Nature's Janitor 1 and 2

After I finished drawing China I was starting to get a little bored with black pen and pencil so I borrowed some of Kaylin's coloured felt markers and went to work in colour. At first the thought of using more than one colour to draw something seemed so beyond me, so I stuck to the mono.



This is my first attempt at drawing a vulture. As you can see, the acceptably realistic vulture head is perched upon a large egg shaped object with something attached to it.

I sourced the vulture from a magazine that Kaylin had taken home from her parent's house. The picture of the vulture had a black background and was really dark. As such, I couldn't really tell what the hell the vulture's body was supposed to look like. The result was at most generously mixed. Looking back I suppose it's my first attempt at drawing something straight from my imagination.

So little was I impressed by it that I decided have another go at drawing and imagining what a vulture's body looks like.



This one looks like it's on a balloon.

Blake Betteridge 2007

China From a Warehouse

China From a Warehouse
Originally uploaded by art progress

Around the time that I drew this picture I had just started a part time job selling booze in the New City Liquor Box. For those of you not familiar with Edmonton, New City is a bar basically at the center of the city on 100th St and Jasper. The job in the tiny liquor store gave me plenty of time to sit and do nothing and I selectively used that time to draw.

This is a picture of China from the inside of an abandoned warehouse. I found the picture from an old Time magazine which is no doubt still in the Liquor Box. At the time I was absolutely desperate for some source material that wasn't an animal.

Some of the drawing is missing a bunch of lines (the part at the bottom) cause at some point I decided to close up shop and move on. China looks really smoggy. Gulp.

Blake Betteridge 2007

Elephant on Pedestal two

Elephant on Pedestal two
Originally uploaded by art progress

Painting number two.

I thought the first painting I did looked lonely, so I painted it a friend to hang with. It's my second painting and lemmie tell you... I am in no way in love with watercolour, but at the same time I'm pretty happy with how these two turned out.

I'm off to the store to buy some oil paint.

I finished this painting this morning and worked on it for the last three days or so.

Blake Betteridge

Mr. Harper, meet Mr. Anonymous Soilder

Mr. Harper, meet Mr. Anonymous Soilder
Originally uploaded by art progress

I have a really deep respect for soldiers and am really fascinated by them. They sign up and blindly follow their orders putting their lives on the line while leaving their families for forevers at a time. I found this picture of our beloved Prime Minister shaking hands with one such proud solider. I thought it was a nice moment as you can see the respect that Mr. Harper has for this man in his eyes and expression. I didn't try to make Stephen Harper look any fatter than he actually looked that day, although I accidentally made him look taller in relation to the solider.

When I show people this picture the most common reaction is... "Oh, that really does look like Stephen Harper!" The anonymous solider apparently just looks anonymous, but I think I like him better than the other guy.

Pencil on paper.

Blake Betteridge.

Baseball Cards

Baseball Cards
Originally uploaded by art progress

I found a picture of another artist's rendering of baseball cards for a magazine story about baseball. I copied it not because I really love baseball or anything, but as an exercise. I wanted to see if I could draw people and have them look like people.

I spent a really really long time on this one. The cards are made up of really light pencil strokes. It was my first experiment filling every empty space I could with concentric lines. I like the way it turned out. Oh snap, they look like people.

This drawing is pencil on paper. I learned from this drawing that when you use as much lead as I did on a drawing it will get all smudged around and get on the back of it's preceding page. That's okay though.

I drew this from April 15th, 2007 to April 29th, 2007.

Blake Betteridge.

Underwater Fish

Underwater Fish
Originally uploaded by art progress

This picture took me forever to draw. It started out as one fish, but I accidentally drew the eyes and other facial features too far to the left. To fix it I decided to make it two fish with the front fish being transparent. To accomplish this I first drew the front fish and then copied every detail pushing the details to the right. It was really hard because there was a lot of overlapping.

I meant to draw more reeds behind the fish, but didn't really get around to it. You can imagine that if I had it would have been a more complete picture. I like the log I drew.

This was one of the first pictures I drew where began to imagine a life in the visual arts for myself.

It's ink on paper. I drew it April 14th, 2007.

Blake Betteridge.

Wildebeest and Giraffes

Wildebeest and Giraffes

I drew this picture attempting to capture a complete scene (my first attempt). Both the giraffes and wildebeest are sourced from the ever relible thrift store animal box.

With this drawing I was, for the first time, able to capture some sort of depth.

With it's dipped neck and bent legs the larger giraffe looks like it's in motion, while the wildebeest looks still and stoic.

I drew this picture April 9th, 2007. I drew it with ink.

Blake Betteridge.

Fox

Fox

This is the second picture in my sketch book. Like Duck and Pelicans it's also sourced from Kaylin's thrift shop animal cards. This is the first drawing where I used little pen strokes to work out large features, like the texture in the fox's fur. I remember it took a long time to do, but it's at least partically true to the fox's hair pattern.

When I finished the drawing I added a speach ballon saying "I'm supposed to look like a fox!" which I suppose it does, I was just worried people would see it as a dog (or maybe a dog-cat). Foxes seem like really catty dogs to me anyway.

I used an ink pen for this drawing.

Blake Betteridge.

Pelicans and Duck

Duck and Pelicans

Hey,

This is one of my first drawings. I think it's maybe my third drawing. The first two are tucked away somewhere in one of Kaylin's journals. It's from April 5th, 2007 and it's the first drawing I drew in my sketch book.

I sourced the birds from a set of animal cards Kaylin found at a thrift store. I meant to finish the scene, but inevitably left it as is (as regrettably became a running theme among my first set of drawings). One of the pelicans has a really sinister look on it's face which I really enjoy. The duck has a bit of a shadow under it but the swans don't... oh well, they look like pelicans and a duck: mission accomplished.

I drew this picture with and number 2 pencil.

Blake Betteridge.

Elephant on Pedestal

Elephant on Pedestal
Originally uploaded by art progress

When I was growing up, I didn't think much of art. Even when I started playing and writing music in bands, I didn't really connect the two ideas (music as art). As I developed as a musician, and unintentionally as an artist, my appreciation for the arts grew.

Kaylin's influence is huge. She helped and inspired me to take my first steps to become an artist, an occupation that I now consider my calling to life.

This is my first painting. For me, it's monumental. For the last 6 months or so I've been busy training my eyes and hands while working towards developing a personal style by making mostly ink and pencil drawings. I've pined for this moment for months and I've finally made it! I've become a painter, and an artist!

The point of this blog is to illustrate my journey to artist-dom. It will chronicle my last six months or so of work. Over the next days, weeks and months I will be updating this blog with the work I put in to achieve this modest, yet hugely personally important watercolour.

Welcome,
Blake Betteridge.