Fuzzydragons

Coming a long slowly, still loving this paper. Its great for creating fur :) Happy New Year to everyone :D Might make up a small list of art goals for 2014, but then theres pressure to finish them instead of working on what you really want to. Most of them would probably be print related anyway.

A couple of book reviews, probably the last for the year unless I don't sleep at all :p   Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb My rating: 2 of 5 stars Hard to review this without spoilers, but I will try :) I enjoyed this series a lot, until this final one. A lot of intense build up and nothing really happens :/ Very anti-climatic. The best part of the whole series is of course the dragons, arrogant yes, but dragons should be. There were many times you forget they are dragons talking until they start complaining about being hungry :p Every time the love triangle reared its head with the younger characters, I wanted to put the books down. The characters lose all of their appeal and it so predictable what happens. Yes, characters change as a series progresses, and these are young characters left pretty much by themselves to discover the world and make new choices, but what happens is such a cliché. I did like how one minor character ended up, it was a fitting end, which you coul...

  This weeks word is: 1. gansey Last weeks word was correctly guessed by Cindy :) The word parritch , did mean porridge :)

Jeanette made a blog post before Xmas asking for people to draw some ears if they wanted to and had the time. Its a good little drawing exercise and unless you are focusing on specific body parts, you tend to either just hint at ears in life drawing or you don't draw them at all if they are covered by hair. So here are 2 little ear sketches. I should do a series of sketches of other facial features just to get some more practice in.

Back to work, need to tone down the pink nose so its not so light pink. Lovely weather we are having, not as bad as Ontario, or down south and we are on a hill, so unless there was more 10 feet of water the house would not get flooded. Still, its been raining all week and the wind has gotten up pretty strong that trees have broken and if something is not nailed down its going to go for a flight. Every time the lights flicker, I cross my fingers they will stay on. The dog refuses to go out and looks at us like we are crazy to suggest it :p

Love love love this paper :D Just wish it wasn't so expensive :/

I know I've posted music by this band before, but this song makes me laugh :)

  This week word is: 1. parritch Last weeks word, fecht , means fight. fecht

Line art for a tiger finished, now to transfer it onto Fisher paper. Really like that paper, but I don't know how my polys will work on it, will let people know. Pencils do get eaten on the surface since its pretty much sandpaper, but I like how the Coloursofts work on it. Will be interesting to see how the harder pencils look. Its going to be a white Tiger, and while I do know of the horrible breeding problems and breeding practices that go on with the white Tigers, this one is pretty nice looking.

Well it was supposed to be my last day in college this year, but of course I forgot the plate of the swans I was working on, so have to go back to Dundee tomorrow and cross my fingers it is still there. I'm not back until the 8th of January and want to work on the swans so the plate is ready to print when I go back, so have to go and see if its still in the room somewhere. (Things have a habit of going for a walk at the college :/, not that I think someone would take a printing plate, but you never know). The eagle above is the next etching I am working on. I figure stick to birds, its either that or go back to drawing big cats and horses all the time. Even tho an etching of a big cat would probably look nice. The etchings are done on plexi-glass , so the etching only shows up in a scan if I put a piece of dark paper behind it. Its not supposed to shatter like normal glass, but it def. shatters when you cut it and goes flying everywhere. I am still stepping on broken piece...

P1180357 , a photo by fuzzydragons on Flickr.

The background for a watercolour painting. The idea is to colour in some cranes, but will see if it works. *crosses fingers* I am counting down the days until jaw surgery because this is so bloody painful, nothing works for the pain :/ Not looking forward to surgery, its never fun and often there is some kind of problem when I am involved, not to mention having to wear a backless gown and flash people, but at this point I just want this defective jaw joint gone. Had another MRI today, with a dye contrast so my brain probably lit up the screen :p And of course I felt like I was going to sneeze when I was inside of it :p

  This weeks word is: 1. fecht Last weeks word, hin-end , means the back or last section of something. Could also be a butt :p

Really original title :p This is a test print of an etching. I forgot how much I love doing this, even if I do get ink everywhere :p I need to darken parts of the left swans and use the proper paper next time. I am really really  happy with how this is turning out :D

314 , a photo by fuzzydragons on Flickr.

For Sale Really like the colours in this, they work really well with the folded cranes. Would love to get the bigger gelli-plate or make my own, but the plate isn't cheap, and there is no room in the fridge to make my own. We need another fridge just for me to put art materials in :p

I saw them in concert when they opened for Nickelback, was a very Canadian concert :p

This weeks word is: 1 .hin-end  Last weeks word, jouk , means to duck or dodge.

  Actually I don't think tigers make a meow sound.... Been awhile since I have drawn a big cat, just been lots of various birds lately. Figured it was about time I started to draw something fuzzy and use my coloured pencils to do it. I want to get the line art done tomorrow, but that all depends on what time I decide to crawl out of bed. Its not the minus -33C that some parts of Canada are getting, but I'm not use to the cold any more, -3 is more then cold enough for me that I don't want to get out of a warm bed.

Started to work on an etching, which sounds like nails on a chalkboard sometimes :/ Slow going but hopefully get it done this weekend *crosses fingers*

wordlesswednesday4 , a photo by fuzzydragons on Flickr.

Ok, so its not a blue bird, its some kind of bird of prey, but I am happy with how its looks :p I think using Inktense pencils to draw a rough outline, and then using watercolours to roughly add shape and shading to the subject works really well for me.

The Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb My rating: 3 of 5 stars Adult version of The Dragon Riders of Pern?? The story is different, the dragons still talk, but are not exactly very cheerful or all that humble or helpful. This book is really, really slow for roughly the first 200 pages, interesting, but slow going as not much happens. But after that, things start in motion and a huge adventure starts. I thought the main characters were developed nicely, even the characters that we are not supposed to like very well. The dragons have their own very distinct personalities, and sometimes you do forget they are dragons and instead think they are a bunch of moody teenagers. I enjoyed reading about the dragon mythology and how the problems that caused them to be so scarce happened, and their appearance is described very vividly, very colourful dragons. And I do really like the idea of a live ship, a vessel that could navigate itself and also in some cases talk. I do want to find out what hap...

  Practice makes perfect and all that :p Getting better with registration marks, just need to either find a better way to line the paper up, or just keep practising. On to the next one :)

This weeks word is: 1. jouk Last weeks word, merle is a blackbird.