Daily Sketch 7

Went to Del Taco for lunch with the family today. Here's a drawing of the son eating a churro. I passed on the sweets and had an order of fried jalapeno rings instead. So good!

Done with Sharpie pen.

Daily Sketch 6

Here is our dog again. She still moved a bit. I just try to draw fast!

Done with Sharpie pen.

Illustration Friday: "Skinny"

Well, I missed last week's IF topic, so when I saw the new topic today I hit the ground running and hammered it out. Sometimes I like to document my working process. It allows me to think things through and sometimes find ways of doing things more efficiently. So that is what I decided to do today.

First step to starting a project should always set aside a block of time to work on it (which I don't always do), in this case I planned on finishing the project in one sitting, though it took a couple hours longer than I expected.

Next step is to make a roughs of my ideas. Typically I do several roughs, but in this case I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do.

Another rough was done to work on the position of the central figure. I drew myself posing in the mirror.

With only two roughs done I started an underdrawing on an 18x20 bristle board.

After probably working way too long on the underdrawing, I added little bits of ink rendering just to indicate the form of the figures. I erased the pencil lines after the ink dried. If I stopped at this stage I think it would have made for an interesting picture, but not many people appreciate minimalistic illustration, and I wanted to use color anyway.

In the next step I blocked in brown tones that I mixed from primary colors. Then I added some blue into the sky.

I continued to add color. Some artists prefer to work out a color scheme based on the color wheel. Though I sometimes do this too, many times I prefer to think of color as a way of creating form an value, which is what my approach was with this project.

After laying down the basic colors of my design I wanted to strengthen the values a little bit and so I added washes of India ink.

Originally, I planned to use collage in this piece, however, as the process went on, I decided that the picture was not lending itself to collage, at least not in the way I was thinking. So instead I used white color pencil to add some lighter values and develop form. I also added some red color pencil.

With the final step, I finished off the picture with pen and ink, being careful to not overwork the illustration, which is often difficult to do. The "Skinny" part of this illustration is reminiscent of when I used to be a long distance runner. I was so skinny yet I ate vast amounts of food. Today I am much more sedentary, I eat less, and I weigh much more than I did back in the day. Maybe I'll work on the weight after I become a multi-millionaire artist :) I could only be so hopeful!

Daily Sketch 5

Here's another sketch of our dog. She moved a lot so it was difficult to get a likeness, but hey, that's how it goes sometimes.

Done with a Sharpie pen

Daily Sketches 4

Seems to be lots of opportunities to sketch this week. Today's drawing is from an awards assembly at my son's school. Children are always a fun challenge to draw because they come in many shapes and sizes (as this drawing shows) and there really is no set formula for drawing them. There can't be because they are in constant change and development.

Done with Sharpie pen.

Daily Sketches 3

I wasn't sure if I would have time to do a sketch today, but lo and behold, the PTO meeting this evening at my son's school. It was just a 45 minute meeting, plenty of time to do a quick sketch.

Done with a Sharpie pen.

Daily Sketches

Here are a couple of drawings from yesterday and today. The first was done with a Sharpie pen. I drew our minister giving the lesson during Sunday class. Yes, I was listening! :)
The second drawing is a pair of gloves that I rarely wear. However, with getting a new dog, and as the weather gets cooler, I will probably be wearing them more often on our walks together. Done with India ink and pen nib.
The gloves idea is from an Everyday Matters group weekly drawing challenge.
For the sake of a little discipline, I am going to try to do a little drawing every day this week (and if things aren't too busy, the following weeks). It is alway good for an artist to keep up on his chops by exercising the basics on a consistent basis. Too often do I take for granted that drawing just comes naturally to me and so I don't take the important time to work at it.

Various Sketches

Some quick drawings done with a Sharpie pen.

Illustration Friday: "Germs"

Here is my take of this week's IF. Using a little creative license, I decided to steer away from the bacteria idea of germs and focus on the idea of germ as a seed (germinate).

Ideas are like seeds that grow the more you tend to them.

Done with watercolor and pen/ink.