A few days ago, I was looking at a sketchbook that I did between 2004-2006 (my early teenage years) and it wasn't very good haha. I recycled most of the drawings, but some of them were good for a laugh and I thought it would be fun to "upgrade" some of them into a style similar to "Overheard Things". I've only done this one so far, but I'm sure I will do more. I originally did this drawing on April 2, 2005 and re-did it (on the computer) on April 2, 2020. I'm sure if I had to do it again by hand, my skills would not have improved.
Now, there is a lot going on in this picture. In grade 7 or 8, we did caricatures which emphasized big heads and small bodies. So there's that. I also used to watch a lot of I Dream of Jeannie reruns but when I looked up Jeannie's costume, it actually looks nothing like this. So I don't know what happened there.
A lot of the drawings in the sketchbook were negative and featured people crying or some very dark things. Looking back, it was like, "Ah, I see my mental illness right there." So I wanted to make the new image more positive! No more tears!
It's positive, but still weird! First, I went onto pexels.com and searched "goatee" and I found someone right away. Then I used FaceApp to merge the photo with someone that had really big eyes. Merging the photos somehow added a double chin which worked out really well in this case. Later, Pexels emailed me and wanted to know how I used the photo of the man with the goatee. I decided it was best not to reply.
The original drawing was supposed to be wearing a vest (I don't know if you can tell). This was the closest outfit I could find except it was bright orange, so I changed it to suit Jeannie. I also thought it was important to still have the choker and I found one that was pretty similar. The hat and the veil was the hardest part because I'm pretty sure these don't exist together in real life. I found a photo of a pineapple wearing a gold party hat (as one does) and changed it as needed. The veil was the trickiest because usually when someone wears a veil, you can see their face under it and it would be very hard to edit that out and keep just the material. Plus, most veils are white. I found this photo of someone wearing a veil and used the part that is flapping in the wind because it's not on their face. I don't usually like to share my sources if I don't have to, but I don't know how to describe this photo. Then I added a filter in Photoshop and that was about it. This took a few hours but I had a break for lunch. Here's a little side-by-side so that you don't have to keep scrolling back and forth.
Anyway, that was my little project. I will probably do more but I have a video project that I would like to work on as well. Also, if you're looking for your own art project to work on, check out what The Brooklyn Art Library is doing. I just submitted some work for their "Infinite Sketch" project here.
