Back to sketching!

Second Cup Sketch, 4 1/8″ x 5 3/4″, Ru Journal.

Okay, so… today, I promised myself that I wouldn’t avoid my sketchbook any longer. I’ve been making WAY too many excuses not to sit down and draw something.

This sketchbook that I bought (well, it’s really meant as a journal) back in March, I’ve only filled up three pages over the past few months. Sad ain’t it? But starting today, I’ll be sketching out like crazy! Even if I can’t think of anything to draw, I will draw something!

The Ru Journal is by Xonex, it’s an A6 Blank Journal, 4 1/8″ x 5 3/4″, embossed Italian Paper, Latex infused for durability, 128 acid-free pages, elastic closure, and hidden storage pouch. I bought it at Chapters for around $10.00 CDN. It may not be a Moleskine, but I find it to be just as good for sketching. I also have another Ru Journal which I use for keeping notes. Highly Recommended! =)

I’m back!

I know I haven’t written for awhile… been awfully busy.  Our vacation in Calgary was really awesome, I wish I never had to leave. I didn’t get the chance to do any drawings though.  Which sorta is a bummer because I brought almost all my art supplies with me to Calgary, and then I had to bring them back with me to Rankin. *sigh.  Oh well.  But I had fun though.  I got to go out and do the things that I can’t do in Rankin.  Like eating Pho, BubbleTea, and Dimsum. haha I love food. I got to shop in Sephora and H&M too… and many other things.  I wish I was there a little longer because there’s still a lot of things I want to do over there.

I can’t believe how fast Calgary is growing.  It’s so huge now, lots of overpasses and new condos, new shopping centers… new “you name it”… it’s non-stop growth over there. Weather was quite cold but no need for a jacket but It did snow on the day before we left. It was so beautiful! I took a picture of it outside from our porch door. It lasted about a day and melted. haha. Calgary is like that, weather is so unpredictable. Rankin, however, the snow is just starting to melt… not very pretty, however… very muddy and lots of puddles everywhere. We practically have our own little moat outside of our house from all the snow that melted.  haha.

I’m going to try and get back to drawing again now that I’m settled back in Rankin. So keep tuned!

Home, at last.

Still-life, Watercolor.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I’m still recovering from a very long flight from Rankin to Calgary. Our flight got canceled on Monday because of the blizzard.

We moved our flight to Tuesday afternoon and arrived in Calgary early Wednesday Morning. It was such a super long flight, way too many stops. It wasn’t fun at all. I felt really sick when we arrived in Calgary. I’m feeling better now though. I’m just really glad to be on the ground and at home in Alberta.

I can’t believe how fast Calgary has grown. I’m so amazed by the city, just as if though I’ve seen it for the first time.  There are so many cars and condos everywhere… new roads, new buildings. I don’t even recognize it anymore. I’m still trying to adjust from coming from the North to living in the city. Everything is new to me. I couldn’t even figure out how to use a vending machine for crying out loud. haha. I think I’ve been away for far too long.

For the past few days, I’ve been going around the city, doing a bit of shopping here and there. Prices are so much cheaper here than in the North. haha. I went to Ikea for the first time today. That place is HUGE! I got too overwhelmed. haha. They had showrooms and arrows on the floor pointing you where to go. I felt like I was in a tour guide ’cause everyone was going the same way. haha. It was pretty fun. I didn’t buy any furniture though, I just bought a green bowl and two tea cups.

I haven’t had a chance to do any drawings yet since I arrived on Wednesday. I will probably start doing some tomorrow. =) The still-life above was done around December. I was testing out the Winsor Newtown Watercolor pan set I bought on Ebay. haha. I love Ebay.

High on Copic Markers

Okay, I decided to put up the drawing that I did with the Copic Markers.

I know it’s not the best drawing I ever done, but I’m pretty darn proud of it.

Traveller, 11″x14″ Marker Paper

I mainly drew this to test out the Copic Markers that I purchased, so I wasn’t really thinking about making the drawing really “perfect”. Blending was a bit difficult at first. I had to save certain areas with pencil crayon. Plus, I ended up covering up her legs with mesh stockings because I didn’t blend her skin color very well. But I think overall, it worked out pretty well.

As for the suitcase, I wanted it to represent all the places that I have lived or traveled to. So I drew up some stickers on the suitcase to symbolize that. Here’s a close up:

(Click to Enlarge)

I won’t go on too much detail about the flags but the flag on the top, which has a whole bunch of question marks on it, is suppose to represent a country or a place that I might go to in the future. Maybe Japan? haha who knows. I also used white ink to do the highlights and white gouche for the seam on the suitcase.

My brother wants this drawing so I’m giving this to him when I arrive in Calgary. But I know that with practice, I’ll get better in coloring with these Copic Markers. =)

One more week and I’ll be in Calgary.

I almost went blind taking this picture, the sun was so bright!

Took it on the way home, a few days ago.

Weather in Rankin has been pretty crazy lately. There’s another blizzard going on right now and I think it will last till Wednesday.

Blizzards aren’t so bad really, but they can get pretty scary. My co-worker and I got stuck out in a blizzard once, it wasn’t fun. But we laugh about it now. haha.

I’ll be in Calgary exactly in one week, enjoying the weather there. I’m so excited to finally go home for a while and just relax. Not thinking about blizzards or power outages. I plan on doing a lot of drawings while on vacation (oh and shopping, of course). I’m bringing my sketchbook, art supplies… and yes, my Copic markers with me too. Speaking of Copics, I wanted to post up the Copic drawing that I promised. But unfortunately, it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. *crying*. I’m still not very good with them. Not only that, I drew the drawing on the wrong side of the marker paper (who would have thought there was a wrong side?). So the colors came out pretty oily and streaky when blending. I had to save certain areas by drawing over with Pencil Crayon to kinda hide the mistakes. Plus, the body proportion was pretty bad. *Sigh. I’m in the process of re-drawing it in a different style and on the right side of the paper this time. lol. I will post both drawings on my next entry so you can see the difference.

Look what I found…

Look at what I found…

I was going through my boxes the other day and I happened to find an old sketchbook of mine that I barely used. I flipped through the pages and found this.

Pencil, 22.9 x 30.5cm multi-purpose Manila Paper

I can’t believe I totally forgot I drew this! I must have drawn this around the summer of 2006. The model is from one of the Glamour magazine pages. I don’t know why but I always practice with the photos from the Glamour magazines. haha. I also found this on another sketchbook.

Ink, Self-portrait 11″ x 14″

A self-portrait of me. haha! I must’ve done this really quick ’cause I wasn’t too concern on how my hands were drawn. haha. I think I did this some time in 2005 when I was living in Goosebay. It so fun to look back at old drawings especially the ones you forgot you did. haha.

At the moment, I’m working on a drawing using Copic Markers and Prismacolor Pencils. It’s going pretty well, I’m 80% done. I’ll try and get the 20% done some time today. haha. I’ll post it tomorrow if I’m done by then. =)

As I mentioned on my last post, I’ll be going on vacation real soon.  We’ll be leaving Rankin on March 10th and won’t be back till April 11th.  We are heading off to Calgary and we’ll be staying at our house in Chestermere which is just a town away. I’ve never seen the house since we purchased it last year, I’ve seen pictures, but never been inside. My brother has been living there since he moved back in July. So I’m pretty excited to see the house for the first time and get to see my brother too. haha. It’s funny we always go to Calgary for vacation, never Hawaii, New York, or Paris. haha Oh well. I can’t wait.

Power Outage.

On Wednesday, we had a major power outage. The whole town was under State of Emergency after three out of four diesel electricity generators shutdown. It was pretty scary because with no power, our pipes could freeze and burst. So we had to keep a bit of water running. I read that about 70 homes, 10 per cent of Rankin’s Houses, were frozen solid even until now. Good thing we left the taps running.

What happened was that one of the four generators shutdown (around the 18th of Feb) and two of the generators ended up catching on fire that Wednesday. So the whole town ended up running on one generator.

The guy that was suppose to come and fix the generators was stuck in another town. The Airport there wouldn’t let him on the plane because they wanted the Hockey team go first. Pretty dumb, right? Especially concidering the Hockey Tournament was canceled. He ended up having to wait for the next flight out.

Power was going off and on.  We spent the whole night practically in the dark. But Nunavut Power was able to give us about 4 hours of electricity on Thursday so that we can open up the store from 9:00am - 1:00pm for people to shop and stock up on food. The store was so jammed pack of people that we had to hurry to get everyone’s grocery put through before the 1′oclock deadline. It was pretty insane, I wished I had taken some pictures of it. You can read more about it here. (I know some of the people featured in that article! Goes to show how small the town I live in. haha)

One of the perks without electricity is that during that night we were able to enjoy the lunar eclipse, plus, we also got to see the Northern Lights! It was spectacular.

We have electricity now but we still have to be careful and conserve energy. We are still waiting for new generators to arrive from Edmonton and I heard that it won’t get fixed until next week. Well, that’s just a bit of Rankin Inlet news for ya! =) I’ll be on vacation in exactly two weeks! Hooray!

YAY!!! MY COPIC MARKERS FINALLY ARRIVED IN THE MAIL!!!

I waited almost a month for these. DickBlick ran out of the Copic Marker sets right after I ordered them so I had to wait several weeks till they got some on stock. But my other items arrived a week after my order, which is pretty fast, but a few items got damaged on the way. The ink I ordered exploded everywhere and slightly damaged a few items. I sent an email to Dickblick about it and they were happy enough to replace all of them with no charge. So I got a new bottle of ink, another 50 sheet marker pad and a sharpener in the mail too. Cool eh?

For those who do not know what Copic Markers are, they are a line from Japan and very popular with designers and illustrators (especially Manga artist). They are alcohol based, double-ended (brush nib, broad nib, etc), dries quickly and blends quite smoothly. Also, they are refillable, permanent and non-toxic.

These are my second set, Copic Sketch 72B, my first Copic set was a 36 set of Copic Original Marker that I bought on Ebay for about $140US. I would recommend doing a bit of research before you purchase one of these Copics markers as they are expensive and have different kinds. One single Copic marker can cost $5 - $6 each and sets can start from $100 - $300. Tria Pantone Marker are good too but they are also quite expensive but if you want a cheaper alternative try Prisma Markers.

If you would like more information about Copic Markers check out their main site www.copicmarkers.com. You can also do some research on Youtube.com or deviantart.com for reviews and tutorials. I highly recommend ordering from DickBlick.com if ever you decide ordering art supplies online.

Another Blizzard!!!

Wow, I can’t believe the amount of blizzards we’ve had in one month. This one started yesterday and hasn’t stopped. I heard that it will get even worse tomorrow with winds gusting up to 90 km/h. Insane! We closed the store today at 3:00 because the blizzard was getting worse. Right now the winds are going at 60km/h gusting to 80. I took a picture outside my window this morning.

You can barely see the buildings! Anyways, I just finished a new drawing a few days ago, for practice, mostly. The watercolor tubes are Winsor & Newton that I purchased on Ebay a few months ago (about 51 of em’!). I took several pictures of the drawing at different stages from the initial sketch to the the finished drawing. All done in PrismaColor pencils.

One week Blizzard.

Apologies on the lack of update. I promise I’ll get something up this week.

As some of you may not know, I live way up North in a small town called Rankin Inlet, Nunavut for almost two years. Yes, where the Polar Bears are. We just had our third blizzard this week. The first one started last Wednesday and I believe this one might last till this Friday. It’s pretty insane and extremely cold. The winds can go up to 70km/h and can feel like - 60C.

I live right across work and even if you live close by walking from work to home is a struggle . A five minute walk can feel like twenty minute hike as you try push your way into the wind. You can feel the icy wind go up into your eyes and into your brain. You feel like someone had slapped you a hundred times a minute with an ice pack over your forehead until you don’t feel your face. Sounds brutal doesn’t it?

I have attached some photos of the Blizzard I took yesterday. I just heard that the Blizzards is going to calm down tomorrow and come back again with a “Rage” (as the CBC News calls it) on Thursday. It’s scary though ’cause it’s been more than a week and no flights can come into Rankin, which means that we will not receive any freight or food supplies for the stores until the Blizzard stops. But I think we will be okay. First picture:

This is our front door, good thing we have another door inside ’cause this one can’t even close. Ice has formed all around it and on the floor (I slipped there many times).

Second Picture:

On my way to work, I took this picture. I thought it had a nice affect with the Sun and all. There’s a couple of skidoo’s there in that picture. Skidoo’s are one of the major transport here in the North. I still haven’t had the chance to drive one but maybe in a few months, I’ll get the chance to. I wouldn’t mind trying out dog sledding either. hehe. =)

Third Picture:

This picture, I took after work… about four o’clock. It get dark around three here and since I work during the day, I barely see the sun!

We had to close the store early yesterday because of the blizzard. It’s still pretty bad out still. I’m going to take this chance to do a bit of drawing and read a good book while having a nice hot cup of coffee.