The Human Canvas - Turn the other Cheek, Treebeard!

 

Turn the other cheek? And Treebeard?

We'll get to that.

Meantime...

 

 

To start, we knew we wanted a tree.

An oak, perhaps? Anyway - something deciduous.

 

 

This gave me a chance

to play with smudges and smears - kinda letting

the drawing find itself.

 

No REAL rules or picture to follow.

Just let the pen drag and lift when it wants to.

Then ya get a trunk. 

 

Especially when you add a couple layers of color.

 

 

The other thing we knew,

beyond wanting a tree, was to have the roots become

a bit of an arm band.

 

 

After adding the

final layer of blue - the darkest you see - I decided

it ended up with just a bit of a Tolkein feel. Something that

may end up on a calendar or Middle Earth

art book or something.

 

So... Treebeard?

 

Well, we got Treebeard

directly from Tolkein, or indirectly

via Peter Jackson.

 

 

Treebeard was an Ent.

He may have even been the oldest of the Ents.

The Ents were, in essence, shepherds for the trees. 

And, as Orcs had no particular respect for trees, Ents

held no particular kindness toward the Orcs. Long, long

ago, there were actually Ent-Wives as well, but had been

driven away by Sauron. Saruman, while under the

influence and ally of Sauron, destroyed SO many

trees that, well, the Ents becam a major force

in the defeat Saruman.

 

So that's PART of the reason for

the Treebeard reference. Also, Jason here

didn't have a beard when I saw him last.

 

He didn't have a tree either.

Treebeard.

 

And "Turn the other Cheek?

Well, I think the first photo you see on this

entry looks a BIT like a butt. That's all.

Go look again.

 

More Human Canvas on the way.

 

Oh! And don't think the

bad jokes vague references won't continue either.

But these references DO get me some accidental traffic

from people Googling Tolkein stuff.

The Human Canvas - A No Frills Dragon!

Okay. 

SOME Frills.

This one's fairly straight forward.

A nice step-by-step representation

on this one.

...And it MAY be amongst 

the best coupla dragons to date 

(on a Human Canvas, that is).

A link to one of

my other recent favorites is HERE,

and a rant about me not being able to draw

them a certain way, HERE.

I just finally stopped 

referring to them all as Smaug. 

Especially with the movie about to

come out and all. 

If you've been living in a cave,

that's The Hobbit, I'm referencing.

If you've been living in ancient Dwarven caverns...

then you already knew.

I actually started
with a couple of yellow lines
for a reference point. I wanted to maintain
this figure-8 shape.

Though in this case, 

I was really thinking of the symbol 

for infinity.

I also have come to

love the fact that little errors,

or imperfections - don't really matter.

They'll be covered up, or worked into the design,

at a later point.

And I've noted - 

This seems to be on its way 

to becoming my own amalgamation of the dragon. 

A bit of the European and the Asian variety...

and whatever else is there.

And I'm wondering - 

wouldn't it be okay in this case to say "Oriental"?

I mean... we're talking about something exoticised 

from some mysterious other place,

or place of the other,

right?

Anyway - 

Done. Except that I had 

forgotten to draw in a garter as well. 

This was the original intention.

Another intention was to show off the boots.

And now both pieces together.

And now a few shots 

of the fading process. I'll have to double check 

my info on this, but I believe these next three shots 

were consecutively on the next days after the session, 

which was on a Sunday.

The shot above - 

wear from clothing and from a short sleep.

Thanks to this canvas, we MAY know now that tighter

clothing will actually protect the piece. Looser

clothing will rub accross it more often.

Even something gently layed,

like a shawl.

We saw this about a month later.

Showers, sleep, AND a change of

clothing  wore these off over the next two days.

And earlier... 

Did I say BOTH pieces together? 

The two shown here were actually only 2 of 3 that

day. The next... A wonderful experiment.

A successful one, I think.

Check back. 

It's on the way.

The Human Canvas - St. George and the Dragon... and Liz!

Liz.

Remember her?

I did a kind of randomesque

piece  on her in the middle of a disco at

a Dr. Who convention a couple

of years ago in LA.

Well, two pieces I guess - if you count both arms.

That's her hubby, Vasilios, standing in the background.

He was the one providing music for the disco.

This was a fun, fun night!

But back to THIS night. Again - a fun one.

I hadn't seen Vasilios OR Liz... or most of the other

folks there that evening in

quite some time.

So... St. George and the Dragon! 

And Liz!

(((I'm having trouble flipping this picture. I have NO idea why!)))

Legend has it that St. George happened

upon a road which went through an area where

people appeased a local dragon with a couple of sheep

per day, serving as a sort of "protection fee".

Much like what hoodlums may demand

of a small store owner.

Except for that part about the sheep.

Anyway, St. George had been asked to

stay OFF this road, but he vowed to remain.

While in conversation with a local princess, the dragon

reared out of the lake, St. George showed the sign of the

cross, wounded the dragon, then fitted it with

the girdle of the princess,  afterwhich the

dragon followed her around

as gently as a pet.

But then later, he killed it anyway because the local
peasants were frightened.

Or something like that.

St George and the Dragon

is ALSO a really cool number on Toto's

second album, Hydra.

They've kept with the sword motiff for many

of their last 30ish years...

...And this may be the REAL reason for me

naming this session as I did. 

Although with swords of this type generally having a

cross-shape, it seemed to fit.

St. George and the Dragon...

...and Liz!

Another shot for contrast...

...And another with a bigger smile.

Thank you Liz.

And thank YOU for stopping by...

and MAYBE... for being the next canvas.

I'm ALWAYS looking.

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

I CAN'T Seem To Draw Dragons Facing Toward The Right!

Well...Except for this one, maybe.

Don't mean to sound defeatist. I guess it's not so much that I CAN'T...I just tend NOT to. 

Maybe it's a right-handed thing.

I've done two Human Canvas sessions with dragons. The first was in Riverside, California.

The next was a couple months later...in Istanbul. 

This one was the third of THREE done one night at Arsah. THE place to go, if you find yourself in Istanbul. 

Seriously.

 I was, of course, happy to have done these sessions...

...but I think my best dragons, so far, have been on paper.

Not this one. This next one was an experiment in a much more loose style than I tend to use. 

Truly - holding la pluma very loosely... and see what happens. 

So, going back to something more in the style of how I tend to work...but staying with the whole Bilbo and Smaug thing that came out of the first one...

Beyond the whole Hobbit thing, I've been toying around with an idea for a future Human Canvas session.

...One which will incorporate a dragon, a castle...PROBABLY some subtle theatre masks thrown in...and DEFINITELY Marvin the Martian. 


I'm not so proud of this first one, but I'm trying to include some of the IDEA sketches - no matter how rough.

Oh yeah. Finally. One with Marvin.

I JUSsssssst gave this to the person who inspired it.

What really struck me, besides noticing that they ALL faced left...

 ...is how SIMILAR some of them turned out.

Drawn several days apart...without referencing the other(s). These next two are the most glaring examples.

Hell, even when I departed from dragons (for like - a day)... 

...Even THIS guy ended up looking' left.

Though, truth be told, 

this wasn't my concern at the time of this drawing. 

I remember simply wanting to incorporate more of the page.

So...

...Closing then with the same pic we opened with. 

The ONE dragon facing t'other way. 

Some day...SOME day...

...which way the dragon faces might actually matter. Meantime...just me noticing a few tendencies, once I realized there were enough of one certain type of drawing to warrant its own category.

And I'm SURE that whoever made this rug (again, from Arsah, in Istanbul...

...I'm sure they intended for SO much more than to have dragons sand fish strewn all over.

But at least I vacuumed.

But HEY!

Here's that all important message!

I think I'm JUST about to draw a dragon 

facing t'OTHER way!

Get ready Shaelyn.

This along with another celebrating 

you being the canvas getting the 100th drawing!

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight