The Next Human Canvas, & other Sea-Related Pen & Inks

  Planning for the next canvas...we call her Laura. Laura is a friend who runs a fantastic travel and fashion blog - click HERE to jump to it. When you check out her site - sealaura.com, it won't take long to notice how much she loves the ocean, the beach...anything related. Quite probably, Laura will be happily providing my next canvas...her shoulder - going over to the shoulder blade and into the center back area. So...once again, actually...actually planning ahead on this one.

                                                

This was the first shot at gathering various sea creatures together on one page.

After having sketched this onto my forecast during Morning Edition, I thought I should include the next few - all forecast drawings (during various Morning Editions) which have some sort of sea, sea life, or water-related something or other going on.

So maybe this next one isn't exactly sea-related...but there IS a sailor involved.

In this case, one of the major stories of the day was that of people upset over the price of crude oil...or in this case, crude Oyle.

Back to today's piece...

...With an experiment in color...

So my practice session...became my next entry.

Here you go Laura.

The Human Canvas part 4 - The Koi

So...I had mentioned that The Human Canvas part 3 - Marci was the first piece I had actually planned (to a certain extent) ahead of time. All the other sessions had been impromptu - spur of the moment. I had settled on a traditional Japanese design, but had never tried to draw a koi before. So this was my first attempt.

(((this was at work...at KVCR...between giving forecasts, news reports, and traffic updates)))

The one below would be the 2nd...

...and this pink one, the third. These two were done with fluorescent markers, and look really kick-ass under black-light. And yes, I had to look up how to spell fluorescent.

A few days before starting Marci's piece, I had a volunteer for a practice session - New Year's Eve, at The Big Apple Cafe in Murray, Kentucky.

Meet Bree.

Well, the beginning of the koi, anyway.

(((Suddenly remembering that these things have "whiskers"...and fins...drop the black, and pick up the pink again.)))

When I did Marci's piece, and showed her these pics, I told her I felt like had cheated on her - in doing the koi drawing on another woman!!!

But still...I had to flesh out (as it were) what I'd be attempting on a much larger, more detailed piece.

NOW meet Bree...AND the koi.

Bree came back for several hugs, telling me of the compliments she'd gotten, and that this may be her next tattoo - with Art By David Fleming on it! I thought that part may be a bit much.

Maybe just my initials.

The beginnings of these adventures can be found in the tab for "The Human Canvas" at the top of the page. And they WILL be updated, so please, check back.

The Human Canvas part 3 - Marci

Before going to Kentucky, Marci and I had chatted about "The Human Canvas". She said, "I have a great back." (She does.)The wheels started turning. All of these so afar had been rather impromptu...

But now I started thinking about a much larger piece. I actually started planning...and even practicing. These "practice" pieces will be posted later. This is the night of January 3rd, 2011.

This koi, including my "practices" or "experiments", is the 5th one attempted.

So this orange one makes the 6th.

Some black. To define...and make it pop just a bit.

I used more fine-line on the gold koi.

We could have called it quits right here, but I had much more in mind.

So again...this could have been a finishing point. Right? Noooooooo.

With this final light blue being used to fill in the background, the unmarked parts of her flesh are now set off as another color in the piece...highlighting the clouds, the pagoda, and the koi.

And finally...filling in those missing corners down below.

Done!

All the others had been much quicker sessions - 15 to 20 minutes. This one was around 2 to 2 1/2 hours. But we were happy with the results.  

Thank You Marci!

For the beginnings of this adventure, please refer to the tab for "The Human Canvas" near the top of the page.