Play Make Write Think

Kirby Gone Mad

Drawn by me
Idea & Inspiration taken from this meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1456740-kirby-with-a-knife
(originally seen in the Subtle Asian Traits Facebook group)

I have a complete lack of artistic skills so when I usually draw something, I hate it to no end. Though, this sketch, taken from a meme I have seen where a plushie is holding a knife (original meme is in the caption), makes me laugh to no end. It’s Kirby–the cutest avatar known to man with a knife twice its size. I found it so amusing that I sent the sketch to my friends and family group chats without any context. I know that Kirby is actually pink, but I’m not in my actual home this semester, so my art tools were pretty limited. I had to make do with a purple sharpie when I couldn’t find a pink marker. It might seem like a vampire or devil Kirby now, but to me, it’s just Kirby having a rough time this year.

Sunday Sketch

I’m not the most artistic person, no, I’m not an artistic person. But, this is my best attempt to a “sketch” of a guitar. As you can see it is an outline of a guitar with the ruler as its neck. The inspiration for this sketch is the previous assignment of combophoto where there was a guitar as a bridge. So, I thought it would be cool to incorporate the ruler in a guitar. Also, the ruler has these markings which are on the ruler have a similarity with the frets on the guitar neck.

The name of the sketch is- “No rules”. A ruler sets a sort of perfect straight line, that you wouldn’t get while a free hand drawing, but an artist while drawing would never use a ruler, eh would not use a “rule” to draw a sketch. Similarly, there is not a set definition or set formula for what an artist plays on a guitar. My favorite guitarists are Kurt Cobain and Slash. They never had rules while playing the guitar, going above and beyond while playing it, with solos that gave me goosebumps whenever I had listened to their songs.

Side Quest 5

Drawn by Yono Bulis. Photo taken on iPhone by Yono Bulis.

When I first saw the black clips as a child, I thought they were supposed to be a briefcase, so when I saw it laying on my desk, I knew exactly what to do for this assignment. My drawing skills are pretty terrible, but I tried to show a businessman at a crosswalk with his briefcase – this seems like the perfect example of a briefcase’s ergonomic use, but lo! It is not a briefcase, but a binder clip.

Single Eye Alien

Picture taken by Jiachen Zhang

The first thing that came into my mind was the ring I wear. When I was a child I always had a fantasy that an alien was protecting me from any injury or mishap. The luckiness to have my joyfull childhood had been unbelievable for me who seen many of my peers going through unpleasant times. Yet, for me, I cannot find similar experience in my reminiscence. Therefore, I decided to recreate my alien friend, Momo, into my life with a physical medium, my ring. Since I do not have any talent or training on drawing, I simply replicated Momo’s past appearance from my head with a pen. The colors or details are vacant because they are also missing in my memory, and I would not want to be a blasphemer to my original belief. To me, Momo bacame more than a childhood fantasy, it is more like something that can make me overcome obstacles in my life.

Sunday Sketches

Image: Drawn and taken by me

The Indian Premier League (IPL) is a cricket league hosted in India, with the teams representing cities or states in the country. Although usually held in March/April of the year, it was postponed this year because of the coronavirus pandemic (no surprise there). More than 6 months into the lockdown, the IPL was an extremely welcome source of entertainment for a whole bunch of cricket-crazy Indians. Every night, my family and I watch the 4-hour-long match without fail. I’ve had to adjust my sleep schedule, dinner time, and homework and study timings, but I try not miss the match as far as possible. I enjoy watching cricket in general, but this daily ritual is even more special as it allows me to spend more time with my family, especially my grandparents– which I usually don’t. Since the IPL began a week back, I spend 25% of my waking hours watching that match. So, it’s not surprising that I chose to go with a cricket-themed idea for this post that I’m calling ‘No Cap On Family Time’.

The colours worn by the cricketer in my drawing resemble those of my favourite team– Royal Challengers Bangalore. The Challengers have consistently performed badly over the past 12 years since the first tournament was hosted, and so I get a lot of sympathy, confusion and even ridicule when I tell someone that I’m rooting for them. But, I like that they’re the underdogs– it makes every win extra special.

The Sprite bottle cap is the ball. The idea to use the bottle cap stemmed from the fact that I often (definitely more often than is good for my body) spend these family IPL-watching evenings, drinking Coke or Sprite, and eating ‘Chutney’ sandwich. So, although it appears to be very simple and unoriginal, I thought that the bottle cap seemed appropriate to use in this case.

Time is Up Eggman

“Time is Up Eggman”

Coming up with this idea for my Sunday sketch was absurdly random. I started with trying to find items in my room that would create a picture from a drawing and an object; however, after rummaging through my room for about thirty minutes, I gave up. Late into the night, not even focusing on the side quest, I thought about Sonic the Hedgehog and the new movie from a meme I saw on social media. I then looked up Eggman as an idea for the centerpiece of my sketch. It should be noted that I am terrible at drawing and thinking about creative pictures since I have never focused on doing so before. I started to draw Eggman’s head using the only writing utensil I had that was not just a pen or pencil, a dry erase marker. This drawing took me a large amount of time compared to other people I know, who would draw it better than myself in half the time; however, I was proud of my work. During the sketch, I was not even conceiving the idea of what physical object to combine with my drawing. I wanted to draw my sketch. After I drew, the concept of time came across my mind because I realized I had stayed up too far into the night already. I have two nearly identical watch faces, and with the drawing and my watches, I came up with the title “Time is Up Eggman,” to reference the end of the night for myself and Eggman’s continuous failure to outperform Sonic. Basically, I spent a lot of time into making the eyes of Eggman into watches to represent time and time running out.

Side Quest 5: Sunday Sketches

Due: 9/27

Tag: sq5

This week let's play a game with drawing! Sort of like last week, when you combined two different photos in order to make a new thing, this week you'll combine an actual physical object with something you draw on a sheet of paper -- it's a game that invites you to see the objects in the world around you in a new, more creative manner.

Christoph Niemann is an illustrator, artist, and author whose work regularly appears in the New York Times, the New Yorker, and elsewhere. He’s got a mixed media series that he calls “Sunday Sketches,” in which he takes some object from his surroundings and creates a sketch on the page around it. Some of the best such works he’s included in his book entitled Sunday Sketching.

Some examples from Niemann’s Tumblr:

Headphone Gorilla

Paperclip Beach Chair

Cat Book

Ear Bud Pipe

Avocado Mitt

Toilet Paper Tank

You can see that each of these pieces is an actual three-dimensional tangible object placed into a drawing on paper to transform that object into something new. Niemann then photographs the resulting sketch to create a two-dimensional artifact.

For your fifth side quest assignment, I want you to create your own Sunday sketch in a similar style.

  • Take a picture of your sketch and publish it as a post.
  • Give your post a funny or witty title.
  • Write a paragraph or two in which you explain the process whereby you came up with the idea for your Sunday sketch and the choices you made in realizing that idea as an actual sketch.
  • Include a link back to this prompt and tag it “sq5
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