Kathryn Downing

Friday, October 17, 2008

Not in Kansas Anymore

I barely finished this one in time. In fact, the clear finish is drying as we speak. I had a million ideas floating around in my head and none of them really seemed good enough. Every time I sat down to sketch an idea, I hated the drawing and gave up. We were sitting at Aguila Real eating Mexican food and I just decided to doodle a Sasquatch and this is the result.

I’m really liking the subdued color palette and I got to use my silver paint which had been sitting around for months. At the end, the patterns in the background seemed to start overwhelming Mr. Bigfoot, so I decided to paint over it all with the silver again.

Maybe I just have werewolves on the brain after finishing the Mercy Thompson series, but I had the temptation to add wolf ears to him at the end. Maybe I’ll have to do another one.

Geometric Animism

This is “painting” number two for the Paintpushers show, although I’m not really sure I should call it a painting since it’s digital. This one is a more doodle-based approach. I started by sketching a lot of different shapes and then giving them a little life by adding features and limbs. The end result is way different than what I’ve done in the past, but it was fun to do. The challenge for me is to stop adding details until it loses its simplicity.

I ordered the digital prints of this and “One Lump or Two?” and received them on Monday. They look awesome and I’m really impressed with the quality of the wrapping. The front of the canvasses were wrapped in glassine paper and a piece of cardboard was placed outside the paper. This was all inside a bubble-wrap envelope. Both canvases were shipped in the same box. For once it was nice to not have to wire them for hanging because it was all done (with D-rings and even the little bumper dots on the corners). I’ll definitely be doing more digital prints in the future, but might try paper next time. 

Friday, October 10, 2008

Time Wasters: October

For those of you that know me well, I tend to have an almost obsessive tendency to burn through things that peak my interest. For example, I’ll get a video game and play it non-stop for a weekend until I beat it. I may not play another game for months, but for that weekend I’m glued to the console and am only pried away by pleas to feed my family or some emergency yard cleanup when the dog finally catches the squirrel he’s been after for days. So I thought I’d start a series of blog posts describing how I’ve spent my time being non-productive (but having fun!).

1: World of Warcraft
I had stopped playing for over a year, but for my son’s birthday he asked if he could start playing WOW and I said yes. We set him up with an account and I reactivated mine. I spent a couple of weeks getting my character up to level 70, but it hasn’t been a lot of fun playing when everyone else knows exactly where everything is and what gear to have. It’s hard to get a group going to do quests when everyone else has finished them months ago. So I’ve taken a break for a while, but may start back up again when Wrath of the Lich King comes out. Everyone will be new to the 71-80 content, so I may have a better chance of not feeling like a complete newb.

2: Rock Band 2
I can kind of justify the time I waste on this one because we play together as a family and it’s fun. We usually play a set or two a couple of nights a week. I put the years of violin lessons to use playing guitar, Troy plays bass, and Tobias rocks the microphone. We have the drum set, but none of us have wanted to put in the practice needed to be any good at it, so it sits in the corner and gathers dust.

3: True Blood and the Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries
True Blood is a new series on HBO about vampires. I was a Buffy fan and tend to enjoy watching vampire movies (Dawn Until Dusk, Underworld, etc.), so when I saw the show on HBO OnDemand I decided to give it a try. After watching the first episode, I started watching all the extra features and learned that the series is based on books by Charlaine Harris. I went to the bookstore and got the first book which didn’t take me long to finish. Over the course of a week, I had read through the entire series (8 books) and can’t wait to read the next one which doesn’t come out until May.

The main character of the book is a waitress in a bar named Sookie who can read peoples minds. She lives in modern day society where vampires live out in the open. This is made possible by the Japanese invention of synthetic blood that supposedly fills their nutritional needs and makes it possible for vampires to “live” without feeding on humans. Sookie meets a local vampire who is trying to “mainstream” and live among humans. She’s attracted to him because she can’t read his mind and they eventually fall in love. How sweet, right? Not really. Vampire Bill is a suspect in a series of local murders, and Sookie’s woman-crazy brother is also added to the list of suspects leading her to start using her ability to try and glean from people’s minds who the real murderer is.

Through the course of the books, Sookie gets involved in a series of events and relationships where she learns there’s a lot more out there in the world of the supernatural than just vampires. The books are funny, romantic (a little graphic at points), violent and have a lot of plot twists and turns. The TV show is turning out to be pretty good as well. There are a lot of scenes in the show that aren’t in the book, but I enjoy seeing the extra things that could have been happening but weren’t described in the books. True Blood seems to be following the main plot points, so it’s nice to have some surprises thrown in for those that think they already know what’s going to happen. If any of you are following the show or reading the books, please let me know. Despite my nagging encouragement, Troy’s not interested in the show or the books and I’m looking for someone to discuss it with.

Saturday, October 04, 2008

One Lump or Two?

These monsters are taking a break from destroying Tokyo to have a little tea party. Who doesn’t have time for cupcakes?

This is my first real attempt at drawing with a tablet. I got in a hurry with the little monster portraits on the wall and drew those by hand. Overall, I like the control over the line points by drawing digitally and it’s nice to be able to move things around and re-color them easily. Unfortunately, I have the tendency to keep messing and tweaking and eating up the hours!

This will be printed at 3’x3’ for the upcoming Paintpushers show, but I also thought it fit this week’s Illustration Friday word—sugary. 

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

ARGHHH! - A Monstrous Art Exhbition

The Fitch Gallery in downtown Des Moines, will present “ARGHHH!” an exhibition of paintings by the Paintpushers group. The exhibition will open on October 18 and continue through October 31, 2008.

“ARGHHH!” will feature artistic interpretations of the idea of monsters. Inspiration for the work has come from sources as varied as B movies, mythology, childhood fears, criminals, crypto zoology and world domination.

Fitch Gallery is located at 15th & Walnut in downtown Des Moines. The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 9am until 4pm and Saturday, November 3, from noon until 4pm. An opening reception will be held Saturday, October 25, from 5 until 9pm. Costumes are encouraged. Admission is free. For further information about Fitch Gallery call 515-770-3810.