InkFinger

Grammar Hell

Have you ever concentrated so hard on something that you're guaranteed to screw it up? Well, that's what i often do when i'm writing in tiny speech bubbles above simple heads. Since i rarely use pencil, most of what my pen touches on the paper stays there for better or for worse. Skipping words, thinking ahead, thinking behind. These are the things that hinder me usually. But here we have, as the kids say, a happy mistake.

Portrait of an Egg

It's a little late for Easter, but my roommate The Seeks and I, did Ukrainian eggs this year. We did them a lot as kids so we were excited to do it again. Her and I  stayed up till 5am completing our creations, and we thought they were pretty good. Then, she received her yearly egg from her aunt Crissy (who probably was born to make these things,) and comparing to our own...well...It's a really cool egg. So, I drew it. Not quite as nice or shinny as the real deal though.
  I am so busy...I will get back to doing illustrations soon I hope. -Niff

What about the sharks?

What is there to say really? There are many wonderful creatures that live in the sea. Many of which can speak.

Clicky Clicky

This is my stapler at work. It's so small and functional, I am gonna miss it.  This is my last week at the temp job I have had for almost a year, and even though I am most happy to be moving on, It still makes me a little sad to go. To quote a cheesy song

"every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end."

bye bye stapler...you stapled well! -Niff

UPDATE NOTE: I forgot to mention a little accident I had when doing this sketch: I was trying to paint the bubble's with my gel pens, and sometimes they just don't wanna write. So in order to get them going, I take them apart and suck on the end to get some ink flowin'. Well, I was trying to get the gel going while drawing, and next thing I knew I had a mouth FULL of pink gel ink! I think I emptied the thing...I had paper towels galore in my mouth but when I went to bed I could still taste that ink. AH, the adventures of an artist. good times.

The Littlest Chair, Pt. 2

The chair is so little, in fact, that it won't go away. I drew this the day i was laid off (Friday). It's funny to look at this because i was so unknowing at the time. I was scribbling happily along in a meeting in the morning and then that afternoon, blammo! It's kind of like a pop quiz... but much worse. Company meetings that end in "we will lay off 4 people in the next 15 minutes... now go back to your desks and wait" are not a good way to end a week.

Brownie

This scan is highly disappointing, because I really love the shadows in the original. My scanner hates tiny drawings I guess. Other than that, I had fun tonight drawing my roommate's little brownie camera. The actually drawing is only about 31/2 inches tall. I didn't get to play around with my washes as much as I would have liked, but the size prohibited it a bit. Anyway, I think it still needs something, but I just cant put my finger on it. What do you think? -Niff

The Littlest Chair

Our little friend was happy as could be in his state of osmotic balance, brushing up on his German with Auf Deutsch! by Lida Daves-Schneider. Next thing he knows, Waft! His semi-permeable membrane is covered in solute breath causing the wetness inside his cells to rush outward to try to equalize the balance in his little membrane. He foams and we wince. But what of the chair? What of the wee chair?

Old photo

 

Well, as you all have heard by now, I am in the process of moving. Hence, I have very little time on my hands for drawing because I am packing and cleaning ( and catching up on sleep.) So, I couldn't spend all the time I wanted sketching tonight, but I thought I would show you a process sketch I am doing for a portrait freelance job. They want it to be Like an old photo because they only have one picture of this lady. It's so hard to work from a tiny little photograph that doesn't show much of her face, but I am going to do the old 'oil rub/rub out, colored pencil technique.) This s a process where you draw your image in pencil then fix it. Then, coat your medium in a thin layer of terp and burnt sienna oil paint, use a kneaded eraser to pull out your whites, and then apply layers of colored pencil to add color.  finishing off with your whitest whites using acrylic paint... It ends up getting that "old timey" look perfectly. We shall see how this one turns out. Thanks for bearing with me as I stress out. -Niff

Cream x4, sugar x4, coffee

This is a drawing i did (Sutter) while in the Balkan Restaurant at 2237 Grays Ferry St. The people there are very friendly and the food is tasty. I recommend it to anyone in the Philadelphia area on that block. Anyway, those are 4, count 'em, four creams that were put to rest in the same cup of doomed coffee as their four gruesome sugar counterparts (only 2 pictured). Niff likes her coffee sticky. Should we hold it against her?

The Handplant

You're playing with saws, you're playing with firecrackers and drano-bombs and gasoline... your mother lead you to believe that the worst that could happen was you'd lose an eye. Now here you find yourself handless with a bunch of rings and nowhere to put 'em. Better find a hand donor - and fast!