The Human Canvas - The Fluidity of Trees... and Lions

Now this...

Was a successful experiment.

I know.

I keep on referring to these

Human Canvas sessions as some sort of "experiment".

Truth be told, each session usually IS an

experiment... trying some new image

or method... or both.

This one started...

with me talking to a woman about

doing a session with her, and she mentioned

that her daughter was thinking about a tattoo

(okay, more like really really really wanting one),

and this might be a good way to

"test the waters".

We didn't talk about it before I came over.

I just knew Lexi wanted a lion, and thought this might

be a cool approach.

LOTS of step by step shots on this one.

It's a cool slideshow, if ya have that option.

Starting with a quick line drawing...

Only to smear it out,

making it more of a general wash.

Later this'll become a mere suggestion of a shadow.

At this point though, it'll let me lay down the image...

without having to be precise.

Okay.

That done, let's go in with

one color to start to find a lion within the

rough marks I laid down.

I have to admit -
I thought of attempting this design
after seeing something similar on a shirt O' mine.

But it's only similar.

There's no WAY I coulda recreated that.

Besides, this soon lent itself SO well to having

a flowing, "see what happens as we go" kinda thing.

Organic, if you will.

Now add another color for some highlights,

as well as a bit of further definition. THIS blue,

while it works well aesthetically, I picked this shade soley because it's amongst her favorite colors.

At least...

 that's what her Mom said. 

Lexi's back was to me the whole time.

And here we are! Turned out nicely.

All it really IS though...

Is a general wash with one color...

Followed by two colors. The first to draw,

the second to accent (which allows you to "correct").

Thank you Alexis,

thank you Christie, thank you Sierra (who was next)

and a big thanks once again to Mike Munoz - photographer

for the evening.

And thank YOU for stopping by, coming back, AND letting me draw on you next.

Catch the begining of this whole adventure through the HUMAN CANVAS tabs near the top of this page.

Thanks again.

The Human Canvas - Michelle...Alpha to Omega

Now THIS entry

is simply a combination of

the previous two, which really

should BE viewed together.

 As soon as I publish 

another session or two, it'll be awkward to

follow - in order -  the two (connected) sessions 

with Michelle. For that matter, as soon AS I published

part two (More Mixing and Matching Michelle),

they appeared out of order.

So here ya go.

Michelle.

I'd done a bit of filming for her, and was

rewarded with a canvas to work on. I've known her for

a while, and I guess I'd been leering long enough, as

she offered it up before I could ask.

I mean. I was certainly gonna, but she was

quicker on the draw.

As it were.

I've been working

on a design to connect my wife's

two tattoos into one, so THIS session

was gonna be a treat for me. Michelle already

had a couple of Chinese characters on her neck,

and an Egyptian theme running across the top of her back.

Across the small of her back - a bunch of wonderfully

colored flowers.

I got to fill in the space between.

I had kind of forgotten exactly what her

upper back design was, only a vague shape. So I started thinking about a Thunder bird.

I told her, and she said that was something

she'd been thinking about as well.

So it was settled.

Well, it WAS settled.

Then I started worrying about mixing a

Native American piece in with

the others.

I finally decided that with

Chinese, Egyptian, and the flowers

(which I felt had a Polynesian feel), I was safe

to venture into yet another culture. Mixing and matching on Michelle would work out fine.

Besides, a

thunder bird would go with the rest in other

ways, mirroring in shape...

...And in color as well.

Now it's just a matter of playing with

those smears and blends. And there are extra

photos on this session for the whole step-by step thing.

It makes for a decent slideshow.

A little blurred and outside the edges...

but that truly doesn't matter - straying slightly

outside of your borders. At least in areas

where you're gonna go re-define

the edges with black

anyway.

Still though, I have a few ideas on how to control the smear/blend just a bit.

That'll come soon.

Meantime...

A cotton swab does the trick.

Nicely. A tip though. Buy generic.

Beyond generic. Buy something really really cheap.

Q-Tips have a wonderful, full, fluffy tip - great

for what they're actually

MADE for...

But when ya dip 'em in alcohol and drag 'em across the skin, they start to spread out... sometimes giving less of a smear/blend, and more of a general wash...

...That you have to

disguise with a buncha little circles.

Oh well. Looks good. Works well for that type of art.

Ya don't make mistakes. You make happy

little discoveries.

Now the thing with Sharpies,

is that upon application, they WILL stand out

from a real tattoo. No matter how good (or not) the

Sharpie drawing may be. The trick to avoiding this - is powdering it. Just like if you had just put on

makeup, and were trying

to avoid shine.

Um, I didn't have any.

Michelle asked, "Do you have any corn starch?"

Now that I reflect back on this day, I wonder if she might

have been kidding. Didn't matter at that point.

I was OFF to the kitchen.

BOOM!

Um, I didn't have any corn starch either.

All I could find was some instant gravy kinda

thickener kinda powder

kinda stuff.

Being the person who suggested

corn starch in the first place, Michelle was

okay with this being sprinkled on her. And the stuff spreads okay, but doesn't do too much for taking off that shine.

It just sorta sweeps off, leaving

white powder along the edges of your backdrop.
Uh - and the cat.

So - this thunderbird remained a bit more vivid

than the other tattoos..

 

Now the thing is, even without washing,

these things will fade slowly anyway. Well, technically

speaking, they're not actually fading, but rather,

the skin is slowly flaking away. So the next day,

these things are always muted, having the

vibrancy of something more

akin to a real tattoo.

Problem is, with the fading of color,

you get a fading of detail. I always wanted to go

back into one of these things, the day after,

but never pursued the chance.

Until now.

 

So - this next shot is what it looked like after a

night of sleep - some of it onto a black t-shirt, some

onto the sheets - fair warning

having been given.

 

So with just a quick touch-up of the purple...

...And the red and yellow wing-tips,

and that's pretty much matched up with the

vibrancy of the original tattoos. At least for a zoomed

out shot like this one.

 

Problem is - with the fading of color,

you also get degradation of detail. And when

you go in with the black to replace it, the color is

once again too bold to match up with the

original tattoos - which was part of

the POINT of this session.

But there IS a way around that. We'll address that shortly.

 

Meantime, in addition to the Thunder bird,

she was game for letting me add a

drawn flower to the

tattooed ones.

Well, three.

Okay - Six.

Now once again, while the flowers

turned OUT well, they were - like the Thunder bird -

now more bold than the

real tattoos.

 

but ya take this, and ya powder it down...

(ordinary setting powder)

And everything now has the same TONE,

And ready for a few nice shots.

Only thing - a couple lines on the

Thunder bird ended up crooked. There was

SOMEthing keeping me from straightening them,

without the line getting thicker

and thicker.

Also, I coulda extended some of the

dark lines of the drawn flowers into the areas

of the tattooed ones.

Just a bit.

It's okay though we were both

quite happy with the results of this

session - and there'll be another in the future.

This is one of several in the works that have to do with adaptation with a real tattoo.

 

But I also had to dash.

Believe it or not, I had another session

lined up for that night (which turned out to be two),

and so I ran off after finishing this, bemoaning

that I wasn't allowing myself just

another 20 minutes (or so).

But what I ran off to do

became something REALLY cool.

That'll be published next.

I also JUST got through doing

fourteen pieces during a music festival for

autism awareness and education. That'll be

coming soon as well, so please,

check back.

But thanks for coming by this time around.

And you can follow the whole Human canvas story through a few tabs near the top of this page.