Days 67, 98, 69: Sketchbook Catchup

 

Untitled (2007)
postcard sunset view, doodled in my sketchbook for fun and played with in Paint Shop Pro.

 

Feet (2007) Pencil sketch

 

Study of my son (2007) Pencil sketch

There, we're all caught up. it's all quickie art, sketch book harvesting, but I wanted to get caught up, even if nobody reads this. Personal commitment and all that.

If you are trying to figure out your style, or where your style is going, draw. Draw what you see. Cartoon it, or draw from life. The first one up there is a cartoon sunset. the feet and the boy are drawn from life, but the boy is still a little stylized, a little not-true, just enough to be real at first glance.

That's my blather for the day.

days 47 and 48: Sketchbook

 

Ink study of baby (2007) ink on sketch paper, no pencils.

 

Girl's face (2007) inked and colored sketch of a girl's face

Two small drawings from my sketchbook.

PSA: weekends I think I'll be posting both days at once, so I can spend time away from the computer.

day 46: studies

(2007) colored pencil on paper.

Two small figure studies of my younger son.

Day 45: Salamander

Salamander (2007) Colored character study. Pen, colored pencil. Scanned, cleaned and filtered for a watercolor effect.


This is a character study for the illustrations I'm doing for a children's story I'm writing. I'm still deciding on the format - graphic novel, picture book, or novel with incidental illos. I suppose it depnds on how much of the story I want to paint, and how much to write.

Days 40 and 41: Portrait and Nimbus

 

Portrait (1989) Pencil on paper.

If you were a young woman during the mid-1980's, you may well guess who this young man is. If not, well, the hair is pretty typical of pop musicians of the time. It's one of my best pencil portraits. Still.




Nimbus (2007) Work in progress - current state is a digital painting, incorporating some source photographic elements. Worked in Adobe Photoshop over a scan of the pen and ink study.

An angel, or a djinn, or some other winged, supernatural being.

For the hell of it.

Day 24: James, Sleeping

 

James, Sleeping (2007) Sketch, 7x11. Pencil on drawing paper, finger smudged/erased shadows and highlights.

This is a simple sketch of my sleeping infant. I can't tell you how weird it is to draw someone who is sleeping in your lap without disturbing them. I think I did well, for a quick, rough sketch.

I'm going to be doing more life-drawing exercises, and some of them will be good enough to post here.

Day 16: Infant Figure Study

 

Figure Study of My Son (2003) Pencil on paper.

Pretty straightforward - my contstantly moving infant son had passed out on the floor, I picked up a pencil and my sketchpad and whipped out a sketch. It came out well enough to make me happy, and I really ought to do that for the second baby, Real Soon Now.

One of my most prized things in my family's collection of photos and keepsakes is a polychrome crayon (as in crayola-64-colors) sketch of me done by my mom's friend Nadia when I was about 6. Photos only tell what you looked like, but portraits and sketches tell how others saw you. Which is more valuable?

Day Eight: Study for August Hunt

 

Study for August Hunt (2004) 11 by 14 inches. Pencil on paper. Same-size plan for an illumination in the style of the Tres Riches Heurs.

I planned this as a gift for a friend, whose birthday is in August. The background is planned to be similar to the background in the August month illumination in the Tres Riches Heurs, except later in the same day or week - the grain is stacked, the reapers are gone. The foreground is a portrait of the owner of the finished piece and her horse, with her dogs running beside.