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Thursday, December 31, 2015

Hot Tip for Scanning Your Art: Lock the Cat Out

Every so often I sit down and scan my scribblings from my sketchbook.

Scans give me better images for my blog.  But they also provide me with a back-up for my art just in case disaster strikes at the house.

Filled with the Christmas spirit of charity and giving, my cat Tim decided to help out while I scanned the other day.

Filled with the Christmas spirit of charity and giving, I allowed my cat Tim to keep helping out while I scanned the other day.

The results were hilarious.

In the middle of deleting them all, I stopped.  Really, what more authentic memento, not only of my art, but of the art-keeping process, could I have than at least one wonderful photo of this new form of collaborative feline-human art?

I give you "Tim, with Robot."


Tim does not have seven feet, just fyi.  He moved as the scanner did, and it just kept capturing him...

Happy holidays and New Year to everyone.  May your scribbling be joyous in 2016.



Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Creating A Coloring Book from Scribbles

For fun, I created a very simply coloring book for some of my family members from several of my recent scribbles.

For the last several weeks or so, I've scribbled a lot of quick pen and ink pieces as I've studied paintings and drawings by Van Gogh.  I'm trying to learn by "copying" him.  Though I'm not really copying, since I'm using a completely different medium. And I'm scribbling quickly, practicing line and shape.

I did these quick scribbles in a tiny book, about 4x6.  And I rather liked them!

So I decided, for fun, to print them off and put together a quick coloring book.

It wasn't hard!  I used Picasa (aka Google Photos), which is how I organize and back-up all of my scans of my art.  I picked a half dozen scribbles to include and printed them on 8 x 5.5 pieces of paper (so, basically, two per 8.5 x 11 sheet of standard copy paper, in my home printer).  This actually made the line art bigger than the original drawings.  They looked pretty good!

Then, because I really was just doing this for fun and wasn't in for making a big fuss, I cut some cardstock for front and back covers and stapled the few pages together.

It only too a few minutes to put together a fun, unique gift.  And, as I told one of the recipients when she opened it, "This isn't too precious to play with!  I can print you more!"  I want folks to color away, play, take risks, and if they don't like what they do, I'm happy to print another copy.  It doesn't take that long!

Here are the images--my scribbles after Van Gogh-- which I included in the little coloring book.

















Seeing how well this came out--and experiencing how fun it was to make such a simple coloring book--has inspired me to purposefully do more pen and ink scribbles in the coming year with just this purpose in mind!

What art has inspired you to make new and different art of your own this past year?

What art have you created this past year that might inspire others to make art of their own?




Thursday, December 24, 2015

Happy Christmas Season

A little Christmas holiday spirit came my way by virtue of a sticker of a vintage image that a friend had lying around on her table while she did her Christmas cards.

An old timey Santa playing a guitar!  That was something I'd never seen before.

So I drew it.

My little scribble looks very little like that rich painted image.  But I captured what I loved about the image (Santa playing a guitar!!), and made it my own.


No matter what holidays you celebrate, now and throughout the year, consider checking out some vintage holiday images and using them to inspire your own scribbling practice!


Tuesday, December 22, 2015

FIght the "Too Busy" Syndrome: Draw a Holiday Building

The season of many holidays has come, and with it the busyness that threatens to stop me from creating my scribbles.

Not drawing makes me cranky, which is never good.  But this is especially not good at the holidays, with so many get togethers with family and friends!

So the other day, I decided to draw something familiar, something that I saw every day (or nearly every day), something that--in one way or another--related to the Christmas holiday to me.

I decided to draw the chapel on the local college campus.  It's a gray building, and is not decorated at all on the outside.  And it's been a warm, gray, rainy, dismal winter season so far.  Not very festive, really.  But elegant in a way.  And touched by a wonderful, rich evergreen.

That evergreen is the "holiday" part for me.  Even though the building is unadorned, the natural world added some color and hope and life to the picture.  Always hope for new life...

I didn't have time to stand in the rain to draw it, I confess.  So I used a photo for reference.

And I didn't have time to do a detail of the architectural intricacies of the building.  So I limited myself to ten minutes total.  So at least I could get something done in my sketchbook!




I scribbled quickly with a waterproof Tombow monoball (which I love, but which they evidently don't make anymore, bummer!).  Then I added some color with my Koi watercolor pens, the grayscale set, plus a spot of green.

I am using Tomoe River paper in a sketchbook which I bound by hand.  I love this paper because nothing bleeds through it despite its remarkable thinness, but you can see how images show through from the other side.

I decided to leave the foreground empty and white, which I suppose gives the illusion of snow, which we definitely do not have here in the midwest this winter... I really just wanted that tree to be the one spot of color.

What buildings do you walk or drive past almost every single day?  Does one of them mean something special to you during this holiday season?

What would it take for you to find a few minutes to draw one of them?


Thursday, December 17, 2015

Check Out "A Christmas Karol" from Sketchbook Skool

It's no secret that I love the whole vibe and tribe over at Sketchbook Skool.  I've taken every klass from the start, and can't wait for the next one starting January 15, 2016.

Because it was so  clever, I thought I'd share with you their recent Christmas video.

"I come to bring you a warning about what will happen if you don't draw..."



Happy holidays!!  Maybe I'll see you in Skool!  You can find out more at www.sketchbookskool.comwww.sketchbookskool.com.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Scribbling People


This week I want to share with you all a lovely article about scribbling people which I recently found on artistsnetwork.com.



In "The Art of Scribbling," author Greg Albert says something I've long believed true for creative writing and more recently for visual art:

It’s out of control, childish, messy, sloppy or wasteful. But it’s also fun. And, as a drawing instructor, I can tell you that scribbling is one of the best ways to improve your drawing skills.
In his article, Albert talks about scribbling as a method of gesture drawing people, animals, and even inanimate objects.  It doesn't matter what the outcome looks like.  He reminds us that experience is the goal!

I loved this article and I bet you will too.  Check it out here.





Thursday, December 10, 2015

Creating Stickers from Old Drawings

I dug out my old (and I think now defunct) Polaroid PoGo printer the other day, to see if it still worked!  It does.  So, of course, the first thing I did was print out tiny sticker prints of some of my own scribbles.

I should probably pause a minute to explain that the PoGo prints tiny 2x3 inch prints on "Zink" paper--which only comes with peel-off sticker backing.  It is super cool stuff.  And even though the PoGo is no longer made,  a new version exists:  the Polaroid Zip.  It uses the same Zink paper.  You can find it on amazon.

Anyhow, I loved how the tiny sticker versions of my sketchbook scribbles looked!  In fact I loved them so much that I stuck them in my new sketchbook and made new scribbles of them.

First, a sticker version of my car.

 
I think that the printed image is so sharp that you can barely tell it isn't a drawing.  But in the above photo the car is a printout sticker, the brown outline is an acrylic marker, and the black is from a Tombow rollerball pen.  You can see some show through from the drawing on the opposite side of the page.  This is done on Tomoe River paper in my handmade journal.

In this next scribble, the sticker is of a sketch I did of a sea turtle.  I stuck it on the page, then framed it and colored the rest of the page in acrylic marker and watercolor paints.



In the above photo you can see the size in relation to a pen.  Also, I took it at an angle so that the sticker reflected some light and you could see it better.

I know I could achieve the same effect by printing out these scribbles at a reduced size on regular printer paper, but part of the cool effect of printing on this paper is the shiny surface.   It adds an interesting twist to the collage.  Plus, it's a sticker!  That just makes it magic (and glue-free).



Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Christmas Sketchbook Fun

I took a little break from practicing life drawing this week in order to scribble some images of snow.

Of course, it isn't snowing here.  It should be (at least in my book), but it's going to be a warm bummer of a winter, they say.  So the best I can do is draw it.




These images aren't showing the crispness of the colors...

In addition to just being fun, these scribbles are also experiments on the Tomoe River paper I used to make my latest daily sketchbook.  You can find it online where find papers for fountain pens are sold.  Also, this is the same paper as is used in the famous Hobonichi Techo Planners (which people just love!!  Google it to see the amazing things people do using these planners as sketchbooks).

People love this paper because evidently almost nothing bleeds through it.  Really.  So, I've been testing it.  The paper is onion-skin thin, and does have some see through (you can see this in the second photo above) but so far I have done amazing things to it and have had no bleed through.

These examples above include the use of acrylic markers, watercolors, fountain pens with permanent ink.  No bleed through.  Amazing!!


Thursday, December 3, 2015

Life Drawing Practice with An Old Family Photo

Inspired by my current life drawing class, I've been practicing with small scribbles in my sketchbook.

But it's a little hard to find models who will  hold still--at least outside of class.

So I've been working on capturing proportion from photographs.   And the other day I used a vintage photo--from about 1968--of my family members.

Here's one I did of my grandfather.


I love it for two reasons.  First, I completed it in about two minutes and it feels like a complete and whole portrait.  I'm pleased to have been able to reach that effect so quickly.

Second, it looks just like my grandfather.  I'm thrilled that I've captured some of his most distinct gestures and postures here.

Can't wait to try more.


Tuesday, December 1, 2015

From Life Drawing to Comics

I've been taking a life drawing class and so, scribbling a lot of quick sketches of people.  The class has me thinking about proportion and how bodies are put together in new ways.

And it also has me returning to my first drawing love:  comics.  I've always wanted to draw comics.  But, before joining Sketchbook Skool two years ago, I didn't have the confidence in my drawing potential to seriously think about it.

But SBS has increased my confidence and ability.  And this life drawing class has me experimenting, and thinking about what I might choose to draw in the future.

I don't know what will happen in the future.

But in the meantime, this wonderful character showed up today.  Pure imagination. I don't know who he is.  I've drawn him several times, so he seems to be really "there" in my head...


I look forward to seeing what other characters might show up!

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Analyzing Faces in Planes

"Planar analysis" is what my life drawing instructor calls this sort of scribbling, which makes it sound pretty darned impressive.

Basically, the notion is to see the human face as a collection of planes and tones. 
Supposedly it helps with proportion and proper shading. 

My first efforts drawing from a live model showed how hard this is--at least for me. My brain kicked and screamed. And screamed. 

So then a friend of mine and I thought that maybe our brains would grasp the concept better if we drew the planes on top of photographs. 

We loaded some photos into a wonderful iPad app called Paper by 53. Then we drew over the planes, using the color picker to match colors. 


Then I used a photo editor to make it black and white so I could study the tones more clearly. 


This really did help my understanding of the planes and tones in a face. 

The next step seemed to be to try another drawing.  Instead of plunging into another with a live model, I thought I'd try drawing this piece first. 

The result showed me that I still have a lot to learn about proportion. 


I will try again soon!

There is so much to see!!

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

First Experience with a Nude Model



I had never drawn from a live nude model before so I didn't know what to expect from the experience. What would it feel like to be in a room with a totally naked person?  What would it be like to draw a totally naked person?

Honestly, it was no different than drawing anything else. I looked so hard and worked so hard and got so completely lost in he work that I forgot about the presence of any nakedness. 

We did some quick gestures and some longer drawings.   



Yes, our model practiced yoga. 


I very much enjoyed the fast gestures.  I feel like they have an energy that's true.  Real scribbling.  Real spirit.

When I work on longer poses, I feel like I get lost in the details.  I guess this is because of all my sketching in the last two years.  I'm used to emphasizing lines.  Tones just stymie me (at least so far).  




I really like that last one. The energy again--I don't really know how to describe it but I feel like I can see how I felt when I drew it. 

I can't wait to carry some of these new techniques on other subjects soon. 

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Responding to the Paris Attacks

I saw a lot of beautiful artwork in honor of the victims of the Paris attacks on November 13, 2015.

I didn't know quite what to draw.  I felt a little stalled by the horror of it all.

I think what really struck me was the juxtaposition of the anti-humanity agenda of the terrorists and the celebration-of-humanity activities they disrupted:  sport, music, breaking bread and sharing wine together. 

It should be so simple...

Anyhow, I scribbled this little drawing, both in remembrance and as an attempt to capture my own response. 


Tuesday, November 17, 2015

More Life Drawing

Well, I've looked more closely at human beings in the last few weeks than perhaps ever before. 

And I've scribbled more of them than ever before. 

It's hard. For me, so hard to draw a person that looks like a person. 

But holy cow, I've really started to appreciate how beautiful humans really are. 




The thing I find most fascinating:  the realities of proportion. And how what we think we see is so remarkably inaccurate!  

Probably a life truth there. 


Thursday, November 12, 2015

A Life Drawing Session with Friends

Nothing like getting together in a living room warmed by a fireplace on a blustery November day to set up some easels, drop some tarps, and scribble with charcoal on newsprint in an attempt to learn how to capture a reasonable likeness of a human being on paper.

I had a lovely time today at some friends' house.  Jack volunteered to model while he workshopped some poetry.  Julie and I practiced seeing shapes of tones and trying not to draw too many lines.

Easier said than done.  At least for me...

In this first one, things went pretty well.  I forced myself not to see my friend, or even a human being (at least at first) but just chunks of very dark and very light.  Then I added more midtones, and at the end, some lines to clarify.



I liked this a lot, though, as usual, I got the head too big for the body.  I guess that's a common mistake, since we look at each other's faces so much, we tend to understand them as bigger than they are.  Yet another lesson in trying to see more clearly.

So for the next sketch, I scribbled very fast, less than three minutes, and tried to capture proportion more accurately.  I spent a lot of that three minutes measuring.



 It was fun to compare the size of his head to the size of the foot that was much closer to me!

Next I wanted to try the shapes of tones approach to more of a portrait.


I'm quite pleased with how the shirt came out.  Not so pleased with the face.  My friend has a white beard, and I just didn't do a good job of capturing that tone or texture.

Finally, I got tired of charcoal (even though I really like the way it looks) and switched to a big fat stick of 6B graphite.

By this time my patient model had fallen asleep.  After all, we'd had the poor guy sitting there for nearly an hour.


For me, this last one was all about capturing the shapes and shadows of the tilted head.  You simply can't let your brain think "face" or "chin" or "eyes" when you try to draw something at this angle.  I mean, nothing looks like it is "supposed" to on a face when a head is tilted backward like this.

I appreciated that the graphite made much less of a mess than the charcoal, but the darks never got quite as dark as I'd hoped.

So this was my first ever "hey, friend, will you sit and be my model" scribbling session!  I think it went pretty well.  My fellow sketcher and I were both pooped after an hour of drawing.  The model got some work done, and a nap to boot.  When we quit the art work, we all had a donut.

Life is good.

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

My First Ever In-Person Art Class: Life Drawing!

Life drawing, charcoal, looking only at shapes of tone... it's all new to me this week and, whew!  Talk about scribbling!   My eyes can barely see what the instructor is talking about, and I just love it.

I can feel my brain expanding.

We look at the model (clothed so far).  She tells us to draw, but not to use lines!

Seriously!?  If you've looked at my blog at all you know I'm addicted to my pen lines.   I think in lines.  I've been sketch-scribbling with lines for two years.   I've worked my butt off to make my lines occasionally look like something.

I'm just coming down from Intober, which was almost all lines!

Now, no lines??

This, of course, is exactly what I took the class.  To take me back to scribbling.  To playing with tools in ways I haven't before.

Anyhow, we are looking at human models and drawing only shapes of different tones, in charcoal.  I've never picked up a piece of charcoal before this.  My first impression:  very messy!

(I wish I'd taken a picture of my hands, my face, my shirt... charcoal everywhere!)

Anyhow, here are my first two charcoal drawings from my first night of my first ever in-person drawing class.

You can tell they are people!  So... not too shabby!



This is a wonderful exercise in seeing for me.  To not see my idea of what is in front of me (nose, hand, jeans, chair), but to actually see light and shadow.

And all those angles and curves and straight lines and parts!  People really are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Stay tuned for more adventures--my class lasts six weeks.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Recommending "Four Stories of the Heart"

Sharing a wonder-full piece by Richard Johnson in the Washington Post, in which a common ball point pen in the hands of an attentive artist captures uncommon intimate, human moments.

A compelling essay, made even more so by the presence of hand drawn visuals.   And the level of attention the artist paid to these people and their stories.  I can't stop thinking, wow.  The sacred and spiritual touched by such attention...

It has led me to think even more about the different impacts of photography--which I also practice and love--and sketching.  And the combination of such visuals with writing...

You can read and see the whole thing here.

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Inktober 29 Through 31

Finished!

I have completed (and posted ) the #Inktober challenge for 2015.  Thirty-one drawings in ink in thirty-one days.   I think it is the first day I've done of of these "every day for a month" type drawing challenges, and I liked it a lot.

Maybe I'll try another some time!

Anyhow, here are my final drawings of the month.

Number 29 is drawn and colored mostly in ink, with gouache for the eyes and blanket.  This would be a portrait of my cat, Hattie, Queen of All She Surveys.  And yes, her head is in proportion to her body.


The interesting part for me in this was seeing how my ink, diluted with water, could still indicate shadows and light on a solid black cat.  I need to practice this a lot more.  I know I would do better if I just practiced a LOT more.

Drawing 30 is what I like to call "A Tommy Kane Drawing."  You can learn more about Tommy and his fascinating work online here (and on Instragram).  He creates drawings of incredible detail (which mine below actually is not).  So why is this "A Tommy Kane Drawing?"

I name such drawings after Tommy Kane because he taught me one of the most important lessons I ever learned about keeping a sketchbook and learning to draw: "Always finish your sketch."

Tommy gave this advice during his class at Sketchbook Skool.  I urge you to check that out if you haven't already.

Anyhow, the gist of the advice is this:  once you put your pen down and start a sketch, you have to finish it, no matter how badly you think you might have screwed up.  Figure out ways to work around the mistakes.  Incorporate them into the drawing.  This practice would bolster your confidence, he said, because you'll quickly learn how to recover from just about anything.

One of his examples: he occasionally miscalculates how tall a building will be and so has to bend high towers or steeples to fit them on the page.

Obviously, I had to do this here, in a sketch I did from a photograph I took of a church in west Ireland.



I wish that was the only mistake I made in this scribble, but, of course, it isn't.  I actually got lost in the shadows of the photograph and misdrew the directions of two of the walls!  Completely.  Suddenly, I was creating some sort of Escher-esque drawing!  Not what I intended.

Two years ago, I'd have ripped the page our of my book.

But this time, without a hiccup, I thought, how can I fix this?   And started messing around with shadows and directions of bricks, and so on.

Is this an accurate depiction of the church?  Not in a photographic sense, no.  Nope, nope.

But do I like the drawing?  YES!! A great deal.  Not only because it actually reminds me of the church and the time I spent there taking photos, but because of the creative journey it represents.

Really, check out Tommy Kane's stuff.  It will blow your mind.

The final drawing of Inktober, number 31, is not a great climactic piece.


Just a quick (five minutes, tops?) sketch in sepia ink of one of the tall maple trees in my back yard, clinging to its last few bright golden leaves.  Added gouache for color.

There is something about spending time--even five minutes--looking at that wonderful color combination of gold and blue...it's a palette that only shows up in autumn.  And only on the clearest sunny days.  And only if there hasn't been a big wind lately.

Inktober was a blast.  I definitely plan to do it again next year.

I have a new adventure planned for November:  my first ever in-person art class.... in life drawing!


Thursday, October 29, 2015

Inktober 26 Through 28

Here are my scribbles for #Inktober, numbers 26, 27 and 28.

The first of this groups is a study of a pumpkin which really was an experiment in some new colored inks I bought on clearance.  I'm using Yatsumoto Splash Ink (you can find it on amazon here), which are specially formulated colored inks which come with a mixing chart and recipes for mixing just about any color you can imagine.  I'd never used them before.  I mixed up an orange and a purple and gave them a whirl, just to find out how they'd dilute with water, how they'd mix on the page and how they'd differ from watercolor.


I only mixed a tiny bit of each color, but I really liked them, particularly how they layered over each other and had a bit of translucence.   I resisted the urge to go over it with black ink lines, but since I did it in ink, I figured it counted for Inktober!

The next two pieces build on a different kind of scribbling I've been doing this month.  To counterbalance the precise outline sorts of drawings I've done for Inktober, I've also done some loose, abstract experiments with watercolors.

I've been scribbling--just making marks on paper, pouring paints, layering with water, testing various effects.  Just learning, learning, what the paints will do.

Every now and then I look down and see something emerging from the shapes.  So for my next two Inktober pieces, I went ahead and drew with dip pen on top of the watercolors, just to see what would come out.

The first is a close-up of some fall leaves.


Lots of those everywhere around my home right now.  In terms of the watercolor, I love how the blue ran and bloomed in the background.  Once it dried, I put in the other colors, wet and thick and tipped the paper so they would run.  Then I followed the lines and shadows  in the dried version to pull out the leaves.

The next one is a little more abstract.   I soaked the paper and then took little bits of color I had left on my palette.  I laid it into one edge with a brush, then tipped the paper around so it would flow.  Then I let it dry.

When I looked at the page, all I could see was this thinking man and the doorway behind him.  So, I just used a little ink to bring him out.


Looking for shapes in abstract, almost happenstance, color blobs is a little like looking for shapes in the clouds.  The associative, imaginative nature of it feels wonderfully freeing.  And even though the painted shapes don't move like clouds do, changing the angle of the paper reveals new shapes in much the same way.

There's something meditative about it all.

Only a few more drawings to go in Inktober!  I wonder what I will draw next?

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Inktober 22 Through 25

I'm entering the final days of #Inktober.  I was thinking the other day that I'd be sad to see it go, when I reminded myself that I can keep drawing with just ink as long as I want!

Yay for sketchbooks and art!

Scribble #22 was a heck of a lot harder than I thought it would be when I said to myself, "hey, why not try drawing a chip clip?"  But I confess to feeling pride in this sketch.  I paid super close attention to the highlights on the plastic and I think that helped me capture the shape so it didn't just get lost in the single color.

And here's another example of the spiritual benefits of sketching:  I really was impressed with the chip clip's design.  I still am.  I have a bunch of these things around the house, but seriously, I had never looked at one up close and person to see how it worked.  I'm amazed that people figure this stuff out.  I don't have that kind of brain.



After the chip clip, drawing some quick portraits seemed easy!  Scribble #23 depicts some of my artist friends.


Some of my artist friends at an ink blot.  I was using a new dip pen and some new slick paper.  And I had more than one blot throughout the day.

The next day, for scribble #24, I used the same ink pen and ink on the same thin slick paper, but I wet the whole thing down with clear water first.  I just wanted to see what would happen, you know?

Frankly, what happened was kind of cool.  I had very little control over which way the ink actually went, what blotted and where.  But it made a fun, energetic picture of the woods behind my house.




For Inktober special #25, I decided to try drawing a short comic.  It depicts a colleague who occasionally comes to the Open Studio I'm a part of.  And am always so grateful for.  

You actually read it top to bottom, left to right, though it works both ways.

Anyhow, she was discouraged about some of her sketching attempts and actually said these things.  


Happily, though the comic ends there the story does not!  She brought her concerns to the table and met with tons of encouragement and empathy and shared stories!  Then we threw some basic art supplies at her, with some non-scary drawing ideas, and before we split for the day, she had completed a lovely abstract, her first watercolor, and had experienced a waterbrush pen for the first time.

This is why you come to a table.  This is a sort of communion, a feeding of each other.

I'm pleased with the comic, which I did in dip pen and got all kinds of blots all over because it captured an important moment for her as an artist that turned out better than it might have.

We must encourage each other all the time.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Inktober 19 Through 21


My adventures continue during the #Inktober challenge.

I arrived early for a meeting the other day.  That sort of thing used to annoy me as wasted time.  Or I'd spend it looking at Facebook.  But, since I started sketching in early 2014, I look forward to such moments.  What can I draw, what can I draw?  Only in the last few months have I been able to render a car that looks like a car.  And in just a few minutes too!


I returned to practicing some more comics for #20, though. This poor witch's broom is shaking uncontrollably.  Why?  I have no idea!  Could be she is shaking it.  Perhaps it is shaking her.  Maybe it is afraid of her, or afraid of the tree behind her.  Was the broom made from the wood of the tree?  Is that why the tree seems to be reaching toward it?  Don't know.  One of the fun things about drawing characters from imagination is the stories that you can make up about them later.


Drawing #21 is another comic, of course, but this one is inspired by a person I know and very much admire.  It only sort of looks like her, but I drew it quickly while attending a meeting she was leading.  And no!  I wasn't scribbling comics because I was bored!  This is my way of note-taking, actually (I love Sketchnoting, and if you want to learn more about that you can find it here).

I would love to be able to draw comics versions of people I know.  Maybe that's the next thing for me to play with, during or after Inktober!



It's a fun twist to sketching from life, paying attention, and capturing what's happening in life!


Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Inktober 15 Through 18

Continuing along the #Inktober journey...  drawing only with ink.

After doing so many scribbles with only ink, suddenly I got the urge to draw comics again.  I haven't done any comics, not really, in about two years.  Since before I started keeping a sketchbook.  I wondered if I'd be any better at it, having done nearly 1000 scribbles based on observation in the last two years.

This kid  is the first person who came out.  I have no idea who he (or she?) is, or why the call to "wait."  Perhaps this is a character in need of a story?


At about the same time a friend handed me Kate Beaton's latest book, Step Aside, Pops!  (You can see her work online here.)  I love her style, so I decided to copy some of her characters as a sort of mentoring session.   Just to warm my comics muscles back up some.


The next day I spent some more time copying her characters.  I have pages and pages of them, but I'm only going to share one spread here.  What you see below is one page of me copying from Beaton (on the right) and then a page (which I taped in from loose scrap paper) of me drawing some of my own characters based on Beaton's style.


Just like the kid with the pumpkin at the top of this post, I don't know who any of these middle aged gentlemen are.  Characters waiting for a story, maybe?  Maybe one of them is the person the kid is telling to "wait"? I don't know.

But I rather liked the goateed man in the top middle, so my next ink drawing worked more on him.



I don't know what he is attempting to explain.  Or to whom.  But that just showed up as I drew him.  So, fine.

I am a little surprised that the inktober game of doing 31 ink drawing in a month suddenly became a renewal of my interest in drawing comics (instead of sketching from life) but that's okay.  I'm going to keep letting whatever happens happen, and see where I am at the end of the month!