Scribbling Using a Mentor Artist Part Two

After copying many drawings by William Steig, I decided to try some original drawings in his style.  None of these were careful or painstaking drawings.  These were all my usual quick scribblings.  I just hoped to see things a bit differently and render them a bit differently using someone else's style.

Here are some results.

First, a few drawings of animals which basically copy Steig's work, but which I recolored to fit my own dogs.  I have shepherds and all of Steig's dogs (at least, almost all of them that I could find in my book) have floppy ears.

In this next one, you'll see that I just took the yellow dog from Steig (above) and redid it into a chubby German Shepherd.  My dogs aren't chubby, by the way!

As an unrelated note, I really like the empty space in this one.  I tend to fill my pages.  But I am learning from looking at other people's work that empty space can really make a page look nicer!  I'm going to think about that more in the future.

Next, I returned to an older sketch I had done of my cat, Hattie, which I didn't like very much.  I added a Steig-style drawing of her right into the original sketch.  So, you'll see below, the cat on the table in the upper right is the added bit.

I decided I should do one of my other cat, Tim.  He had killed a mouse the night before and was very proud, so I decided to try to capture that moment.  I also played a bit more with the page design I had like earlier.

Though I had drawn the cats from memories of their recent activities, I turned next to my dogs who were sound asleep.  Stationary!  I drew them from observation, but in this comic style.

I did all of these on the interesting sugar cane paper I've work on for a while.  I really enjoy the unpredictable watercolor effects I get when working on it.

I am very pleased with what my work with this mentor artist has given me in terms of ways to render my own subjects in my own style!  I think this will really help me improve at capturing things quickly, when I am out and about, or dealing with subjects that move.

Looking at his drawings has given me new lenses through which to look at my own world, particularly regarding simplified lines and shapes.  Simple--but not easy!

That's one of the great things about the world and nature and life.  It can be so simple.  It can be so complex.  And often at the same time...

My plan now is to put the Steig book away and not look at it for a few weeks, just to let it sink in and to continue to play with and incorporate what I've observed into my own practice.   Then, in a month or so, I'll pull it out, copy some more, and see what else I can learn.