Gonna be a loooong day tomorrow. And every Tuesday for a while. I got the new jorb, but it's a 9-hour day(!), including lunch, with a hour-long bus ride before it. Aaaaand afterwards I've got my first (ever!) life drawing class. Which should be really good for me in terms of art, but hoo boy am I gonna be wiped out when I get home. So don't expect a post tomorrow, unless I'm really ambitious, which I doubt I'll be.

In any case, here's another page of figure studies. Some good points, some bad. Probably the best thing is improving ability at postures, decent feet for once and better proportions althought here's a lot of work to be done there. There's bad points, but I'll let you lot figure those out.

Well, it looks like the third person has officially ended, starting with this post. And to be honest, it's a bit of a relief. Back when I was LJing a lot, it seemed to just flow without any effort, even though I wasn't posting third person anywhere but this LJ. But now, after having taken such a long break, well...it just doesn't work now. And the third person style demands that it come through naturally. Otherwise, I might as well forget it.

So anyhow, here's a couple more figure studies. I think I'm getting better at them, which is good since I start my figure drawing class on Tuesday. So you can bet my ability with figures is going to change dramatically over the next two months or so (it's a 9-week course, three hours a week), which will help a lot when it comes to actually doing something concrete with my art. And rest assured, you'll be seeing a lot of the stuff coming out of my sketchbooks as I go along.

So basically, Nezumi's been posting in the third person ever since she started this journal. The problem is, this is the only place she's doing it now. And honestly, it gets a bit hard to remember to keep doing it the times she posts here. And she worries a bit whether by now it's gotten a bit annoying, or at least jumped the mouse.

What do you think?

Keep doing it?

Nezumi hasn't posted any pics of herself in a long time, and some of her old friends from back east especially are probably wondering about her current look. So since she got her hair done today, and a bunch of new clothes, she decided to grab a few webcam captures while she was showing Mate her updated look. So, uh, here the are!

Nezumi went through her profile and cleaned up a bit. It's way more minimalist now, but if anyone wants to know about Nezumi they can just ask. It's not like she's got a lot of secrets. Just a saucerful, and that's not much.

Dumped a whole lot of inactive communities and ones that she's just not interested in any more. Nice to get things cleared away. But wow, it's amazing how many of Nezumi's friends, including hardcore LJ-ites, have gone by the wayside and don't publically update their journals at all any more. Now some of them might have defriended Nezumi and are posting privately, but Nezumi wouldn't know about that. Just a bit weird to see her Friends page so empty, except for the FIVE BILLION POSTS EVERY DAY from scans_daily.

But Nezumi digresses.

So Nezumi's life drawing course starts on Tuesday, 3 hour sessions, once a week for 9 weeks. Gonna be a great experience, and to get ready Nezumi's started doing a bit of figure work to figure out how the body works a bit better. She's working with a combination of Burne Hogarth's body forms idea and Andrew Loomis' proportions, but it's still taking a bit of effort to get things right. Here's today's production. 16 studies, not too bad. Gonna shoot for more tomorrow.

Oh, and the two figures on the left of the second image are copied freehand out of Hogarth's book, which is why they look a bit better than the others.

Here, have a naked chick.

Coupla things:

Nezumi's birthday is Tuesday. Much yay. Nezumi likes birthdays, even if she rarely gets made a fuss over, which she'd love.

Nezumi lost her job Tuesday. And she's pretty sure her knees won't allow her to return to PSW work, so it's back to searching for work in other regards.

There's a good chance Nezumi might be going back to college (again!) this fall, this time into an illustration course, to maybe try to become a pro or semi-pro artist. Also to buy time to learn enough French to find a job in this bloody town. More details as they come in.

It's late, so Nezumi'll get to the point. As of today, she's been drawing for two years. Which surprises her as much as anyone. More, even.

So since it wouldn't do to let the day go without posting something, here's an update of an earlier piece Nezumi did as part of the online drawing course she'd mentioned in an earlier entry. She'll be coming back to it again, as a tool to gauge her progress. This one is done entirely freehand with only HB pencil and eraser on sketchbook paper, using only line work and not shading or smudging to get smooth shadows. Nezumi thinks it turned out pretty well.

You don't get anywhere unless you challenge yourself.

Continuing the trend.

Been a few days since Nezumi posted last, so here's the latest out of her, just done tonight. It's one of the exercise from the basic drawing course Nezumi's been picking at over at Wet Canvas, to draw 20 spheres using only lines, rather than shading. Only the most basic of tools: 2B pencil, eraser, newsprint. No ruler or anything to help with the guidelines or perspective lines.

All four have the same point on the upper right as a light source, although the horizon line is very different for all four, making a lot of variation. Nezumi'll be doing way more than the required 20, she thinks, based on the results of these four. There's a lot more development needs to be done here before Nezumi's done with it.

As promised, Nezumi is starting to go through the courses at WetCanvas, and the first thing she was required to do is do a drawing of something she felt was above her current abilities before starting to review the course material. She'll be coming back to this piece a number of times, so here's the first version.

Something new this time, inked lip studies. But not just inked, which wouldn't be all that unusual, since Nezumi's been into ink for a while now. No, this time Nezumi's inked, not with a pen, but a brush. Which is an entirely different kettle of cheese, to say the least.

For the first time she's used a brush seriously, they didn't turn out too bad. Not to mention, she's made a bit of a breakthrough in terms of drawing teeth, especially on the top two. Bottom one not so much, but it's still got it's charm.

In other news, Nezumi's decided that she really needs more training. So based on that, she's decided that come Monday, she's going to be signing up for an evening life drawing class down at the Ottawa School of Art, starting this spring. 27 hours of model drawing, should have a really positive effect on Nezumi's work. She's also going to be taking the online drawing course over at WetCanvas, as well as getting more involved in the forums there and at ConceptArt.org. It all helps, seriously.

Oh, and Nezumi's decided that she's going to draw 100 pair of lips. These are 26-29.

Aaaaaand more of the same. Nezumi's showing some improvement, though, especially over the last rather disappointing effort. More varied angles and attitudes on this one, it's rather satisfying to shake things up this way.

Big disadvantage is Nezumi procrastinates too much, and ends up drawing (and posting) far too late. Should have been in bed already, bleah.

It's been a while since Nezumi's really used this journal for much, and it's time she started getting a little more use out of it. So from now on, this space will be Nezumi's art journal, and will contain a lot of what she's been doing lately. Mostly sketches and such, but hopefully some finished work too. A lot of what goes into Nezumi's deviantART will end up here, but with different words.

So let's get to it, shall we?

So yeah, Nezumi finally caved to the forces of actually owning a current game system for once in her miserable existence and bought a Nintendo DS, promptly getting hooked on Pokemon Diamond. Which is very cool and cute and more or less what you'd expect from Pokemon, and a great way to spend the bus ride to and from work every day.

But today, Nezumi expanded her collection and bought Final Fantasy III. Wow, they don't waste any time getting to the slashbait, do they? Seriously, if Luneth and Arc aren't shagging, then there's something fundamentally wrong with the universe. Seriously.

Also: Art criticism!

A list of cool food-related things today:

• Vietnamese food, yum
• Bubble tea
• Hot Hungarian sausage, in links! It's like pulling teeth to find smoked meats in links in this town, pepperoni is almost unheard of
• Extra old gouda
• Welsh Red Dragon cheese, with grain mustard and ale - cheese that bites back!
• Home-made beef stew, with apple cider. Got a new crock pot last week, a nice big 5 1/2 quart one, and filled it to overflowing with ingredients and let it go for 8 hours. Totally worth the wait.

So yeah, that's the highlights. Add little things like grapes, yogurt and apples that are all nice in themselves, and you've got a lot of yum packed into one day.

Today was a good day for Nezumi, on the whole. It's been a long time, probably close to if not over a year, since she's been able to go downtown purely for pleasure and errands, and not to go see a client. Not to mention, it's been a long while since she's had any particular income to spend on more than just the basics and a few nice things here and there.

But that's changed, of course. Her new job has freed up a lot in her life, and one of those things is weekends. It's so strange to be able to sleep in, and not either have to get up and rush to work, or feel bad because precious time on her one day free is being wasted. To say nothing of actually getting a decent paycheck for a change. Which, incidentally, came in yesterday, which was quite nice to see.

Anyhow, the occasion called for Nezumi's usual bi-weekly trip to the Comic Book Shoppe, and a lovely little geek-out with Toni, who works there. She's great fun, and we always have a talk when we see each other, but Nezumi's been going too early to catch her for the past few weeks. So it was nice to get that interaction. Afterwards, Nezumi treated herself to lunch at a nice Vietnamese place. Vermicelli, meat, salad and spring roll, with taro bubble tea on the side, what a nice way to spend the afternoon!

All that was left after that was trips to the computer shop (more memory!) and the market for some lovely meats and cheeses (extra old gouda and Welsh Red Dragon, yum), and back to Rideau Centre to pick up some pendants to wear with the sweaters she got last week. The gray turtleneck she picked up should look pretty awesome with a nice brown/gold pendant. We'll see on Monday, but Nezumi's got hopes!

Oh, and Nezumi got musics! First time in ages she's actually bought CD's, and finding a closing sale at Music World seemed as good an opportunity as any. So she got the Gold collections (2 discs each) for Rush and Styx, both among Nezumi's favourites, and A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar by Dashboard confessional. All in all, not bad.

Exhausting, running around all afternoon, but a happy exhaustion. The only drawback is that the boyfriend got roped into going to a wedding today, so no fun there. But there's always tomorrow.

Cool and geeky, at the sayme tyme!

Also: LOLpilgrims