Ok, so I cheated.

This isn't really a drawing per se, but I did have some Photoshop fun. This is what's going to turn into the splash page for our wedding website! Too bad TheKnot.com doesn't let us upload our own templates, so we're stuck with a silly default one for all our info. But we wanted to have something theme-related for our guests to see first since we got engaged on the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland. So we're making this and uploading it to Googlepages, with a link to the Knot site.

I scrounged around for a good photo of Big Ben and found this on Flickr:



It's a neat angle and I liked the clouds, but I wanted the shot to more closely resemble the night scene from the movie where the kids and Peter all land on one of the arms. So I threw a bluish-purple layer over it set to Overlay (which happens to be one of the colors for our wedding):



Now the hue is correct, but that sky is way too bright to be a night shot. I went in and adjusted the curves to darken everything up (but kept the clock face relatively light since Big Ben lights up in the evenings):



Next came a little bit of lighting on the face.



I wanted the focus of the picture to be on the tower itself, so I found a photo I'd shot a while back of some clouds, chopped out a piece and covered up the part of the building I didn't want in there.



Lastly... a little fairy dust to add to the magic. :) I've got a Photoshop brush that I'd made a while back that does some nice sparkly effects!



It's nothing too fancy, but I think it'll look nice with a good font and a catchy phrase. Maybe "Think of a Wonderful Thought?"

Refocus

I was mulling over my life (as I often do when Lent rolls around), and decided I needed to try to find some joy in my artwork again. I want to regain the inspiration and excitement I've felt before whenever putting pencil to paper. I feel as though my creativity is such a big part of my life, that to reflect on myself and find it lacking means I need to do some serious overhauling. What good is an animator who has trouble finding the energy or willpower to create?

So on Ash Wednesday I resolved to try to draw something every day for the duration of the season. I started small... I had been perusing James Baxter's website and watched his reel for Enchanted over and over again, marveling at his work. At one point I paused the frame and tried to sketch out the poses of the prince and princess as they sang their duet. I didn't get to the details of the faces and clothes; mainly focused on the gesture. There was something about the contrast of the proud, masculine Edward crooning to his "true love" with the slender femininity of Giselle that caught my eye.

Unfortunately my scanner is packed somewhere amongst all my boxes as I'm moving out of my apartment, so I can't upload the sketch here. I'm pretty rusty anyway so I don't know that I'd want to share it regardless. Here's the frame I was trying to draw:



If you're interested, James Baxter's site is here!