Paske Illustration

Moved!

2011-01-05T09:24:00.001-08:00

I haven't updated in quite some time due to the holidays and recently creating a new website! My blog is now also officially moving here: My New Blog Page My boss Ira was kind enough to help me get everything working and I learned quite a few new tricks with css in the process, so it's all good. So relieved to have everything in wordpress now as it will be super easy for me to keep my galleries updated!

New work to be posted on the new blog soon!

Damia

2010-11-24T13:34:00.000-08:00

I am doing an awesome art trade with my good friend Heather Steele, and she asked me to draw her character Damia. She is going to do a portrait of my dog as a video game character, so I pretty much cannot wait to see that!

Laundromat Art

2010-11-16T13:21:00.001-08:00

Finished up a drawing I did at the laundromat and added some color.

Emily & Trish

2010-11-14T12:15:00.000-08:00

Well I am very excited to show some new work. I just finished a very fun project with a friend of mine, Emily, that I met while volunteering. She commissioned 5 illustrations and a cover for a book she wanted to put together for her girlfriend Trish's birthday. She had some great concepts that coordinated with some poetry that was going to be included, and she gave me creative freedom so it turned out some fun work!

These are the illustrations which were all done with pencil drawings and photoshop.

David. Bowie.

2010-09-18T15:19:00.001-07:00

Fun stuff for the Hallway Show.

Sketchy's

2010-08-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

Drawings from a great Dr. Sketchy's last night! We had 4 inexperienced hot models and they did an amazing job! It was a publishing theme, it was quite fun, and I got some good figure practice out of the deal.

Part 2

2010-08-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

Well it took me more like several days to get these up, but here is the rest of the work from the comic project.

Comic Art

2010-08-25T21:23:00.000-07:00

So I had been working on a comic project in private for a while, collaborating with a writer and lettering guy. Our working relationship has ended now due to differing goals and time constraints but at least I had a good time, parted on good terms, and walked away with some work for my portfolio.

I cannot divulge any details on the plot or characters, but here is some of the work I did, including a few preliminary character sketches. There are also a few partially finished panels here. I will upload more work from this project over the next few days.

I also posted some new stuff to The Hallway Show.

Bjork

2010-08-07T15:04:00.001-07:00

Bjork for the Hallway Show.

Alberta Street Fair 2010

2010-07-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

I finished this poster for the Alberta Street Fair over the weekend and will start posting them around town tomorrow! I'm glad I got to do this poster, it was a lot of fun. Even though graphic design is not my expertise, I don't think it's too shabby for a last minute project! Plus I got to draw fun stuff like a tall bike.

Dr. Sketchy's

2010-07-27T14:18:00.000-07:00

Some artwork from Dr. Sketchy's the other night. 5min-20min poses. The model, Lacey NhicDoom, kicked ass!

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new sketches

2010-07-21T15:26:00.000-07:00

Some sketchbook sketches I colored in a little, and a piece I did for the Hallway Show of Lone Wolf & Cub. I'm also working on a poster for the Alberta Street Fair that I can post in the next week or so!

Gillian Anderson

2010-07-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

I couldn't pass up a Gillian Anderson illustration for this week's Hallway Show. My time-management lately has been awful, working my way back to being productive! Have some sketchbook stuff lying around waiting for some scan + color fun... within the next week I will have new things to share.

Jamython available for purchase!

2010-06-15T21:55:00.000-07:00

So hooray! My artwork is now officially published in a novel Jamython written by Kirsten Laulainen! There are 8 pages of illustrations I did for the book (just fyi I did not do the cover art). I previously posted a preview of the art and some words about my experience working with Kirsten on this project.

I am excited to soon receive my copy of this book and would gladly recommend it based on the excerpts I was able to read as inspiration for the art. "This is not just another vampire story...it is [a] shot to the head. Don't think twice."

You can get your copy through:
Dog Ear Publishing
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

Photoshop Rework

2010-06-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

So I decided to grab an old sketch and use it to practice some Photoshop painting. I normally keep all the pencil line and paint underneath it mostly but for this I'm painting on top of it just to work on a more painterly Photoshop style and experiment with color and brushes/textures.

This piece had been painted in acrylic but I think I kind of killed the fun of the initial sketch. So here's my start for the second attempt!

Holy Divah!

2010-05-17T00:05:00.001-07:00

Celebrating the epic-ness that was~ Dio.

Stumptown Comics Fest

2010-04-24T17:20:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of attending the Stumptown Comics Fest (my first con experience! - it was a good one :) !) today and got to see a lot of amazing work and people all in one place! I went to some of the presentations and was able to get some interesting info out of it, as well as the chance to experience a short Dr. Sketchy's session!

These are the drawings that came out of the 45 minutes, and it felt great to do some figure drawing after a long hiatus from it. I will definitely be investing some money in attending these worshops on a monthly basis (only $10 for 2 hours, not bad right?), but unfortunately I won't be able to afford the special session tomorrow night with Paul Pope DJing and the same model Miss Harvest Moon from the drawings below. Next month though...!

20 minutes

10 minutes

5 minutes

Were-magic

2010-04-07T23:03:00.000-07:00

Just cranked out this quick little sketch and did a little playing in PS. Might do more with it later.

Hello Again

2010-04-05T01:03:00.001-07:00

Pumping out an update here because I've been so MIA lately. Working on a top secret comic project right now, but I can't forget to sketch and paint and say something!

First of all I'd like to make note that the Art in Hand - Portland Project has a fan page up on Facebook here so check it out and become a fan to stay updated. Super excited for that to come together and to enjoy all the festivities at Art Hop in May! (You can check out my piece a few posts back, I did the 10 of Spades...of course my card would have been epic if I had gotten to do the ACE OF SPADES...another time!)

So here I shall now delight with some fancy old sketches, I'm sure eventually to inspire some fully fleshed workings. More to come :)

doodle + sorcerer

2010-02-22T15:54:00.000-08:00

I declare this one done after letting it sit around a while. And a doodle at the top.

Jamython

2010-02-02T09:40:00.000-08:00

Ok time for kind of a giant update post here. I was lucky enough to get a job doing some book illustrations in the fall last year, and the release of the book is due out in spring this year! The book is called Jamython, written by Kirsten Laulainen, and it is anything but a typical vampire story. As you can imagine I was very excited to be involved in creating art for anything vampire related :P and Kirsten was very easy to work with: I think both those factors contributed to some really great illustrations. It really reminded me how rewarding it is to create work that "tells a story" as opposed to just some random shit for fun.

The characters and heroes of this story are a-typical and that makes it all the more interesting. Let's not even bring up the dreaded T-word and celebrate a novel bringing vulnerable social groups to the forefront for once and showing us they are more than capable of contributing relatable, interesting, and real qualities to a fantasy novel.

I'm afraid I will give too much away if I give background info on the context of these images...BUT hopefully they are enticing enough to still be enjoyable...and possibly convince you to buy a copy when it comes out ;)

I think my favorites are the mirror and the last two...but they were all fun to do! And also as far as medium these are all pencil drawings with some tweaking in Photoshop.

If you would like to find out more about Jamython and its release you can check out the Facebook fan page. I will be sure to make mention when it becomes available as well.

Going to end by stealing a quote from the fan page: one of the review comments of the book from a test circle of readers:

"That an anti-heroine could come from the angst of the socially challenged, the alleys of closed-minded culture, and retain individuality, but also weakness: that’s the part that seems real to me. The lack of perfection, the character flaws, and mangled, fucked-up social and family life that each mortal has. Immortality can save your life, but not make it better."

10 of spades

2010-01-29T10:40:00.000-08:00

Finally just finished my piece for Art In Hand Portland Project, and got it in just in time! I also just peeked at my friend Heather Steele's piece and I think she totally blew them all away! We are going to badass up that meet and greet.

Also posting my Hallway Show piece for the week, I had gotten to choose the subject and went with Alison Goldfrapp cause she's pretty great material for a drawing. I think drawing werewolf crotch shorts/bodysuit was the best part.

Rose City Rollers Poster

2010-01-19T16:54:00.000-08:00

So I finally talked my way into being involved with the Rose City Rollers and ended up illustrating their latest poster for the upcoming February bouts! I took an honest stab at doing the graphic design layout myself but they ultimately reworked it. I am happy with the results and so excited to get my hands on some free tickets to go see some RCR kicking ass!

[[For now I am just going to link to the final piece they are using from their facebook fan page, but I will update it once I get a higher res copy of it]]*updated

The Final Version:

Primo Box

2010-01-06T21:33:00.001-08:00

Piece for The Hallway Show this week. Really the choices were endless for Willem Dafoe...but I decided if I was going to be first to post I had to do his drag scene from Boondock Saints. What a gem.

Title 1

2009-12-28T19:20:00.000-08:00

Did some quickie color on this for fun today. Zombie lass.

And this one is a sketch I am working on for a collaborative piece between me and my twin (also named Heather Renee..!) Heather Steele - she is pretty much a digital painting badass. Anyway this is just a fun little piece based on our female gamer opinion about the lack of heroic female character design. So this is just our reversal to the current dynamic seen in the majority of games out there, even though it feels like it's our little inside joke and we're the only ones laughing...but I am not going to settle for Arkham Asylum sexing up Harley-Quinn! Bring me back Batman the Animated Series!

Still has a ways to go, I know that dude on the right is looking pretty lame but he is going to be a hot jungle man by the time I am done(those are going to be some sexy throwing knives tied to his leg). Might be some time before we finish this (we both are doing the Art in Hand Portland Project as well) with other obligations but it will find it's way to awesomeness I promise.

Remember: rabies = zombie apocalypse

2009-12-23T23:34:00.000-08:00

I should have been doing work instead of nitpicking at this drawing but I decided I needed some fun drawing time anyway. This is just a little random drawing I did of a zombie girl, it kind of makes me think cheesy 70s horror in a good way of course(can this really be a bad thing?). When I steal away some time from current work projects and other looming deadlines I am hoping to color her up.

2009-12-23T01:42:00.000-08:00

I thought I would post a work in progress of my painting. It is 5 ft by 3 ft and quite daunting for me as I don't normally paint so large. My Aunt had wanted this piece specifically to match the colors of her living room and I can't wait for her to see it. I still have some work to finish on it and will re-post the final. Also acrylic paint and I are on the outs because of this one...blasted giant painting dries too fast!

2009-12-15T19:44:00.000-08:00

Just going to link to my contribution for the Hallway Show this week, it was George Costanza/Jason Alexander this time. Ahhh, love Seinfeld. I have been working on a giant painting I am doing for my Aunt for Christmas so I will take a photo to post it within the next week when I finish it up.

2009-12-06T18:32:00.000-08:00

Finished this one up today and it is available on my Etsy also! I think I did this drawing wanting to have some crazy organic pile of stuff on her back and it just came out like this. All in all I'm pretty happy with the color and I didn't have to spend an excessive amount of time getting it to this point so I feel like I'm making progress on refining a style.

As a side note, it is extremely cold and windy in Portland! I don't want to go outside!

2009-12-02T20:30:00.000-08:00

Steve Buscemi and Billy Dee Williams drawlings (yes drawlings) for the Hallway Show blog! Fun times.

2009-11-29T09:05:00.000-08:00

Here is my 10 of spades prelim sketch and color rough. I am still trying to decide whether I should work on it in oils (for the good of the auction cause an actual painting will sell better than a digital print I think) or do digital cause damnit, it's easier. I may just paint it and then play with the digital version later on. A little nervous to paint, it's been a while and my oil experience is very limited as I hate all the ventilation hooplah. So wish me luck! Feedback and insults welcome :D jk insults not possible.

On another note, I recently started an etsy store to sell some prints and shall be adding more stuff(including the new pieces I am finishing below) within the next few weeks.

2009-11-27T20:09:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple pieces I am working on right now. The actual sketches are both pretty small but color makes everything more special! Really just trying to practice and work on making better color choices even though I know I like crazy colors that are wrong sometimes. Feel free to leave some thoughts, would appreciate the input. :)

and no I have no idea what I'm doing with these silly labels. one day I'll have enough entries for it to count?

2009-11-23T09:33:00.000-08:00

This is just a little sketch I have lying around. I think soon I am going to throw this into photoshop and do some color practice with it. Will post progress soon!

2009-11-21T01:25:00.000-08:00

I posted these fun little sketches on SYDFO a while back but wanted to add them here as well. This was from the local craft night event I went to with Heather. I used my good old water brush pen and some ink and pencil. Really just playing around with no pressure for it to be awesome!

2009-11-19T09:44:00.000-08:00

Alright I guess I had better get back to posting on here. Moving was total craziness and soon I will be posting some illustration I did for a book along with some other random fun along the way. I think one weekly posting is a good policy but I might have a lot to post in the next few weeks!

For now I just joined the Hallway Show blog, it was a sweet thing some of my fellow classmates started at CCS and I never participated for some dumb reason (probably because I was too absorbed in homework and stressing unnecessarily). BUT NOW, I wanted to get in on the fun and comradery so here's my first contribution for the Fonz.

More posts coming soon! I live in Portland, OR now and I can't wait to have a good meal and some good local brews when I get paid!

2009-05-25T09:33:00.000-07:00

This blog is the best thing I ever saw.

Also posting the work I did for the Somerset Collection bag design competition and the Detroit Zoo Contest. Didn't win or place in them but I had fun coming up with something that fit the bill and was still me.

2009-05-20T10:07:00.000-07:00

Now that graduation and everything is over I'm just going to take my time and do more work on my portfolio. For my reviews one big suggestion I got was to try working with media to really refine my form turning. I know that I love ink work so I will continue to use that but I am going to do some playing with oils a lot this summer as well as trying out some new digital approaches. Drawing is where I'm most comfortable and I'm excited to work with oils and see what I get out of it; plus at least its summer and ventilation won't involve sitting by a cold window like last winter hah.

Anyhow here's another work from senior studio this last semester on an article about female metalheads. I don't know if I'm cool enough to call myself a metalhead but I do listen to a few choice awesome metal bands and you bet I listened the hell out of them while I worked on this. I think this is a good example of a media issue and I am going to probably transfer this drawing and try to tackle it with oils this time.

2009-05-08T12:54:00.001-07:00

oh my god! so happy I found this again. Hell yeah Diamanda Galas.

2009-05-08T11:37:00.000-07:00

Here's a piece from junior year and some recent sketchlings. The painting was about skuld and her sisters the norns of fate. It was really fun and it makes me want to do a whole new version now...perhaps now that I have some time to work on stuff without the stress of fast deadlines.

2009-05-01T17:53:00.000-07:00

So here's some oldies I just wanted to post. Newer stuff is on the way but I just started a move and didn't bring my new archive drive. Did these for fall semester in Object Drawing. It was my way to say wow this assignment of drawing an illuminated object sounds boring...I'm going to make it into something I love instead. They were definitely a nice experience as far as working with digital techniques (used the sketch and photoshop for them) and I think having the drawing figured out well made it easier.

Also it was pretty cool that I was simultaneously taking Diane Voss's class on optics and light reading up on the history of light and scientific theory. And that's where I figured out the titles! Lux and Illumines.

2009-04-21T21:33:00.000-07:00

I still need to learn how to size pictures the way I want...and post youtube video but oh well for now. Here's a nerd post of my World of Warcraft mage, made her 4+ years ago: 80 Troll Mage named Shatner and I totally stole this proto-drake from a 79 alliance druid and it was gold. I may be quitting this game soon because...it just gets monotonous after a while and a bit life-draining. Plus I have to pick up the new sims soon to try out. I must say the graphics in this game have really gotten amazing over the years, they do know how to keep their monster going...

2009-04-20T19:29:00.000-07:00

Here's some more recent work done for sci-fi and fantasy painting with Keith Newton. I just wanted to do my own interpretation of a Poison Ivy-esque botanist alien-humanoid...thing. Painted in acrylic on illustration board. It was a really fun project and I think it was one of my better received pieces.

I still have a lot of other finished work hanging around here to post but with all that's going on with two weeks until graduation it will just have to be slowly posted up here. Oh god I just can't wait until the Friday after this cause I'm going to have a great nerd date with my boyfriend Kyle: dinner and X-Mennnnnnnnnnnnnnn!

2009-04-10T11:20:00.000-07:00

This was an assignment last semester I did for senior studio with Don Kilpatrick. More stuff on the theme of game concept and my idea was for a mythology based villain. I really like the story of Echo especially the tidbit on it in the book House of Leaves because it really comes off so much more creepy. So this is her as the giant monster she became while pining away in her cave- and Don gave me the idea to make tiny people for a sense of scale. It did happen to be at the time he did this piece of Bambi and I think it's really fun to see these little whispers of influence from our instructors.

2009-04-07T21:47:00.001-07:00

Sixteen Horsepower

This band is one of my favorites and I kind of found them by accident. They're classified as alt-country but that's such a broad genre. I had the chance to see them live in Ohio in a tiny bar and it was such a haunting show.

I know they have this religious theme going on pretty seriously and I don't understand why people let that be a barrier with music. Why does listening to klezmer music means you have to be Jewish? My boyfriend's friend sent him a text the other day about how he found this cool new band and then an hour later he texted him to say "oh gross they're christian rock! I can't believe I liked it!" hahaha...as if he literally had to run away and wash himself. Hilarious.

2009-03-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

Here's another piece that kind of went with the previous post. Done for senior studio, was another part of the hunting game concept. Could still use some work and finessing but I'm leaving it alone for the time being.

I used photoshop with a scanned pencil drawing. I did get a comment about the anatomy but I had spent so much time on the drawing before that I was just not about to go back and fix it haha.

This piece and the previous one were really a part of my idea for creating interesting female characters for games that weren't wearing bikini armor/ass-less pants/and the like. I could start a big rant about this but I'm just going to link a really good article on the subject that I agree with on quite a few points. An interview with Sheri Graner Ray

2009-03-29T20:47:00.000-07:00

I guess since I have so much to catch up on and post of previous work + ongoing new work that I'll just throw things in at random.

For this one I used a pencil sketch, made some proportion alterations in photoshop and printed it on the Epson on some nice thicker paper. The line is Dr. PH Martins Concentrated Watercolor and the color is acrylic.

It was submitted to Creative Quarterly and got a merit award in the student Illustration portion. So it's featured in the 14th issue and that's really exciting! http://www.cqjournal.com

2009-03-26T20:07:00.001-07:00

Ok if I'm showing some old work I guess I should also show all the little hand drawings I did. It was kind of my nerdy thing I did and people would have me draw on them and such. I don't know why I just really liked just carrying around my doodle on me and the way certain pens would do a weird bleed with my skin texture. It's kind of funny that I didn't end up tattoo crazy...

Yep. Well damn I sure wouldn't be cool doing this at 23 so I'm glad I chose to have the hand-drawing phase at the right moment...it was also the moment to have green hair and a mohawk. It was worth it.

2009-03-26T18:33:00.000-07:00

So this will be my first blog post ever. I feel a little silly about it, I used to have a livejournal ages ago and it was just horrible because I would write things and then regret what I wrote and delete it, so this time will be different....I will at least post something!

I'm going to type my name Heather Paske here because it makes my blog appear in a google search...well shit isn't that the point of this?

To go the simple route I will start this off by posting my old work from high school! I think it's just a part of my personal history and maybe gives a little insight as to where i started and how my work has evolved.

I basically just did a lot of drawings with ballpoint and pencil. In my art classes my teacher really pushed me to try all kinds of new things, I got a little crazy with the watercolors clearly. Oh man that reminds me that when I took this summer class at the Mt. Clemens Art Center we had to enter work to this contest thing for the show we put on and I won an honorable mention or something for a watercolor I did. There's all these little kids and parents and they announce that it goes to "Head Wound" hahahaha, oh my god it was hilarious. Shit I thought it was a good title...no? Oh emo days.