11/24/07

Just a few more from today.

11/21/07

I only have a few to upload as it's been a pretty crazy week!
One of these I'm fairly pleased with, the other,...well,...not so much.
I think this is one of the best parts of photographing my work in that, there are times I'm really happy with a sketch as I'm finishing it, then I look back later at the photo and can see a ton of room for improvement.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I'm calling this one done for now. The nice thing about digital work is that it's never REALLY done. I'm sure it'll get a few tweaks here and there...but for the most part...it's done!
Over all, I'm pretty happy with this one. I at the very least learned a few things from this piece.

11/12/07

One of the things that I'm not so comfortable with is coming up with new body situations on the spot...as evidenced by my second soccer(English football) body in just a week. Even worse, the girl who wanted a body but had no idea what she wanted to be doing. "Just draw me on a trampoline" she says. Simple enough...what a lame sketch! I'm fine at all the usual stuff...sports, hobbies and other things that Ive drawn a million times. I need to work on some different poses.

11/10/07

I started this blog in an effort to force myself to try some different things. It dawned on me a while back that I've been doing caricatures for almost 20 years(or more???) and all I could really do was front face caricature. I'm really trying to do some three quarter views, as I think you can see so much more information about the face from this angle...but I am having SUCH a hard time with it. It's one thing to know a theory about how and why something works, the APPLICATION of that theory,...well, that can be an entirely different animal!

I did a gig yesterday with some great friends, and really talented artists here in Tampa. I only had a hand full of sketches that I liked, but what I'm happiest about is that I kept trying the different approaches even though I was uncomfortable doing them. For me, it's very difficult to try new things in public. I guess I've been doing this long enough that I don't want to look like I dont know what I'm doing. It's really hard to break out of that comfort zone for me.

These are some of the sketches from yesterday.

I definitely have a few issues with this one, but, I had promised myself that I was going to post the good and the ugly. I would fix at least a few things with this one.

11/06/07

I'm slowly making progress on this one.
Though I am thinking I may put it away for a few weeks and look at it again with fresh eyes.

11/05/07

These are just a few from today(a short drawing day).
This little guy was just my first sketch. A nice way to warm up for the day.



This was a sketch of a British guy. He had a great sense of humor. ...and a great nose!




This is my coworker, Sean Gardner. A great caricature artist and an amazing sculptor. I have a link to his website. By all means, check it out.

11/03/07

This is still a long way from being done, but I've been able to work on it a bit over the past two days. So far, I'm feeling pretty good about it.

11/02/07

This might be a bit of cheating: These sketches are from a short while back(I didn't sketch today...just played Boss).

For the first time in almost a year, I'm working on new studio work. I'm really excited about this, but also feeling rather rusty.

This is of actor John C. Riley. A great actor, and an even better face to work with.
This is my initial pencil sketch, cleaned up in Photoshop just a bit:






This is the color version(very much a work in progress) being created in Corel Painter X. I love this program and indeed all of my studio work is done with Painter.


If you'd like to see more of my work you can check it out at www.dionsocia.homestead.com

10/31/07

These are just a few from today...Very slow day at the park!

WOW,...I have a blog!

I've decided to start this blog as someplace to post my daily drawings. I've been thinking for quite some time now that as an educational pursuit, I'd like to create art at least once a day and post it as a sort of artistic diary. I've thought for months now that I would never find the time to do artwork every day. Today it dawned on me that I actually DO do art every day. Drawing caricatures full time at Busch Gardens in Tampa certainly counts...not sure how I overlooked that.

It's my hope that this forum will push me into developing further as an artist and that I'll be able to get some much needed feedback from other artist friends.
By all means, feel free to leave any and all feedback.

These are a few I've done over the past few days. I'll try my best to get new ones up as consistently as possible.