She Sure is {Sketchy} - A Return

A few months ago I had a creative crisis that resulted in the symbolic breaking of a 4b pencil over my knee. I declared myself the un-artist. It was done in an eff-this-crap kind of way.
Here's the thing -- the low down is this:
IT IS THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD UNTIL IT SUCKS

Two months ago it sucked. I was so OVER it. I stopped blogging, I stopped drawing. I still had to go to my totally artistic job-job. While there, in one of the more creative adventures of my life, (an irony not lost on my Pratt friends) I built a video game with an amazing team of people. Other than that I declared myself NONARTIST.

My dad (a fineartist) was rather supportive. However, he also managed to piss me off by laughing at me.
--"Sorry, kid - It's too late. You're an artist. It's OK to take a break"

"NO! I am not taking a BREAK! I am DONE! I say who... I say when..."
(When I am truly lost I retreat in to quoting Pretty Woman). 

Anyway. They were right. I was wrong. I'll blog more about this later. I'm actually a driven and dedicated artist who had a total meltdown. It might help my readers to know that that stuff happens even when you're not painting starry nights or sculpting vaginas -- and on that warm and fuzzy note...

Yesterday I went to the zoo. I innocently thought I'd maybe take a pen. Then I thought I might want to take some written notes or write a letter. I'd need some paper. Last Spring Ashley Robison organized my studio to absolute dream perfection, making paper oh-so-accessible. Fine. I thought I'd tip-toe in to that scary space I haven't been in since May. She'd mounted some hanging clipboards for me up against a wall. I reached in to the room. This way I didn't have to fully cross the threshold. I ripped a pre-papered clipboard down and scampered towards the Bronx with it.

It started innocently enough. There was this polar bear. He was a show off.


I sketched him without thinking about it.

Later, on the monorail, there were some deer.

So  this just happened:

Totally understandable. 

We happened upon this expansive bramble of peacocks.


I watched them for a long time. So long, I absently doodled them on the edge of my clipboard.
Nothing wrong there. Sometimes non-artists doodle! Whatever.

We packed up at the end of a looong day of Bronxing. I stepped on the 2 train.

Then we hit 129th street. I thought, maybe I should just look at those sketches...

By the time we hit Carroll Street, things had gotten out of hand. Apparently I'm an artist, and I'm back. Expect more blogging.

(Credit for All Photos Goes to April Alvarez, my kid sister who is more than actively shutterbugging her vacation in NYC).

She Sure is {Sketchy} Monday Afternoon Doodles

I take late meetings at job-job on Mondays and we talk about video games and sound effects and commercials from the 90s. Sometimes I doodle. Today was one of those days.

You Say You Want a Revolution

Guess what??!!? 

 I finally remembered I am an illustrator. 

Sorry, loves -- It's been a while.

Tonight, my intern extraordinaire and I indulged in some good old fashioned life drawing, that's right -- Revolutionary War style. 

There was maybe not a horse. I don't quite recall.

 OK. Fine. There was no horse. However, how could anyone with any integrity waste this 'happened on an ottoman' pose on anything without reigns?? 

 

 

 

The Society of Illustrators provided the light, the glitter, the flocked feathers, the electric live music, the bar, and the gorgeous powder-wigged models who slowly but surely stripped from their 1775 finery down to their diamond pasties at the evening's end. 

However, I provided your total raging jealousy with the power of description.
(I assure you it was better than it sounds).

Straight from the Book

I made a picture book dummy. These drawings are in there. They are fun.

Also, yesterday talking to some of my less thrown together coworkers at job-job I discovered that a couple of them are working on big projects too. This thrilled me. Then I found out that a couple of them are itching to write a novel but didn't know about NaNoWriMo which begins in a mere 96days and 14hours. There was one other girl who said she always wanted to write a picture book, but didn't have any idea about the SCBWI,  KidLit or KidLitArt weekly tweet chats. She said she really wanted to be a children's book writer one day but she didn't know how to get the right idea. Of course she had no idea about PbIdMo. It got me motivated to compile a list of resources over the next few weeks. So stay tuned, and grab a tutu.

What are the resources you use to tap into, stay motivated and move toward your big goals?

Now I'm off to get rid of my cough.

Commute

Ugly Farm

There's this new phone app that allows you to rank the hotness factor of the patrons at whatever bar you're at in the NYC. The app tallies everything up and alerts everyone running it to which bars and clubs are doing the best when it comes to drawing in the Betties and the Brads. It's like Maxim's Hot 100, but hour to hour.

Here are my thoughts. #1 - To me this ap is useless as I am most attracted to Ira Glass, then Kermit the Frog and then to other men with the ability to rock a skinny jean. Extra bonus points if they are wearing horn rimmed glasses. If they are clueless as to what to do with their arms and blush then apologize after telling you that they just finished watching a mini series on a dead president or reading everything Kafka ever wrote there's a good chance they're getting my number and a puppy.

No hottness app is going to deliver my idea of Hawt: a Buddy Holly app, maybe.

#2 - I am shocked at the willingness of people to use this app. Yes, maybe it gives you the cheap thrill of ranking people's attractiveness. I could see the sick allure of coming up with witty bits of harsh criticism. However, If I were into traditional hot, no way I would alert the fellow singles of Gotham that sexy was happening at my locale for the evening. Way to complicate the playing field.

OK, so last night my date showed me this app on his phone. We were sitting at Superfine in DUMBO and I was enjoying the 4th best pork chop of my life when he decided to tell me about it in detail. He took my piercing stare for interest instead of contempt and elaborated on the nitty gritty delving in to the complicated programming behind the app's engineering. This snooze fest aspect of the conversation alerted the nerd part of my brain, activating the neurons in my head that make binary code seem Keanu Reeves sexy. I was saved from walking out and leaving the pork chop there at the restaurant to prove a point. Small miracles.

I presented my thoughts as highlighted in this blog post. I also added this gem,
'IF YOU USE THAT APP DON'T TELL YOUR DATE YOU USE IT!!" To which he assured me of my "raven haired beauty' status. Barf. Describing anyone as raven-haired is a bit of a sour subject in my book, but then he couldn't know that, as the 'Dating Amber Alvarez' app has yet to hit the market.

THEN as if to rally for his innocence he offered this token. "Oh comeon, Amber, like you want to accidentally find yourself stuck for an evening anywhere that's suddenly, that's you know... The Ugly Farm? Neurons FIRE! Seeeee? I knew I was going to get something of merit from this evening!

I pulled a pen, asked our waitress for some napkins, wrote it down and drew a copyright symbol after it. Then I busied myself sketching pigs. Oh yeah, this farm's gone Fugly.

Thinking Inbox

Birds On A Branch

Pushing Pattern

Straight from the Book Thursday: Enjoy the Journey!

One of my very most extreme favorite things about coming to NYC when I was a teen was peeking at what people were reading/writing/drawing on the train. In Hawaii there is, how shall I put it, less of an industrious spirit. Hawaiian hands sit idle on public transportation. In Hawaii's defense, there is a lot of really gorgeous stuff to look at out the window. You're in not a tunnel.

I used to thrill to sit next to artists who were sketching away, because up until this point, the only people I knew like that were me and my dad. I'd peek and I'd crane to see how they used their books and what they were scrawling. The other night (on my way to see PJ Harvey) a girl leaned over and whispered "Hi". I wasn't sure I'd heard right over my blasting music, so I took my headphones off and looked at her. She was wearing jeans smeared with acrylic, too much make up and an asymmetrical top. Oh, I was familiar with this girl. Haha.
"Um... can I see your sketchbook?"

She's an FIT illustration major. She's just getting started and she hopes she can make it. She devoured my book and pointed and questioned and reminded me, of what it is like when you're hoping. I'm hoping now, but you know, when you're hoping.In honor of a certain girl, circa 2002 - in too much make-up, torn and painted up jeans and a leather jacket with a Hello Kitty tattoo slapped on it, I thought I'd show you a few pages I did yesterday at the park. You know, for old times sake.

Before It Was Something

There are 3 major ways the sketchiness you see at She Sure is Sketchy becomes marketable art. Usually I do a sketch. I look at it. I put it aside. I think, "meh..." Weeks, months or years later I am woken at 3 am with a sudden knowledge of WHAT IT NEEDS TO BE!

Sometimes I go through my box o'paper (the bane of my mother's existence in my childhood, now a tax asset). I find snibbits of long forgotten sketches in this idea house -- even if it looks like it houses a gerbil. They suddenly speak to me. From nothing - something.

Sometimes, - the best times, I do a sketch and I just know. I know exactly what it will be. I know exactly how it will look. These flamingos are some such sketches. They're the 'OH man, this is gonna be SO good' kind of work I do.

One great thing about this "Oh man I know exactly" process is how funny it is to witness. Even when I'm the only one staring into my full length mirror to my immediate left in my studio. I watch that girl there in the mirror bite her lip and scribble as fast as she can. Sometimes it looks like the page is going to combust. It's like when a little kid tells you an imaginary story. You know the kind. The kind that run off in rambles:

"THEN THE DRAGONS WOULD COME INTO THE GROCERY STORE AND THEN THEY WOULD JUMP ON THE BREAD! "
Genius.

You're staring at them and they're so excited they're half laughing while they speed talk to make sure they get all THESE GREAT IDEAS out of their heads. The brilliance is just coming so fast. These stories make you grin even though they're beyond reason. You love them all the more because they're little bundles of lunacy.

I am often a little bundle of lunacy

SERIOUSLY THOUGH, OH MAN - THIS IS GONNA BE SO GREAT!

Girls! Girls! Girls!

"Friday night and I need a fight
My motorcycle markers, watercolors and a switchblade knife
Handful of grease pencils in my hair feels right"
--motley crew and me

This was my eleventh year sitting court side at Pratt's Annual Draw-A-Thon.
Friday night found me sprinting through Clinton Hill towards Pratt, my fortress of solitude. At this point in my life 12 hours of straight life drawing is about as exciting as Christmas.

Sandra and I have this all-nighter down to a science at this point. Even though it was a "Friday Friday" there was none of this "which seat should I take" crap. We stake. We know the best angles, and the best way to accommodate a night of sitting, standing, aching, breaking. We come like we mean business. We openly resent anyone with less noble intentions, kid with the cowardly lion hair cut, you know I am talking to you. Here are my favorites on white paper.
They're all 30sec-2 minute sketches in Tomboy marker.

This one wouldn't have been a favorite. There's a lot of ish going on in spots, but look at that hand and look at those legs. Yep. Nailed it.

Any of the fun and long drawn out forms happened between 4 and 6 am. They all made my favorites cut. Apparently, when the exhaustion sets in and the giggles kick off I go all Giacometti-- in a sexy way.

After looking at 12 hours worth of 30second to 5 minute drawings, this is my favorite:

I like this one because this girl actually started to fall this pose was so unweighted. I think the drawing captures her off center.

I'll show you some on Kraft later in the week.
I drew some guys too, but you should know now, none of the boys made the cut. You know how I feel about drawing the naked male form.