Illustration Friday: Legendary

The bull's fear of the mouse was so legendary that the rest of the herd laughed.

After illusions of epic grandeur with a victorious female knight standing with her helm under one arm and a waving banner grasped in the other hand, this is the resulting sketch. I need to find a balance between anatomically correct people and the looseness and character that this sketch has so I can start replacing animal figures with human figures and draw all the fantastical images that are in my head.

I am loving this sketch and want to create a finished piece with this at some point.

UPDATE: I gave myself four hours to color the cow and had a lot of fun with it. Enjoy!

Daily Sketch 28

Some sketches from lunch. Not my best, but I have a few women in there. The waiter ended up looking Asian, which he was not. I think it is because of the nose.

Daily Sketch 27

Today's daily sketches. Time for bed.

Daily Sketch 26

This is post 101! yay! It only took me four years... The good news is that about 30-40 of those posts have been since the start of '09. That means I'm doing a lot more sketching then I ever have before. The guy with the semi-mohawk (It really looked more like a cross between a Grease hairdo and a mohawk) I actually drew Sunday, but then refined the profile today. It was much flatter originally, and he had very strong features.

I'm really liking the combination of 1-minute and 15 minute drawings throughout the sketch book, particularly when they overlap more than the ones on this page.

I also think i'm going to try to start drawing every waiter/waitress we have. The guy below Mohawk was the second one that came out really good. I need to have more female faces drawn like this.

Daily Sketch 25

So my daily sketch has evolved slightly, due to my animation teacher. Instead of 1 15-minute sketch, I will now be doing 15 1-minute sketches! My teacher wants us to draw, draw, draw; focusing on getting the basic forms down. He doesn't care if the drawings are bad, and says with time and LOTS of drawings there will be a great improvement in skill. I'm definitely much better at the childrens' faces than the adult faces. Maybe one day i'll even be able to draw hair in under a minute. :)

IF: Intricate

I have always loved drawing ornate decorative swirls and leaves. I haven't drawn any of these for the longest time. The last time I remember doing this, I was working on a coat of arms in one of my first art classes in college....years ago. And it wouldn't be my art without some random little bizarre characters. I particularly like the one leaping in the center of the big circle.

Weekly sketchbook

So the posting has slowed down for a very particular, art-related reason. Last week I started two art classes at The Animation Guild in North Hollywood. I have a three-hour life drawing class on Thursday night and a 2-hour traditional animation basics class. Both are a lot of fun and extremely reasonably priced for art classes.

The animation class is very intensive, particularly since I've never taken an animation class before. I chose to take this class because while I am happy with my rendering/shading skills with the colored pencil, I feel that my final pieces are very still. Animation is all about movement, motion, twisting, stretching, and squashing. There is a lot of outside 'homework' for this class, which has slowed down posting my 15 minute sketches. Yet, I am sketching more then ever because homework includes lots and lots of sketches.

After the first week of reviewing my sketches, my animation teacher told me that I need to sketch faster, less refined/finished' and even more sketches. Furthermore, my life-drawing teacher doesn't like people drawing from photos unless they don't try to match perfectly and instead focus on building the volumes and structures are created in each face.

Some of this week's sketchbook drawings:

Illustration Friday: breezy

I enjoyed drawing this sketch a lot, although I think the legs need a bit more work. I wanted more of a perspective on them. I think the main thing is that she's too skinny for her legs. But overall, still happy with the sketch. Also the clump of hair across her chin bothers me; maybe it should have covered her mouth, but with the chin/neck visible. The boots are because I'm obsessed with wearing my boots as often as possible.

Daily Sketch 23: Male 11-12 yrs

original image.

Analysis: Touchscreen laptop take two. Just as bad as take one. :) I'm going to assume that the draw 100 faces before you START to get good theory applies to the digital touchscreen/wacom pen tool as well. Everyone tells me that it has a huge learning curve, but once they get past the screen, they love it. The way I draw, with a series of light pencil strokes, probably doesn't help matters either. There were a number of times I kept trying to draw a line and i'd get a toolbox popup instead, or nothing at all. grr...2 down 98 to go.

If I have time tonight, I will redraw this with pencil.

Laptop

Hello all. I'm posting on Nightengail's behalf. The touch screen laptop she mentioned below is this one from HP.  If any of the visiting artists has any suggestions regarding it's usefullness as an art laptop please let us know.  We still have until ~3/15 to send it back if it doesn't meet our requirements.

We have also looked at a Cintiq but the concept of mobility and being able to take it out of the house was too great.  I did some searching for her on various review sites and in general it seemed like the TX2 got a good review.

Please if you have any knowledge regarding this particular laptop and have used it comment!

Daily Sketch 22: male, 9-10

Original Image. (will be posted as soon as I find it again)

Analysis: I got a new toy...a touch-screen laptop with drawing pen. I decided to try my daily sketch digitally. There is some disconnect between the pen tip and the screen. Also, I either drew too small, or have the image at too low resolution (it was set at 150 dpi). I'm also having issues with the angle of the pen; if it is angled too much, it doesn't register on the screen. I'll need to practice more.

Illustration Friday: instinct

"while the hunter used every instinct to take that mouse, the mouse had his own instinct..."

It's hard to see, because the sketch is so small, but the mouse with the cape is a stuffed mouse, not a real one.

update: I accidentally put colored pencil as the description on Illustration Friday, so I felt obligated to color it.

Daily Sketch 21: Male, 7-8 years

Original Image.

Analysis: I did the sketch today, then I reanalyzed the jaw line, since that's where I'm making the biggest mistakes. I then tweaked the jaw line a bit until I was happier with it. I'm still not pleased with the left eye/side of face and right ear. The eyes are too close, and a bit too big. I'm pleased with the hair and the nose.

I tried a little digital tweak to the eyes, and just a slight shift and slight resize helped a LOT.

Daily Sketch 20: male, 5-6 years

Original Image.
The story behind this photograph is a heart wrenching one.

Analysis: This is the first actually-15-minute sketch I have done in a long time. Also, I really roughed everything in quickly, without much careful measuring. Still, for the unique angle to the face, I feel I did a pretty good job. If anything, I'd work more on the neck/jaw line, since that is the most awkward area. Also, I really liked the shape of the lips and did not do them justice in the time allotted. I was happy that I at least roughed in the shape of the brother.

Daily Sketch 19: male, 3-4 years

Original Image.

Analysis: I succeeded in getting an emotion...I just don't think I drew the correct one. He looks angry rather then unhappy. I'm also not quite sure how to draw the 'laugh lines' that run from the nose to the mouth on children, since strong lines usually denote wrinkles/older age. Need more practice at subtle expression shifts.

Illustration Friday: celebrate

Ok, so technically my illustration friday was done on a saturday. Oh well. I still plan on posting a Saturday daily sketch. It took a while to get the limbs where i wanted them and looking natural. Overall, pretty happy with this sketch.

The story behind this sketch is from our Friday the 13th fun at work. They posted pictures of good luck charms all over the building and at different times they'd email out an image and you had to go find that image to win a prize. I found one of the four-leaf clovers and won a large pink bouncy ball. Silly, but fun. :)

Daily Sketch 18: male, 1-2 years

Original Image.

Analysis: Drawing someone is worse if you know them. Plain and simple. Then it is not about quick sketch or drawing what you see. It becomes more about does it really look like them, or in this case: is the sketch cute enough because the kid sure is. Philip and Jenny, your kid is MUCH cuter. :) It's his lips...extremely cute AND distinctive, but a pain to draw and have look right. Also, I got the angle to the eyes and mouth, but missed it slightly with the nose.


The part of my daily sketch that people normally don't get to see is the drawing overlaying the picture. I don't post it because of copyright issues, since I am drawing faces from off the web. I did pretty good with proportions of the face, except for the jaw line. Gavin has chubby cheeks. One day I'll be better at the proportions, after a couple years of daily sketches :)

Sketches

Technically, I did a daily sketch last night. However, it is not being posted because both Eric and I concur that the sketch of the cute little baby ended up creeeeeeepy. Why can't I draw cute babies. I like babies, I like cute things. I don't understand it.

Also, the daily sketches will be on a pre-scheduled one-week hiatus and will return next week...hopefully with cute drawings and not creepy ones.

Daily sketch 18: male, newborn

Original image.

Analysis: This month I begin the first of a 2-month long theme: The human form at every age. This month I am working on drawing males, starting with this newborn. He's just so cute all bundled up in the towel basket--not that you can see the basket in the sketch. I did borrow a technique from the Tatty Teddy to make the towels look all fuzzy without any shading.

Temporary web gallery up

Web Gallery.

Since my blog is my website at the moment, we decided that I needed to get my gallery up. It's good to get my work out into the world. Maybe it will encourage me to work faster. :)

Enjoy