Sketches During Class

This is my professor from U.S. History Until 1879. He's a pretty funny guy who says "man" a lot. At the beginning of every class I update him on findings that I looked up, including the origin of the word yeoman and the current equivalent of Britain's debt from the Seven Year's War. We even high-fived on listing the History channel as our favorite cable channel! Nothing like some validation for being a huge nerd. Regarding his word bubble, there were some technical issues with the projector.

Today I attended a Hiragana calligraphy workshop. A Japanese language professor hosted the short event and I even heard her speak French fluently! Badass.

Watched Professor Steven Goldman's presentation on the significance of Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions and its impact on postmodern thinking, in my Study of History class. Drawing while watching actually helped me retain the dense information better. Will you look at that!

Yeah, here there is more writing than drawing. My handwriting sucks.

What I Would Like to be Wearing Right Now

Tomorrow is Monday, a school day filled with reading due dates and a presentation to make bright and early.  Even though I really enjoy my schoolwork, I'm just itching to work on my art-related side-projects. 

Back to those readings...

On Taking Japanese

 Ideally, I'd like to be able to speak Chinese and Japanese. But since I could, I'm taking Beg. Japanese I at my university. Which is something I've been wanting for, err, 8 years? And I'm finding it really rewarding, so far. I've memorized all hiragana and now I'm venturing into the 3-lettered vowels, which are kind of weird but in a way they make since---practically-speaking. If the Japanese written language was made up real letters and not just phonetic representations they would definitely not have so many exceptions and other sets of alphabets (katakana, for one). But ah well. The part of hiragana history I know is the one in Ancient Heian Japan when hiragana was dismissed as not as 'sophisticated' as Chinese writing by the male nobles; Chinese (I guess kanji?) was basically the equivalent of Latin for intellectuals up until the mid-18th-century in the West. So it was up to the court women to write diaries (The Pillow Book), poems, and novels (Tale of Genji)  in hiragana.
Surprisingly, I've learned a lot of Chinese through my girlfriend (who is from Singapore). I have a pretty good knack for languages...If I have another sly opportunity to take a language class I will definitely tackle Chinese.  

Anyways, if any of you have taken Japanese, what strategies do you suggest to use for learning more efficiently?
  

Dr. Who on Planet Amaranthine Fan Art

Anyone else watch Dr. Who?

Planet Amaranthine is not a place on the show but a planet I invented where its vast oceans are made up of a liquid metal in my sci-fi story.

 

Cloudy

How appropriate to create a cloudy piece on such a cloudy day as today? I'm working on coloring three moody Dr. Who-related drawings. I'll post them up complete soon!

Doodling Around

And I'm also thinking about chai tea lattes and how awesome it's going to be drinking it during this chilly season.  yum yuuum~

formspring.me

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/JGV ! ! 

Immortality and the Witch

On This Rainy Day

click to full view! 

It's a comfortable 60 degrees outside and it has rained all day! And at the moment, I'm listening to Flamenco music and drinking green tea. I took a break from working on a children's book project to paint this. She's a grumpy but powerful witch and found a way to make herself a demi-god... until someone stole that power from her. So here, after many adventures in the desert being forced to help a kingdom at war, she finally has those powers in her hands. However, for the first time shes hesitating on regaining them.

Flower Girl

This was suppose to be a 30 minute sketch but I was having too much fun to stop....

Travelling Band

^Click to full view! ^

Daine

 Details:

 It's Daine from Tamora Pierce's The Immortals series!
I don't ever make fanart, but I'm all giddy from re-reading all the way up to the middle of the fourth (and last) book of the awesome young adult fantasy series. I didn't use any references so I guess that's why her face looks disturbingly wobbly. (Her mouth was the most troublesome to paint). The next piece I paint I'll definitely use references photos.

I thought I would pace myself and read one of these books a month but I've devoured them all four in just a couple of days. Although I already read them in high school, I fortunately forgot most of the story so I got all excited, starry-eyed and, frankly, invigorated, again. I've felt so mushy and lackluster this year but reading sweet sweet fantasy novels has inspired once more with fresh energy.
Thank you, Mrs. Pierce!

(I can't imagine how utterly amazing it would be if I could illustrate her novels into a comic series. Gah, life surely can't be that amazing, right? I'll keep dreaming...)

 ((And yes, I thouroughly took advantage of this "new" pressure sensitivity tool my digital pen has. It's nothing but godly.))

Oh My Goddess!

My girlfriend just enabled pressure sensitivity on my pen and tablet--something I didn't know my pen could do that! Oh all those years of trying to achieve that effect manually!
Now I will definitely take advantage of this "new" tool. Yay!

Sketches of Loved Ones (except for the dragon)