbook for a tad too long and got fuzzy. :( Fuzzier than it originally was, at least.

And Rapunzel which I only finished some two days ago so it didn't yet have a chance to smudge... I didn't put a polish caption there so here you go: ROSZPUNKA ;)
Big thanks to my beloved boyfriend Karl who kept my spirits up and gave me a few tips to make the drawing better! :) :*

That's it for now. I'm hoping to be more consistent with drawing (and blog updates) now that I feel better.
Take care, everybody! :)


PS. Specjalne pozdro dla Grzyba który mi zazdrości blogaska i dlatego by się z niego śmiała jakby o nim pamiętała. :P <3

Portraits

I obviously enjoy drawing people most. And I love drawing portraits. That's why most of my freehand doodles are heads floating in space, but that's not the point I'm trying to get across. What I'm trying to say is that a lot of times innocent people become unaware victims of involountary modelling, whether it be at Starbucks or Stockholm's central station.

Sometimes Starbucks are pretty empty, at least on summer mornings, or maybe it's just a Warsaw thing. With no faces sticking around long enough, I just may end up doodling that mutated double-tailed mermaid from Starbucks' logo. (Yes, that fishy lady has two tails in case you haven't noticed before.)

Or some other faces I felt like drawing at the time.

But for better or worse, people will eventually come in the end.
Being interested in animation, I very much enjoy drawing in more stylized, cartoony style.
The following are based off actual people:

But I guess I do have the Florence Academy on the educational part of my CV so sometimes I try to make it more realistic, yet still stylized drawings; and sometimes I try to draw realistically but end up with cartoony anyways. Obviously I've got a lot to study and I can't pretend I don't. ;)

Speaking of school work, I copied two portrait Bargue plates at school during my first year. This is one of them, the unknown woman of Seine.

Sometimes, very rarely, I draw self-portraits. I made following quick (some 20-30 minutes) work yesterday when having an exhausting, very extended (in terms of time - it lasted a couple of hours) anxiety attack and was trying simply anything to refocus my attention.

They say that Photoshop is supposed to make people on the pictures pretty, I think there's something wrong with my version. ಠ_ಠ ;)

Blah, that's a downer way to end a post but I'm out of more pictures that I wanna submit, haha.
I guess good news is that I'm working on two bigger portrait projects - they're nowhere close to being finished yet, but hopefully at some point this winter I'll get them done. :)

Hope you liked it all, see you next time!

A good evening

Mindless, nonetheless enjoyable doodling while watching "Once upon a time" and breeding pokémon to fill that damn pokédex.
If it wasn't for some leftovers from my cold and multiple panic attacks I'd say it was the most relaxed evening (spent alone) that I've had in a long while. But hey, calming pills worked eventually too, so who am I to complain!
Hah, one of the good sides of nobody reading my blog - I can write whatever the hell I want... hehe.

Hopefully I'll wake up healthy tomorrow and then -- back to school getting some serious drawing done!

Pencil figure drawings

A few pencil drawings I did last trimester before I took a break from school for a bit. Sorry I'm not really gonna elaborate more on the drawings but I cought a cold and whatever I would write probably wouldn't make much sense anyway. ;)

Pencil on toned paper, 3 hours for each pose.

Classy drawings

...Or should I say, drawings with a classical subject...

Long time no update... but my new scanner arrived two days ago, and after a very rough day yesterday I needed something zen to do, so scanning stuff seemed to be a great option. ;)

Stockholm's Nationalmuseum holds two awesome exhibitions this season - "The Four Seasons" (very cliché, I know, but I still liked it a lot) and a show on the great russian Peredvizhniki. I wish I had a chance to see the latter at least one more time but alas, it closes in a week or so.
I also enjoyed sculptures from their permanent exhibition, it was mostly not so crowded on the day I visited it so I grabbed a stool and treated myself with some drawing (until I felt the need to treat myself with some food).

Sketch of Johan Tobias Sergel's "Queen Sofia Magdalena"





Drawing of Per Hasselberg's "Snöklockan".
Damn, I freaking loved that marble sculpture and I wish I could do it justice with my drawing - I didn't succeed but maybe one day when I become a rich artist (hahaha, get it?? "Rich artist"!) I'll get myself a copy of it and try drawing it again. Sounds like plan to me.
(I was happy for a moment when I found a copy of it outside of Gothenburg's Palm House, unfortunately swedish weather did not do it good... :()




A veery quick sketch (I was hungry, ok?) of a fragment of Francois Rude's "La Marseillaise".





Sketch of Denis Diderot's bust portrait by Jean Antoine Houdon.
I obviously enjoyed discovering all the different plains more than putting them carefully on paper. ;)


I also made a little study of Rembrandt's "Hendrickje at the bath" -- unfortunately I had to return the album to the library before I was able to take it to some more decent stage, but I got a hold of a Rembrandt album to have on my own so I think I'll get back to it at some point.
(Also -- ugh, comparative measurement is haaard...)

That's it for now...
Will post something again soon (and I actually mean it - I have the pictures scanned already)!