Rainbow Bisque

I've been attending an informal figure drawing session on Sundays. For the most part, none of the sketches I bring home are worthy of displaying - this is no exception. Still, today I brought a new enthusiasm and a little more experience with me. I have learned so much about drawing people since I started this project. Every day, a new challenge presents itself. I may not always have the tools to create something amazing, but I will always walk away with a little more wisdom. Art is an amazing, complicated, difficult and wonderful thing - it's a world I'm proud to be a part of.

With fifteen minutes, I have just enough time to block out the main shapes and mess around with values. Today I went back to basic tools - a mechanical pencil, a 4B pencil, a blending stump, and a knead-able eraser. The middle dark values are a bit muddy, but the lighter values are pretty smooth. I definitely have the most control available with these tools. Maybe one more pass with some softer lead would benefit these drawings.

I tried using a marker and a flare tip pen for today's drawing. I found it difficult to build tone or create the shapes with any accuracy. On the other hand, the marker can cover a lot of ground without much time or effort. With enough time, I could see this working - but that isn't what these drawings are about. I actually like the bottom lip, though.

As I start to become more familiar with proportions and measurements for the various faces I attempt to draw, I am starting to wonder how to make a more complete portrait with my limited time. Do I stick to lines? Do I bring a brush and some ink? Which lines should I include? Which shapes are important to represent? Maybe this is a good time to look at the work other artists have done and try to work out some of their methods.

The sleeping mouse is now a painting - well, almost. I am contemplating whether or not to add a background. It may be time to move on to the next thing for now. I got to use some of my favorite watercolor techniques for this one - including wet-on-wet washes and pulling color. As I put down my last bits of paint for the night, I realized I was working kind of dry. Watercolor needs water or everything looks a little too rough.

From a photo of a statue in a travel magazine. The face is weird and the proportions are off, but I really like the shape of the arms and legs in this sketch. I only wish there were more statues like this in the magazines I pick through - the poses these figures are in make the runway models and cologne salesmen look boring and lame.

There's a lot of weird stuff going on in this drawing, but I think it was important to try and tackle this pose. It is strange how the proportions of a figure change when they shift positions. When learning to draw accurately, you are taught to ignore what you "know" and rely more on what you see. This can cause a bit of a conflict when your brain is attempting to correct your drawing. I wish I had more time to correct some of the strange proportions, work on the face, fill in the hair and finish the legs (maybe add in the little dog she is looking at in the original photo) - but that is the nature of these exercises. I have only the time I am given to capture what is in front of me. Maybe this photo will come up again. More likely, I will get to use what I learned on a similar pose.

This is my favorite portrait I've done during this project so far. I may be using this as a way to study skin tones in watercolor. Speaking of which - the palette is loaded up and ready to go!

Pure contour drawing is the process of drawing without looking down at your paper. It's a very slow and methodical technique. Blind contour drawings never really look "correct", but they are some of the most truthful expressions of the way an object looks. Modified contour drawing employs some of the same techniques, but you are allowed to look at your paper every once in a while. Working from edge to edge and surface to surface, I was able to create a pretty accurate line drawing. Drawing every day is the goal I set for myself this year - and it seems to be paying off.

I love drawing, but I would never consider graphite my favorite medium. The benefits of drawing practice extend into painting and digital art, so I never consider my time with a pencil to be a waste. Today, I focused my time on one part of the face rather than an entire body. With fifteen minutes, I was able to capture an entire eye and begin fleshing out the values and details. Tomorrow, I would like to try starting in a section and working from contour to contour without jumping around too much.

One of the most important things I learned from my painting experiences last year was to create a value study in graphite before even mixing my paint. This gives me a good indication of the different water and pigment ratios as well as the techniques I will have to use. The mouse will be a fun challenge. I'm practicing my washes again - learning to mix paint and hold a brush again. I don't think it will take long to get back into the groove.

The photo reference I used for today's study was tilted slightly. It was an interesting challenge, trying to keep the proportions correct at an angle. The eyes look kind of strange the more I look at them (they are supposed to be looking up and to the left slightly). There is something I really like about the pose and the hair. I may decide to take this one a step further.

I attempted to use a Copic marker for today's study. I don't have a lot of experience with these things - I bought one on a whim just to try it out. I was having a lot of trouble at first - but as soon as I got a hang of things, I really appreciated the way the marker covered large areas with tone. With the marker, I could create shadows much more quickly than the mechanical pencil I have been using. I may not have nailed down the fine details, but I can see using this to create some great value studies. The urge to paint is getting stronger. I mixed up some colors and messed around with some brush strokes today. There seems to be a mouse that needs painting...

One thing that really helped when I started learning to draw was turning the subject upside-down. The less you are able to associate objects with their proper names, the less likely you will be to draw their simplified, symbolic representation. It's a valuable tool to the beginner, and still a useful exercise to the advanced artist. Today, though, it produced a nightmare creature. I can't imagine what people were thinking as they walked by my quiet table - with an upside-down magazine, a pencil and this monstrosity looking back at them. Not that I mind what they think. Portraits and figures and my weak spots - I know that if I want to get better I have to keep challenging myself.

Both of my portraits today happened to have glasses. As I'm looking at them now, they seem a bit crooked - the glasses, that is. The likenesses aren't quite there - but the proportions look pretty good to me. In just a few days, I have learned so much just from doing these random drawings. Maybe, one day, I might work up the courage to draw someone in real life - maybe.

Expanding upon my earlier idea of a sleeping mouse, I finished a sketch from a research photo I found. I spent this morning creating an outline copy with the intent of turning this into a painting. Now it's a matter of finding the right techniques to put it all together.

Switching to a pencil was a great idea for these quick sketches. I still try to erase as little as possible, but I have more control over the values I'm working with. Arms and legs are kind of a pain for me - they always have been. These little exercises will be a great opportunity to work on these trouble areas.

Because I didn't find anything to draw during my walk yesterday, I decided to sit in the break room and doodle. When I sat down, I noticed a rotating magazine rack containing a bunch of fashion magazines. It dawned on me that these magazines didn't contain anything I would ever want to read about, but they did have tons of models in various poses wearing lots of different styles of clothing. I flipped to a random page and attempted to draw what I saw with the ten or so minutes I had for break. The result is kind of ugly - it looks more like some kind of monster than the model I was looking at. But I have a strong urge to keep going with this. I will be committing my breaks to drawing these random models to learn about portraits and figure drawing. Maybe I will have produced some cool portraits by the time the flowers make a return.

I found myself unable to find something to draw this morning. Winter has caused most of the birds, flowers, and leaves to hide themselves for a while. I stood outside thinking about hibernating animals - warm and tucked in somewhere. It's a simple sketch, but the idea can be turned into something more complete.

I filled an entire sketchbook with my daily drawings. I tried a Halloween-themed drawing-a-day project. I made the most of (forced) time away from my little office. Of course, I also slacked off quite a bit during the holiday. Today marks my return to daily posting. This discarded and torn Chinese food takeout box is my first drawing of the new year. I am putting together the final details for my next daily project - which I hope to start soon. I have a lot of work ahead of me.