Programmerart on Karl Schmidt - Strategic Technology Advisor

30 Day Art Challenge: Photography Edition

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 08:00:21 +0000

Vancouver usually has the nicest weather during August, so this year I decided to take a photo a day. I didn’t have any real criteria, just ‘interesting photo’, I guess. This challenge probably had the shortest time commitment per day, but I still tried to find interesting shots to take. Most of them ended up being tuned and filtered using what is built into Instagram.

Below is my month at a glance:

30 Day Art Challenge: 3D Animation Edition

Sat, 13 Sep 2014 17:21:51 +0000

In July this year, I made a short (5-15 second) 3D animation each day. I used Blender, an animation package that I started using a long time ago, but I haven’t really done anything with it since my 3D modelling challenge last year. This was my opportunity to get up to date with the latest version, and do some character animation. I have previously done very little character animation, but always admired how it can make even simple geometry come alive with personality.

30 Day Art Challenge: Architecture Sketches Edition

Thu, 04 Sep 2014 23:10:31 +0000

After a month off from creative challenges in May, June was Architecture Sketches month. Whenever I’ve tried to draw buildings, especially from memory, I was always surprised about all the detail involved. Most of the time I gloss over these kinds of things, so through this challenge I was able to see architecture in a very different, much more detailed way.

This month my lovely wife lent me a nice pen and moleskin notebook to do my sketches in. Each day I took a photograph and published it to Instagram, and from there to Twitter and Facebook. Sometimes I would post late at night (or early the next morning), but I still did one per day.

30 Day Art Challenge: Cartoon Edition

Tue, 02 Sep 2014 22:38:49 +0000

In April this year I did another 30 day art challenge – this time drawing cartoons. I’ve taken life-drawing classes when I was young, but cartoons always seemed daunting. I admire how much character, style and detail can be conveyed with the (often simple) lines and shapes. I can think of many iconic cartoon characters, but don’t know where to being to create one.

So over the course of the month I pushed myself to imitate the styles I admired, as well as to try to come up with my own. Check them out below! All the work was done on plain paper and a pen.

30 Day Art Challenge: Sci-Fi Edition

Mon, 10 Mar 2014 23:49:49 +0000

In January this year I did another 30(31 in this case) day art challenge - this time drawing with the theme of sci-fi. I’m a fan of sci-fi media, and have always admired the art created in that genre.

Many of my 2013 art challenges were still-life drawings, and for 2014 I wanted to push myself to create things more from my imagination, for better or for worse. I ended up with some pieces purely from imagination, others based on a ‘how-to do sci-fi art’ book my wife bought me, and a few inspired by some concept art I found on pinterest.

Programmer Art Society6 store

Tue, 08 Oct 2013 20:10:52 +0000

I was inspired by my recent art challenges to try an experiment: make some art and put it online for sale. I actually hadn’t done any pixel art before, and have done Yoga a number of times, so I decided to combine the two and make some pixel art yoga poses. I put them on a site called Society6 that handles printing them in all kinds of formats. You can check out my store on that site here.

30 Day Art Challenge: Blender Edition

Sun, 06 Oct 2013 11:21:56 +0000

Last month (September) I did another 30 day art challenge - this time making 3D models daily with Blender. I have a long history with this software - I used it a lot in high school (now over ten years ago..) but not much recently. It has also gained 3D sculpting features which I have been meaning to try out, since I have no experience with that at all.

I started out thinking I could make some assets that could later be used for a project - but as the month went on, I didn’t really have any solid ideas for what those assets could be or should look like. So I continued making models of random stuff. I ended up making quite a few things ‘from my imagination’, something I didn’t do with my first three art challenges.

30 Day Sketching Challenge: iPad Edition (Part 2)

Sat, 03 Aug 2013 09:19:27 +0000

So I haven’t written an article since my last art post - it’s been a busy two weeks! But I still managed to do some iPad art every single day, and here it is:

I’m going to be taking an art break for some (or all) of August, although it’s two days in and it feels a little strange not to draw something every day. I must have formed a habit!

30 Day Sketching Challenge: iPad Edition (Part 1)

Thu, 18 Jul 2013 00:13:40 +0000

I mentioned last month that for all of July I would be doing daily sketches on my iPad (1st gen!) with a capacitive stylus. I’ve been using two different ones so far, mostly the Wacom Bamboo iPad stylus, but also a $2 (12-15x cheaper than the wacom…) stylus/ballpoint pen combo that I bought from a Japanese dollar store. It really isn’t bad at all, and is a steal at $2. (CAD)

30 Day Sketching Challenge: Wacom Tablet Edition

Wed, 03 Jul 2013 08:47:23 +0000

Last month I completed my first 30 day sketching challenge, with nothing but a pen and a pad of paper. This month I did the same challenge, but with the Wacom ‘Bamboo’ tablet that I bought years ago and used only a handful of times. The learning/comfort curve was high enough that I never dedicated time to getting past that - but no more! I spent time every day in June drawing something.

30 day sketching challenge

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 16:05:18 +0000

For a while I’ve been meaning to work on my art skills. I took some art classes in high school, art classes outside of school, and even a university course on sketching, but never really pursued it beyond that. My wife is an artist and I always admire the work she does. I’ve also had the pleasure of working with amazingly talented artists throughout my career so far.

My wife did a 30-day sketching challenge for herself during April, and it was inspiring to see her work every day. I thought it would be a good exercise for myself as well, so I started my own challenge in May. I didn’t miss a single day, although some days the work was rather simplistic. I was just using a simple pen (coincidentally the Google pen I got from Siggraph 2011) and drew still-life from around our home. I’ve arranged all the sketches in chronological order, click to see the full size: