Amdall Gallery

I am getting really bad about writing on this blog! I am also not really keeping up with my artwork hobby very well. I have a long term goal of sharing at least one blog post per month, which I have been able to keep rolling for over three years! Considering that my last one was towards the beginning of October, I’m definitely just barely eking through with this one. I’ve discussed this in a few previous posts, but we moved to a new state a few months ago. And of course, trying to manage a home search in a crazy real estate market, while navigating COVID-19, has been a challenge. So, we’ve had a lot on our plate. I do really hope once things settle down I can get back to drawing more.

Anyhow, I had an “end of summer” giveaway back in August and I’m finally sharing the resulting artwork. I can’t remember the exact statistics, but as I recall there was similar participation compared to other more recent giveaways. Although it was similar, the number of participants did actually slightly decrease though. That seems to happen when I try doing these too close to each other; there was one in April, so maybe August was a bit too soon. Regardless, it’s always good to see interest in these! This time, the winner decided she wanted a portrait of some recently born puppies. She nicknamed them “The Boo Crew” as they were born right around Halloween.

I’ll follow the typical flow here, sharing the end result, followed by some discussion, then a couple of progression videos.

The Boo Crew was definitely a bit of a challenge! Of course, the most significant thing was simply the fact that these aren’t people. I have less experience with animals, so there is an adjustment there. Also, there were quite a few puppies to capture, seven in all, and each one looked very slightly different in color. So, although I could use the same collection of overall colors, each puppy required different combinations and blending approaches. Despite my efforts there, in the end result the puppies basically look the same to me. I’m not sure my blending efforts actually came through in the final version.

Taking a step back though, at least they do look like dogs. In a broad sense, that is a win. And the fur does look like fur. Small victories, I know. But good things when you don’t have confidence drawing animals. I’m not really sure how I feel about the background though – as is typical, that’s a weakness for me. It’s supposed to be a blanket they’re lying on, but instead just looks like a dark blob. Another win on this drawing – when I sent it to the giveaway winner, she seemed happy with it! That is definitely the most important thing, so I’m happy.

My effort to capture video of the drawing process continues, and I’m still trying to share these to YouTube. It’s a bit more laborious compared to the old .gifs I used to make. But the videos are improving in quality I think, and the process at least is getting easier as I practice. I created two for this one since it was a bit longer than usual (multiple subjects always are). The first video is the fastest I’ve ever done, 16X times normal speed! I also included a slower 3X speed version, in case some people found the former too fast.

An interesting tidbit about this YouTube stuff; I’m actually running out of royalty free music to use for these things. I’ve been leaning heavily on the Free Music Archive. Although they have a ton of music available for free, even for commercial use, a fair amount of it doesn’t really work for my purposes. Hopefully I don’t have to start reusing tracks! I might though, because I sure do love Mid Air Machine.

I have a couple of ideas for my next portrait, but we’ll have to see how quickly I actually get to it!