Let me introduce you to a little fella that I'm growing quite fond of. He's so flexible. Well, he's becoming my worst enemy and my biggest help all at the same time. I want to call him Flexo. I've been watching too much Futurama. Anyways, I've been practicing anatomy like crazy. Heads. Hands. Eyes. Torsos. Feet and hands I kinda just want to crawl in a ball and cry when I draw them, they're so difficult, not gonna lie. The old adage goes "a watched pot never boils."  Well...I've been majorly impatient with my progress and I've believe its showing in my work. I now get a mental block even before I want to draw, almost defeated because I see the little details instead of focusing on the major steps. The bottom line is I want to learn traditional art and the fundamentals. This is the only way which I feel that I can succeed. Perhaps I'm putting too much pressure on myself? Damn girl. Relax. So, I've tried taking o...

Sketch Daily: What's been happening since #Inktober I have a 600 page brand new sketchbook . It's big. It's thick. It's long. It's sturdy. It's all mine. Each sheet is 10.75" x 12.5" inches, acid free and the book is a hard cover. Oh yes. Its beautiful. I love it.  I did a few sketches from #Inktober within the first few pages, but I wanted to do a daily sketch-practicing anatomy, animals, cartooning, illustration, fan art...whatever I wanted to do. The point was: keep practicing. Muscle memory. Learn from my mistakes, compare, see the difference with growth within sketchbooks. While I struggle wholeheartedly with drawing hands, I am getting better. I browsed through my Andrew Loomis book and followed through the instructions of shaping the head. Getting a tad bit better. (free download here !) The head and eyeballs are spheres. Draw accordingly, and stop being flat pieces of crap on the paper! Ok. I had to try. A gr...

So, I want to first say thank you all for the love and support that everyone has given me for my first Inktober. This was my first 31 day challenge in using inks and the process has not been easy. What I have learned most of all is that I can level up and accomplish a goal-and Bob Ross was right all along. Happy little trees, happy little accidents. The few times (well, many) that I made a mistake with ink, I found a way to recover. The innate practice served me well and gave me the muscle memory needed to accomplish an even bigger goal I have in mind. I currently have my eyes set on becoming an illustrator one day...practice makes perfect. It's never too late, and chronic pain be damned I will obtain this goal.  I has also connected with other artists and creatives that I look up to. Taking their advice and getting tips along the way are great resources in education and learning skills required to keep up ones artistry. There's a great sense of community within the creative wo...

So for this #bookspine365 I decided to do something a bit different. I wanted to update on the rearrangement of shelves and adding on of shelves/bookcase(s). Currently, I have a wayyyy too many books to keep track of. Hundreds of print. Books stacked on books. Books behind books on the shelf. I hide no shame. The addition of my small art space which I needed close by had to be included on a shelf. This was cool to me, as I needed to reorganize the genres and dust off the spines a bit.  I couldn't even get a full picture of top to bottom, with the additional books. There are books that still remain within the house, unshelved. For right now, going through each book and dusting and ensuring the spines don't crack little by little I can make sure my babies will remain. There is a "proper" way to open a book, especially if you haven't opened it in awhile. I make sure to open them every now and again to freshen the pages. One of my favorites is the Taschen Van Gogh art...

Honestly, I don't even know what the prompt is for today's #Inktober. I just drew whatever I wanted to. Today happened to be a version of self. Afro included. Is anyone as excited as me for Black Panther to arrive on the big screen? omgggg Well, I know I am. And it's gonna be lit.  -brr

Week 2 of Inktober, Still hanging in there.  Day 8 Day 9  Day 10 Day 11  Day12 Day 13 Day 14  This week I worked with pen, Japanese brush ink, colored pencils, roller inks, office pens, and #Tayasui sketches, as well as #ProcreateApp on the iPad. I tried to focus on a "creepy" theme as its Halloween around the corner and every mistake I made, I just rolled with it.  All pics I created were drawn in the comfort of my bed using a portable drafting table. Rather difficult...but I wanted to get the job done. On the days where the #chronicpain levels were too high, I simply used the iPad app and didn't use all the pens and paper. Compression gloves, breaks, and an angle when drawing are a must! Never stop believing in your dreams and keep it up.  -brr A YouTube video of me drawing day 10, the jumping spider via speed lapse is available. Check it out.    Want to support m...

Week one of Inktober and lemme just say...it's been a hell of while since I posted on my blog. Whoa. Just whoa. Anyways...pardon the dust. The cobwebs. The...yeah. I've tried to stay continuous with posting on blogger and it was just beyond difficult with my physical conditions. I will try to make myself more available.  So what is Inktober? It's a drawing initiative with a set of prompts originally started by illustrator Jake Parker. World wide, people use the #inktober hashtag along with #inktober2017 on various social platforms to point and click their way through, connecting with other artists and viewing their work. It's super cool. I didn't have much in the way of colored inks or pens, but did have traditional Japanese brush inks, ballpoints, rollerballs, office pens, gel pens, markers, highlighters, and a few oil based markers. Whatever I had at my arms reach, I just decided to get to work and just proceed to draw.  I watched a...

Day 33-37 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Month Two. So who doesn't like comics, better yet...a post with five pictures of comics? These titles sit on my shelf as days 33 through 37 as I play catch up with this project. Forgive the lateness with updating. Life gets in the way.  So, as a child I never really read comics-only the Archies and stuff like that. Only recently I read the compendium of the Walking Dead because I am so into the TV show I have to know the actual story line as it relates to the writing. Now I am scouring iBooks and other sites that offer free comics that I can read in my downtime. These five here which I am sharing today were only $1.00 via bargain bin box at Barnes & Noble. They're still in a plastic sleeve, extremely crisp with cardboard backing to support comic. I understand many people collect them for their rarity and monetary value,  but these titles are quite common.  In all, nice reads for my ...

Day 31 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. The final day in the first month of the project. Eleven more months to go. Huzzahs are in order.  I adore anthologies. I get a little smorgasbord of some of the best (and sometimes not so great) poems that I adore, and venture into new territory. This beloved copy of mine The Voice That Is Great Within Us explores the genre of American poetry of the 20th century. I'm talking some of the greatest names in the game here: Frost, Ezra Pound, Patricia Low, Robert Kelly, Eliot, Ginsberg, Marianne Moore and so much more. My mass market paperback has yellowed a bit at the edges, but is barely wrinkled. I have several book markers in for my favorites, including An Undefined Tenderness by Joel Oppenheimer, I Am Not Yours by Sara Teasdale and my favorite poem of all time:  I Like My Body When It Is With Your   by E.E. Cummings. i like my body when it is with your body.   It is so q...

Day 30 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Let me be the first to confirm if you don't already know this: SparkNotes can save your college life. So when I took Philosophy 101 and my head started spinning a bit, this book got me through. As I got more into my course, I actually read this copy for fun--- learning about different themes, ideas, and arguments each philosopher had. Each chapter holds a different philosopher, such as Descartes, Aquinas, or Nietzsche and there are a total of 19 chapters with index. Softcover, titled spine, table of contents, 352 pages, ©2005 Spark Educational Publishing.  -brrivera

Day 29 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Comedienne Mo'nique writes a book Skinny Women Are Evil about the viewpoints coming from her life in the world of F.A.T---fabulous and thick, that is. As a comic, she's pure genuis-always witty and balancing on the tetering edge of tragedy with realness to create comedy. She tells stories. She tells truth. She's passionate. She also wears a size 22 and is quite proud of it. I was taken aback about how personal this book was about her life. It's very intimate, but thinking about it, it shouldn't it be? Telling a story of how overweight women are treated in society today and subjected to ridicule will hit quite close to home to anyone that has even been on a diet to even lose five pounds. In her words, "I really wish I didn't have to write this book, but it appears that I have no choice." Keep on mind that the title is not an attack per se, but her view on how she has been treated her ...

Day 28 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. From the nonprofit American Poetry and Literacy Project comes 101 Great American poems . A small trade paperback, it holds 80 pages of hand selected verse spanning from the 19th and 20th century. There are classics such as Poe and The Raven , Whitman and I Hear America Singing and Frost with The Road Not Taken . Wish they had a bit more Teasdale thrown in, but this is such a small book. Only costs $1.50 too if you can believe it for such great works to thumb through. Cover design by Pete Donahue, with the the cover photo of none other than Robert Frost in 1941. ©1998 Dover introduction, half title page, acknowledgements. Soft glossy cover.  -brrivera

Day 26 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Tears for Water is an assortment of journal collections, poems, thoughts, and observations written by classically trained musician Alicia Keys. Most notably to address is that while she commands such a strong stage presence, this book was written without the intention of ever sharing with others, not even her confidants. Some thoughts are too personal, some too sacred. It is without hesitation that we keep these memories and emotions a part from everything and everyone we know, journaling just within reach in ink and pen but not published. I am quite surprised with the finished product of the book for some go beyond basic lyric of end rhyme and catchy phrase and enter true poetry, such as Beckoning Green . Credits include Songs in A minor, and The Diary of Alicia Keys.  My copy is in excellent condition. Acid free paper, slight to none bookish smell. Red cardboard book once dust jacket is removed...

Day 25 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. They call her Lady Day. She was the best there was in the jazz vocalist genre. You could hear the pain in her voice and the roughness in her throat yet it was beautiful and so real. Don't Explain A Song of Billie Holiday by Alexis De Veaux is a gorgeous first edition title on my shelf. It's an older copy, via 1980 rich with illustrations and black and white photographs of the singer sprinkled throughout the book. Its contents read almost as poetry, with stanzas created to define the bio of what was Holiday's life. Line by line, jazz influences are inserted or influenced, either through language or lyrics, typophaphy, or images. Sheet music dances along the pages and conversations with characters read like a play from ones own scripted life. This is appropriate of the author's background and unique style, as she is a both a poet and a playwright, specifically writing in prose form....

Day  24 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Coco Chanel and composer Igor Stravinsky. Their love affair inspired their art. Their art defined an era.  First time novelist Chris Greenhalgh introduces the title as hot, steamy, and romantic, but the title develops into something far more richer. The setting is 1915 Paris, a time of musical revolution and the reinvention of self. There, Coco becomes much more in this modernization including the classic Chanel  No.5---fighting through old ways and using her designs all while having a deep affair from an exiled man questioning if the relationship can survive at all. If someone wants a pure bio approach to Coco, this book isn't for you. After all, the title sums it pretty nicely: it's all about the affair, the secrets, the passion, the desires and the yearning for what cannot be.  We only delve a little into what Coco truly was on this title, which is quite disappointing. The wom...

Day 23 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. "How do I feel about people who do not understand my poetry? I understand them." ~ Vera Pavlova So, every April is American poetry month. Poetry magazine goes all out in this 2012 issue and delivers a stunning copy of 100 years of poetry to celebrate. We have well known poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Clive James, and Gerald Stern---but other contemporary poets leading back from a century ago. The cover art "Pegasus" (2011) is by Milton Glaser. Poetry magazine is a monthly periodical, and this is Volume 200, Number 1. Poetry magazine, founded by Harriet Monroe in 1912 is the publication of the Poetry Foundation. The soft bound edition is printed via Cadmus Professional Communications, located in the US. Inside the copy lies a half title page, table of contents, index of contributers, promos of related books/authors, backpage(monthly feature of artifacts from the last 100 years of poetr...

Day 22 in  in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf.  I rarely read sci-fi books, but after reading the first few chapters of Alex Detail's Revolution it had me changing my tune. I pick this title up every now and then, in between daily chores around the house and available down times. It's really awesome. You have this child prodigy that saved the earth from aliens so they won't harvest the sun. Ten years later he's no longer this prodigy but still pretty brilliant-and somehow he ended up drugged and on one of Earth's last ships in space to fight yet another war thats heavily under attack. Let's say he's not pleased at all.  The 310 page paperback book is mass market sized, and still in excellent condition. I received this as a complimentary copy via the author on Amazon.com quite a while ago in 2010. The pages are crisp, and there's little to none of that "book smell" present. The half title page has illustrations and...