Upside-down Nightmare

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.

Comments

Ice Skating Characters

A Competent Profile

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.

Inktober Day 3 - "Bait"

Old school pen and ink. I haven't used a crow quill pen since high school - and, even then, I remember struggling to get it to work. This time, I thought I would try to create something using only cross-hatching. The prompt word today is "bait". This word took me into a lot of different ideas, but the one I ultimately landed on is based on the will-o-wisp. In my head, I imagined glowing orbs in front of a copse of swamp trees all created with layers of cross-hatching. Things had to be scaled back a bit. There are still two trees in the background if you look hard enough. Success? Sort of. It forced me to use a different kind of pen and, in doing so, made me want to keep going and get better with it.

Rainbow Bisque

Search This Blog