EDiM 05 - Something hot

I had every intention of trying to get ahead of the challenges by doing them a day in advance but ya, that never happened. After doing three to catch up in one day, I simply got tired and stopped.

Day 5 wasn't a hard challenge but what I'm finding is that most of the drawings are pretty generic in nature so I'm always looking to do something a little more original. With that said, I Googled "things that are hot" to get some inspiration for my sketch.

Other than fire, stove burners, the plethora of hot sauces and the odd skantily clad woman, nothing seemed to jump out at me. But then I remembered a news story the other day that a volcano had erupted off the west coast, 400km to the South-west of Vancouver Island.

Light bulb Moment

Volcano's spew lava. Lava is hot. Very hot. It melts everything in its path. Not having any lava handy at the moment, I hit the Google once again, searching for lava pictures. Mehhh, lava is fascinating but as subject matter for a drawing or artwork it's pretty bland.

Back to the drawing board. Literally. 

I was thinking of drawing a clothes iron but those are too generic. (I told you I'm always looking for something different or unique) For some odd reason I had IRON stuck in m head so I hit the Google for a third and hopefully last time.

As a kid, I got a wood burning kit. If you're not familiar with them, they're an electrical hand-held pencil that burns wood to make designs. The kit I had was pretty basic; 5 pine sheet of paper sized planks with basic design outlines to follow. The burner tip can get up to 900F so ya this thing gets damn hot.

I used this item as the inspiration for day 5 of EDiM. After doing intital sketch in my sketchbook, I was about to start rendering it but a local election took over the t.v airwaves pretty much distracting me for the rest of the night.

A timely blog post by Liz Steel about the challenges of following the challenge had me re-thinking my sketch. She mentioned that feeling obligated to do a sketch rather than just going with it, takes the fun out of the challenge. I agree. Although I'm a relative infant to this sketching thing, I've soon realized that I am more intuitive when it comes to my drawings slash sketches. With that in mind, I scrapped the sketchbook draft and quickly carved out something on my notebook pro. It's not nearly as detailed as I would have liked it to be but I feel it is a much better sketch than my original idea.

What type of artist slash sketcher slash drawer are you? Do you need a subject given to you or do you feel your way through?