#Inktober Giraffe

So, I'm not going to do ALL of my inktober posts.  You can check out my instagram if you want to see them.  I am, just going to blog my favorites.  Probably.  I make no guarantees.   Though I really should blog more consistently.  I'm working on it.  Be patient.  And if you want more, comment!  It helps motivate me.

So, this is my giraffe before digital coloring, with just ink and some orange col-erase pencil. (it scanned in a bit brigher than real life)  The scan looks much better than the dark grainy picture I snapped with my iPod late at night when I finished it though.

and after digital color and cleanup

 I initially didn't mean to put as bright of a background color behind him and was going to tone it down, but it just didn't look as good.  It works really well with him, and it is now one of my favorites.  He's also up in my zazzle shop as prints and bags and tee-shirts and purses and magnets and pillows and a sketchbook and all.  Ok, shameless plug over.  :)  I really do love zazzle though, they have great coupon codes regularly, they have great quality products and they have amazing customer service.  I am my biggest customer, seriously.  I buy more stuff for me than anybody else does.  lol!  It is just so much easier than when I was trying to make etsy work for me.  I may only make a percentage, but it is waaaaay less work and less risk. 

So, how do you like the background?  Too bright?  Too distracting?  Who knows because your monitor is different than mine?  Comment away, I love to have other insight.  I'm still learning with color...

On the golden section, or when artists get nerdy.

actual Golden Section

Did you know you can get all sorts of nerdy about art?  I mean using ugh, math and all.  I had a class in college that introduced me to the mathematically ideal ratio or the Golden section.  The Fibonacci sequence.  Apparently you can find it in music too, but that is not my forte, so I don't know the first thing about how that works.  I do know you can find it in art.  Leonardo Da Vinci was a big proponent, as was Albrecht Duhrer and you can find it in classical architecture too.  (like the pantheon and stuff..)  And I know there are more, but I'm too lazy to google it right now.

I had an art professor that was pretty enamored of it too, and thus introduced yours truly to the enigma of the golden section.  It was pretty hard to implement though when the only way I had of knowing the ratio was to draw out a fairly complicated geometric drawing.  (I am not describing it here, mostly because I don't know if I remember how to draw it.  It involved a ruler, a compass and a T square.)  A while ago (it was actually waaaaay too long ago to be blogging about it now, don't worry about it!)  I randomly found an obscure site that sold Fibonacci gages that would hold the ratio as you moved it, taking all of the hard work away.  And I had to have one.  I first bought a far too expensive and unexpectedly flimsy one.  After much disappointment I returned it and upon further research I stumbled across an etsy shop that also sold fibonacci gages.  They were smaller, but the owner very sweetly agreed to custom make me a larger one.  Not only did I have a vastly superior and sturdy tool, but it is gorgeous too!

even though its gorgeousness is masked by a grainy picture in poor light..

This is the origin of the 'rule of thirds'.  The rule of thirds is just easier to estimate and describe and thus encoporate.  But really it is just a dummed down version of the Golden Ratio.  Now I just need to incorporate it into my art more.  On purpose instead of accidentally. 

this is an accident.  a happy one of course.