Jenalle Nordgren's Portfolio

I'm going to post this here so I don't lose it... It's way too valuable a resource to throw in my bottomless pit of bookmarks.
Free Repeating Photoshop Textures
That whole website has a lot of great stuff. Has some pretty good brushes too. The previews look cheesy but the brushes are great for texture if you use them right.

I've finished photographing all of my drawings out of my portfolio. Now I'll never have to drag out those huge newsprint sheets. Here's some of my favorites. I have the first 7 hanging in my apartment. All were done with charcoal, except the last 6 that were graphite (pencil). I sort of grouped them by subject, not exactly chronological, but most of them have dates written on the paper. Click the thumbnails to view larger.
Oh, I should note that these are all observational drawings (not from reference photos) except of course Rembrandt's elephant in slot one and the made-up barn in 2 point perspective at the bottom left.

So for my final project in drawing class, we're to duplicate a drawing done by an art master (Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, you know: any of the turtles) on an 18" x 24" paper using charcoal or graphite. I chose a sketch of an elephant by Rembrandt for mine.

Here's my study. It took me roughly 3 hours, with lots of coffee breaks.
Size: 18x24" or one and a half by two feet. It's huge.

Here's Rembrandt's original done in the year 1637.
Probably much smaller than mine.

So, it's a little off... but pretty damn good if you ask me.

It's coming to the end of the quarter, and I think I've gone really far in my drawing class. I'm doing things that I never thought I could do. These are all done with charcoal. Sorry for the image quality, these were taken with my cell phone. The last one -  the still life with the foot, was done today. I spent 4 hours straight on it, with about a 15 minute break for a bagel. I have one more work to do in this class, due Monday. I will post it up when I am finished with it.
Click any of the images to see it larger.

This was an exercise in positive and negative shapes. Only 2 values were allowed, and we had to draw the branches exactly as we saw them.
2 hours.
This one hangs on the wall in my apartment (mostly because I haven't gotten to bring home my other ones yet, they're hanging in the gallery at school.)
Here is the full size image.

This is an exercise in texture. The 3 objects are a ceramic jug, a felt hat, and a log. We had to "invent" a way of representing the texture. I showed this to my friend and he thought it was a black and white photo of the subject, rather than a drawing, haha!
3 hours.
The top left photo is the full composition, and the other two are detail shots. Here is the full size image.

This is my final studio project. We had to render a still life as we saw it. We had a choice between 3 different platforms, each with about 5 objects on them, and we were to include at least 3 of the objects in our composition. So many choices! I had to have the pear on the pillar-- and feet are one of my weaknesses in drawing, so I thought it would be good practice.
4 hours.
The photo on the top left is the whole comp, and the rest are detail shots. Here is the full size image.

Here's my progress shots:

These are each objects I've found that look like letters of the alphabet. I will add more info about the assignment criteria when I find it.

Here are the individual photos.