Burlesque With Parents

Dr. Sketchy’s burlesque drawing parties have started up again… last month I talked my mom into going with me to the event they were throwing in a bar. (She’s an artist too). She had so much fun that both of my parents wanted to go this month.

Since my dad was planning on bringing his camera and all of its crazy equipment (two bags and a few tripods) I suggested we show up early….they took those words to heart and showed up at my house an hour before the event even started. Both of them carrying major luggage for the drawing class. I usually just grab a sketch pad, some crayola markers and pen and pencil…my mom wanted to paint the figures with watercolors, so she brought a little fold out table, a water bottle for the paints, a few cups for cleaning brushes, etc…and my dad, as I said, brought multiple bags full of photography equipment.
When I said show up early, I was really thinking “we should show up on time.” The events never start on time. I stalled as long as I could but we still ended up showing up a half hour early. Since this is actually inside someone’s home I thought it would be best if we drug our feet a little bit longer, so we walked around outside for a little while, taking photos of the surrounding area.
Dr. Sketchy’s is held in a part of town called “the west bottoms”. It looks horribly dangerous, but it’s not, just filled with empty factories…however, all of the haunted houses are in the west bottoms, so as we were walking around the barren streets were filled with strange howling noises, cackling laughter, and other odd haunted house sounds.

Once the event started everything went smoothly, both parents had a great time…though usually I think nothing of the sexy costumes on the models, but with my parents sitting next to me (in the front row) the scantily clad model suddenly seemed much more ‘scantily clad’. Though having parents there had its own perks… I’ve never investigated the food they have for sale, but my mom was very interested, so she bought me a beer and a margarita for her self, then later we each got a bowl of the butternut squash soup with summer sausage, and a slice of apple pie. It was a bonding experience, food/alcohol, simi-nudity, drawing, photography. My mom has declared she want to go every month.

Here's an example of one of the seemingly innocent costumes...she seems decently covered in clothing, until you find yourself sitting next to your parents drawing the same, seemingly innocent costume:

Graffiti art on one of the buildings outside



Converting Sketchbook Drawing to Computer Art

I’ve always found it hard to keep up with this blog, and a few weeks ago I started a second blog that I have found to be much easier to write about. (Basically that blog is about food, and I’m a very food-centric person, so it seems natural to babble away on that site)….but ever since I’ve been posting on that page, I’ve noticed that I’ve had a lot of viewers on this one, which makes me feel bad since I haven’t updated it in months (I think it’s been months, haha).
So here you go… lately I’ve been doing more figure drawing… the one I’ve posted today is of a belly dancer that I’m in the process of turning into vector art. I sketched the woman using a pencil and paper, and now I’m using that drawing as the draft and recreating it on the computer…once I have it completely drawn on the computer, she will be easy to manipulate (I can change up the background, change the colors of the dancer and her clothing, etc.)

---- hmmm, blogger.com doesn't seem to like my computerized version of the dancer... their warping her proportions:(

Etsy

I'm finally setting up an etsy account... I'm a little nervous about the name I've chosen, Urban Zingara (zingara is another word for gypsy). Two months ago I set up a site with the name GyspyHeart, but when trying to develop the logo and what not I realized I had mistyped "Gypsy"...go figure in the two months I stalled someone else took my name *ahem* with the correct spelling. But I like the name Urban Zingara much better, I'm just worried that "zingara" might not be easy to remember.  I guess time will tell.
So the new site is www.UrbanZangara.etsy.com or http://www.etsy.com/shop/urbanzingara
Though I probably wont post anything for sale for about a month...I've still gotta set up my paypal account and research all the do's and don’ts first. But it's exciting, I'm moving forward!!!

Gosh Darn Stars

I’m still working on the star veil that I started a couple weeks ago….I can sense what I want, but I cant seem to create it… I want to capture the feeling I get when looking at art nouveau designs… something a little romantic, a little moody, idealistic, and iconic… just simply a blanket of stars. A friend suggested just jumping in with both feet, but I don’t feel good about starting until I can at the very least map out an idea of my “feeling”…but I think I’m getting closer, I’m much happier with these layouts than the ones I started with….


In the mean time, I snagged some car magnet material from work (from jobs that needed to be reprinted for some reason or another), and I’ve been scheming ideas for giant refrigerator magnets….my first instinct was very girly: flowers, bamboo, etc… then I started thinking of childlike images like monsters and robots… we shall see.

Simple update

This week I’ve been working on a dance veil covered in stars. I thought it would look cool to have a dancer twirling in a blanket of stars. Simple enough… but as I started mapping out sketches I quickly realized that because this is such a simple idea it can go wrong very easily… I’ve been playing with simple grids, different arrays of randomness, having the stars go from big in the center to small on the edges, and visa versa…I tried so many different arrangements that I actually started dreaming about them! But I think I’ve got it figured out, now for the daunting task of putting those plans into action.

Dance Veil

In American belly dancing it is common to dance with large yardages of fabric.... it is thought to be "middle eastern" but it actually isn't. America has greatly altered belly dancing through the years (or in kinder terms, put a modern spin on an ancient dance form). One of the alterations we have made was the idea to dance with a veil (aka: large yardages of fabric)... it was an American woman with a slouching problem, that studied under a ballerina who got the brilliant idea that if the woman had to hold the corners of a veil in the air as she entered the room it would force her to walk in with a bold/graceful/commanding presence. Many took a liking to the veil and it has become a part of belly dancing all across the nation. Unfortunately all these veils that people use are rather simple, with solid colors, maybe a subtle pattern.
In effort to dwindle down my art supplies I thought I would design some dancing veils that are a little more conceptual.... the photo above is a crude shot at my first of the series... but I think it will look awesome floating through the air as the dancer spins and twists the fabric... and I made the center more calm because the center of the fabric is most visible when the dancer holds the fabric still against her body as a screen with the silhouette of her body dancing behind it.  Can you picture it?

Time to clean out the art studio!

I've started a new mission called "use up all my art supplies".... for a while I was just tossing the excess (keeping the good stuff, of course)... but I hate wasting perfectly good supplies, and I'm tired of storing so much, so I've decided to set up an Etsy account and start making crafts I can sell online. The photo above was my weekend craft :)