Another Example of iPad sketching from TV

In my last post I talked about how I'm taking photos of actors in motion and tracing them to learn more about head and face composition.

Plus, because I am doing it on my iPad in Procreate, I'm learning more about the tools there as well.

Here is another example, worked from an episode of Brokenwood.

This is a really fun process for messing around and helping me get a feel in my drawing hand for the distances and shapes of things.

Plus, it makes me feel like my TV watching time isn't a "waste" of time. 

Sketching from TV to Practice Heads

I know that I have learned the most about drawing by practicing with live subjects out in public.  You have to be quick, you can't fuss, you observe and make a drawing and move on.  Hours and hundreds of sketches have helped boost my confidence and my skill.

But I still really suck at drawing heads and faces.

And I'm not even aspiring to make a head or face look like an actual someone.  I'm just trying to get basic proportions right inside of my own comic style.

I also know that tracing some of the comics artists I most admire has helped me learn new and exciting ways to draw things.

So I decided that tracing photos of heads/faces in action might help me.

I do this while watching TV, just to make it a bit more fun (and to get more value out of my TV-watching time).

I take a picture on my iPad of a favorite actor.

I load that photo into Procreate on a layer and then drop the opacity so it is barely visible.

Then, on a new layer, using whatever tool seems fun, I sketch the head, tracing the contours of the photo.

Then I play with shading to try to understand volume better.

Here are some examples from Wire in the Blood.

This is all just for practice, of course.  But I do find myself having aha! moments about shadows and structures, things I've read about and tried, but could never quite make work.

Sketchkon Sketches #5--Lawlor and Reim Workshop #3

Continuing with sketches from the Urban Sketching Boot Camp workshop I did at Sketchkon last November...

We sat in a garden and produced multiple sketches, focusing entirely on mark-making and texture.

This was fascinating and hard work for me.  I am not someone who enjoys making tons of tiny marks.  I know loads of people find it meditative and relaxing, but I always catch myself wanting to get on with the next thing.  There just seems always to be so much more to capture.

One of the last things we did in this workshop was go to the entry of the hotel and draw people.  We were assigned to do five people, full body, in motion, in fifteen minutes.  Thanks to all the practice I've had in Roz Stendahl's classes and in drawing at soccer games, I was able to sketch many more.  Plus, they move so fast.... I don't know how anyone could spend three minutes drawing someone in motion!

What a great day!  We were all exhausted and exhilarated at the end. 

If I ever had a chance to do a workshop with either of these teachers again, I would!

St. Francis Statue and Thinking About DeCluttering

In my household, we have a lovely St. Francis carving.  I used it as inspiration for a sketch.

This got me thinking about something I read once (I forget where) about a great strategy for decluttering a house. 

It said something like:  if you have items you keep for sentimental value, but you don't really use them, consider sketching them. 

Why not write details about the item, even a story about it or the people and places associated with it.  What a great way to fill a page in your journal.

Then decide if you want to still keep the object, or if you can donate it to someone who will use it.

Sometimes, giving the items some moments of focused attention, and commemorating them with a sketch, is all it takes to feel like you can let them leave your home!

South Africa Sketchbook Part Nine

During my travels to South Africa with the Hope College Chapel Choir in May 2018, we had the enormous privilege of visiting an AME church in Soweto.  The welcome we received there was so gracious and loving!

While the choir sang, I had the fun of drawing some of the congregation enjoying the experience.

The women were dressed beautifully.

People were so happy to have us visit; many recorded the songs on their phones.

This lady was terrific fun to watch.  It was clear she was "The Church Lady."  Unofficially, she ran the place.  You could tell.

South Africa Sketchbook Part Seven

One thing I learned to do while sketching from a moving bus caught in  city traffic:  draw the people!

If the bus is moving very fast and the pedestrians aren't moving very fast, you can nab enough to capture shapes and expressions!

This ended up being one of my favorite things to do when we got caught in traffic.  And that's one of my favorite things about keeping a sketchbook:  I am never bored!

This first sketch might be my favorite sketch of the entire trip:

Scotland Sketchbook Part 15

I bought a new pen while in St. Andrews... a juicy water soluble thing that I've never seen anywhere else.

Of course I had to try it out, so I played with it while people watching in an outdoor cafe.

I really LOVE this pen and the way it dissolves into such a lovely gray, yet keeps its line (at least on Strathmore 400 watercolor paper).

A Little Sketch I Found

Found this little single sheet drawing from a couple of months ago... 

I'd been doing some initial sketching of ideas for a graphic memoir.

This is my mental image of one gung-ho sheriff's deputy I once saw tearing through a local state park.  Ripping up the trails.  Spewing exhaust.  Making a lot of machine noise in woods that should be safe from that sort of thing.

But then again, in my mind, those woods should have been safe from all kinds of things that they simply were not safe from.   Which is (or will be) the point of the memoir.  

Anyhow, I rather like this little cartoon.

Quick to say:  I have friends who are police officers and officers of the Michigan DEQ and so on.  This is not meant to represent any of them.  Or even most such officers.  In fact, I only saw this person ripping up the trails once, and for all I know, he was in a rush to save a life.  But this is the impression it made on me then.  And it stuck with me.

Collaging and Journal About The Dogs

Last spring I began to foster a puppy, Veto.

It has been fun watching my older male, Nik, mentor him.

I journaled about this in a sketchbook where I had a prepared background.

The process here was to sketch Nik on a separate piece of paper and cut him out.  I collaged him to the left page of the spread.  Next I colored the rest of the cut piece of paper with a yellow acrylic marker.  Finally I collaged that piece--with the empty dog shape-- onto the right half of the spread.

I hadn't planned what I was going to write, but the empty shape helped me capture my thoughts.

I don't usually do this sort of thing in my sketchbook, so it was fun!  Collage is something I hope to do more with some day.

Sketching and Collaging onto a Background

I mentioned a while ago that last spring I took a fantastic course in creating backgrounds for art journals taught by Roz Stendahl.

Here's one example of the kind of work I did with her class.

I had done this sketch from an old mugshot I found online (old mugshots are terrific to sketch from!).

We had begun creating backgrounds in the class and had hit the point where we were adding some stuff to them, collaging, drawing, journaling, and really experimenting to get a feel for what could be done.

Anyhow, here is what I came up with.  This isn't a miracle of design of anything:  it was my first shot at working this way!  And I'd never used some of these tools before (I can't even remember what-all I used, other than it involved paint pens).  But it was terrific fun to play with and to discover the depth that you can get in a page starting with interesting layered backgrounds like this.

See that little piece of washi tape on the right?  Not real washi, it turns out, but plastic stuff.  Cool looking, but doesn't take ink or paint very well.

Anyhow, this is sort of a "kitchen sink" spread--what will this do? was my mantra as I played.

I learned a lot!

Thinking About Colored Backgrounds

Last spring I took a course in colored backgrounds and textures from the amazing Roz Stendahl.  If you don't already follow her blog, Roz Wound Up, I recommend it.  You can learn more about her classes there.

Anyhow, BEFORE I took her class, I thought a bit about colored backgrounds, which I almost never use, and what a difference it might make to sketching.  I mean, what do I know?  Nothing.  That's why I was taking the course.

So for fun, I just painted a few pages (with FW Acrylic Inks) and sketched on them.  Nik was a willing subject.

I can see how color and stroke can add all kinds of energy to my sketches.

Remember, I did these just as a baseline for myself before I took Roz's class!!    I'll post some of the work I did after her class soon!  It's a lot better.

People and Angles

Still working on finishing up my china marker sketches in my Strathmore toned tan sketchbook...

at my weekly Open Studio group, I worked specifically on capturing some distinct angles.  I need to add more flexibility to my people when I draw them.  Getting some of the subtle angles of real people into my drawings will help a lot, I think.

In this one, I aimed to capture the slightly downward tilt of my friend as she drew.

In this next one, I wanted to depict my friend reaching over a counter to grab a clementine fruit.  He bent sideways, from a bit of a distance, his hand coming much closer to me than his body.  He moved fast, and I did ask him to do it again, twice, but not to post, while I tried to capture it.

In this one, my friend was reading something intently.  I loved how he listed slightly to the side--I certainly do that!  It's amazing to me how I tend to draw my characters sitting and standing and walking straight, which really, most of us never do!

There is always so much more to see and to draw.  The world is an amazing place.

People in Unrealistic Color

Fun with expressions of my fellow artists at my weekly Open Studio.

I wanted to play with portraits and adding values with non-realistic colors.  I always think that adds a cool vibrancy to portraits.

Simple Lines with the Dogs and Cats

More practice with shapes and contours.

I'm looking for the shapes that make these personalities come alive.   Distilling to the most expressive and necessary.  It's part of my thinking about working more on comics.

More Gestures of College Students

More quick gesture drawings.

I'm trying to catch posture, body movement....

Back to School: Drawing My Students During Presentations

My creative writing students know I am working hard to improve my drawing skills.  And since they are working hard to improve their writing skills, we bond over this working hard stuff.

Art is not for sissies.

Anyhow, they let me practice on them now and again, with the deal that I show them the results.

Since most of them can draw better than I can, we have some great conversations about "talent," hard work, developing skill, and the like.

All of these were drawn fast as the students worked.

St. John USVI Sketchbook Part 15

Heading home.  Travelling, especially time sitting around waiting in an airport, is never as boring as it used to be if you draw stuff.

And if you get searched THREE TIMES by the TSA, well, you can make a comic of it...

And if you get home to find out you are the victim of identity theft, well, you can make a comic of it....