I declare this day Batman Candy Wednesday! Well, OK, every day ought to be Batman day…

I am perpetually in a DC Comics frame of mind it seems. When I first saw the prompt word, this just somehow meandered into my mind. I can never get enough of Bruce in a half-dressed state in the comics or indeed any medium, and this is how I see him preparing to slip into his Batman persona—as some kind of fiendish and terrifying demon.

It’s been a while since I drew the male figure (makes me want to take up life drawing class again, heh), so I had to refer to those nifty diagrams of the human form in my drawing manuals. I also have little idea on how to draw scar tissue… Heh. Think I was more interested in using different brushes than making accurate textures.

This week’s Illustration Friday topic is grounded.

I spent about 2.5 hours working on this, which I consider very slow. And this despite working very roughly. Originally I had a sketch of Batman holding up traffic lights, one red light and one green light (go figure, Kryptonite!) which would then “ground” Superman. But in the end, I wasn’t too motivated to finish the idea, so I did something simpler with Supergirl instead! :)

First time I’ve ever drawn Kara. I had to model myself to get the reference—I rather like the Wonder Woman-inspired pose.  Also, I pretend the New 52 costume doesn’t exist. Do you like my lame Photoshopped light rays?

Again this was done entirely on Corel Painter 12, but with some colour adjustment in Photoshop. I’m practicing with the oil brushes; I really want to do more blending and glazing techniques. You can see I’ve just begun to experiment there.

You may also have noticed I’ve tweaked a few things with the current layout.

Welcome to 2012! Kickstarting the year I am proposing that I do Illustration Friday every week for the whole of 2012. It’s been a while since I last participated. You can check the tag and see just how long ago it’s been!

So that’s 52 illustrations in one year. Surely that’s not difficult (!).

This week’s topic is highlight.

So, it’s the end of June, and I’m halfway into my Honours project—SCARY THOUGHT. If you don’t know what my project is about, you might want to read this post though my objectives have altered slightly as time’s passed. Now is the perfect time to critically reflect on my progress throughout the first semester. We were given the opportunity to present our process and findings in a quasi-formal verbal and visual (poster) presentation on the 10th and 16th of June. (Well, actually, it made up 75% of our total grade, so it’s a bigger deal than I’m making it out to be.)

Luckily for me I was assigned to the latter date, so that gave me a while to collate my ideas together, following my marathon completion of my artist book for my elective unit. In a nutshell, I formulated a new question/thesis, emphasising the merits of ornament over modernism, excess over restraint, maximalism over minimalism. The difference being a lot of me mixed into the concoction. I turned to critical theory and other texts to validate my arguments, and I believe I was able to confidently and convincingly articulate my ideas on, and more importantly my passion for, this subject.

I’m …

Last month I went up north to the nation’s capital, Canberra (yes, it’s actually not Melbourne, nor Sydney), to see the Masterpieces from Paris – Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and beyond at the National Gallery of Australia. This breakthrough exhibition (it is the first post-impressionist devoted exhibition in Australia) boasts 112 of some of the most famous works of modern art from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, a major museum of 19th-century art. Selected artists no doubt ring a bell with most people: Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat, Pierre Bonnard, Claude Monet, Maurice Denis, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Edouard Vuillard, among others. I’d been really primed for this exhibition months before (I had previously missed the Edgar Degas exhibition, owing to uni commitments, so I truly was determined to make it this time round!), but as I queued up early that Monday morning I tried not to heighten my already great expectations, especially having travelled so far from home. I’m aware of the criticisms that come with these so-called ‘blockbuster’ exhibitions, but where’s the harm in being swept away in the flurry of mystique, tragedy and exoticism that colours these many paintings?