the sketch pen

LifeDrawings from yesterday + Sketchbook Dump

2012-02-05T18:24:00.000-08:00

And here are some life drawings from my sketchbooks - some old, some not so old. Yes, the first model was nude except for the giraffe hat (complete with spotted pattern).

sum mo (not Sumo)

2012-01-31T22:48:00.000-08:00

In Progress Character Design

2012-01-28T21:49:00.000-08:00

I've got a number of personal character concepts in the works right now which I hopefully will be posting soon. This is one I just recently came back to after putting him aside for a while. I've noticed that I do better work when I have a chance to take a break from the image for a while (preferably overnight or longer) and then come back to it with fresh eyes. I don't want to say too much about who he is right now as this is still in the early stages. You can read his character on the right. I'm still trying to "dial in" the features until I'm happy with it.

Sculpts!

2011-12-09T00:28:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd post some old sculpts. Some personal, some commercial. Sculpting has always been my first love in the arts. I haven't had much time for it in the last 3 years though. Hopefully 2012 will be different.

A Thin Model

2011-11-21T00:16:00.000-08:00

Had a good week at the Life Drawing session. I do miss the professional lighting setup we used to have at Art Center in Pasadena though. It is definitely much harder to render form in a diffused lighting situation with multiple light sources. The strong direct light source also casts hard shadows and makes clearly distinguishable shapes. And your drawings have a greater sense of drama. But I guess it'll make me a better artist in the long run because I'll have to learn to organize my lights and darks more carefully and to make those decisions about what to emphasize and what to leave out with a more discerning eye.

Another thing that helped back then was that we often had the model standing in front of a solid colored backdrop rather than looking at the model in front of a distracting smorgasbord of fellow artists, windows and furniture. But then again I suppose I could be thankful for the opportunity to to rise to the challenge and come up with a creative way to interpret the model's surroundings. I know, I know, it's all for practice anyway, quit whining, shut up and draw.

Draw Life

2011-11-07T03:01:00.000-08:00

Selected drawings from recent life drawing sessions. First three are my favorite. Tried to fix the reclining female in Photoshop, but it still looks over-worked, and something is off. I've been trying to do a better job with proportions and measurement lately, but I have to slow down to get it right.

What, More Figures?!

2011-10-19T01:38:00.000-07:00

Yep, more Sat fig drawings... Oh, and last year's halloween pumpkin carvings just to round things out a bit.

Small Figure Drawing Update

2011-09-22T23:45:00.000-07:00

Just a few more figures - from last week. Progress has been slow on the fig drawing front as of late, but I have seen some improvement with composition and color in my digital work. Will post some of that soon. I wasn't planning on making this simply a figure drawing blog, but that is what this has been turning into lately. It always seems that the images I most want to share from my job as a concept artist get stuck in NDA limbo land.

Two Recent and One Old

2011-08-26T22:36:00.000-07:00

This painting is an old one that I thought I'd share. It's oil on panel about 4ft X 2.5ft. This was done as a class assignment back in college, and is a self portrait done from life. From life?! Yes, when I was younger and more fearless, I rigged up a mirror near the ceiling in my apartment, borrowed a suit from a friend, and just went for it. I titled it "Corporate Fall", and I guess it shows how I imagined I would end up trying to lead the corporate life. I kind of like the fact that we don't know if he was pushed off that building, or has jumped, but the expression says "regret". Well, now it looks overly dramatic, and pretty amateur in technique to me, but at the time I was growing as an artist and young adult and I'm still fond of it.

The next two are drawings from recent life drawing sessions.

Figures!

2011-08-07T00:32:00.000-07:00

From today's open life drawing session.

These last two are from a few weeks ago. The first of which are one min poses which I love and hate doing - usually they are poor, but from time to time I manage to do some that I like. Experienced artists know that the first few strokes are the most important. Nothing is worse than spending the next twenty minutes trying to correct and redraw an image because you screwed up the proportions in the first few minutes and then based all of the rest of your decisions and measurements upon those first flawed lines. The last drawing was a long pose (about 35-40 min, I think) that I drew on newsprint. I wasn't happy with how flat it looked, so I added white chalk to get the highlights at the end. The trouble with that is that the white chalk is only visible at the right viewing angle in the right light, and of course it didn't photograph well, so I tried to salvage it in Photoshop for your viewing pleasure.

Just for fun...

2011-07-10T12:52:00.000-07:00

Sat Morn Life Drawing again

2011-06-26T00:45:00.000-07:00

More Recent Figures

2011-06-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

Some more recent drawings form the Saturday morn open life drawing sessions at UofO. Trying to simplify and see the big shapes as I have a tendency to try and render every bump and wrinkle.

Charcoal on newsprint.

More studies from Leyendecker studies

2011-06-12T17:51:00.000-07:00

Still learning from doing these, and enjoying it too.

Photoshop CS5. I used mostly just two brushes to do these, but I put a little texture and a simple emboss effect on the highlights to give them more of the look of real oil paint. Real oil on canvas has some body or thickness to it so it casts a little shadow on the canvas.

Me Wovely Life

2011-05-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

These are just a few of the images I've done over the years to immortalize my lovely wife. When she was 8 months pregnant with our son, I asked her to model for a sculpture I wanted to do. She was the cutest pregnant woman I have ever seen. But, I think I made her stand too long, because I've had quite a hard time getting her to model for me ever since.

charcoal on paper, chavant oil-based clay (approx 2.5 in tall) , ballpoint pen, and graphite on vellum.

Digital Painting Exercises

2011-04-29T23:33:00.000-07:00

These are a bit old, but I still like them. The first is a painting loosely based off of a great photo I came across of Vladimir Putin. I wasn't so interested in trying to do a painting of Putin as much as I was in the dramatic lighting and color. Plus I wanted to try out some new brushes I created and to try and get closer to a natural, traditional media look with Photoshop CS3.
The second is a study of one of Scott Burdick's paintings. This time using ArtRage 2.0 on a Cintiq, I tried to see how close I could get to the look and feel of real oil on canvas. If you're not familiar with the work of Scott Burdick and his wife, Susan Lyon, it is well worth checking out.

Recent Life Drawing Sessions

2011-04-25T01:16:00.000-07:00

Charcoal on Newsprint. Nothing quite inspires like the human figure. Figure drawing is still one of my favorite things to do, although I don't get a chance to go nearly as often as I'd like. It can be quite a struggle at times, but when it's going well, the whole world around me just melts away.

JC Leyendecker Hands

2011-03-09T00:17:00.000-08:00

My wife bought me a great book on the life and work of JC Leyendecker (1874 - 1951) for Christmas last year. I've been a huge fan of his work since the first time I saw it back in college. His paintings are so clean and well designed, and he made it look so effortless. Unlike Norman Rockwell and many of the illustrators that followed him, he did not use photo reference at all, but did careful studies of props and models from life for each of the illustrations he created. I decided to do regular studies of his work in hopes to unlock some of secrets hidden in his flawless technique and better understand his thought process.

Leyendecker was a master at painting hands full of character and personality. In doing this study from one of his preparatory paintings, I could see just how much he utilized the ground as a mid tone to work back and forth with darks and lights. The ground is a light gray and since he keeps the shadows thin, the overall effect is very luminous - a hallmark of his paintings.

Anyway, the top image above is the study I did, and a process sequence. The painting was done with Photoshop CS3. The bottom image is the Leyendecker study I was working from.

Old iron smelter and stump

2010-12-28T03:08:00.000-08:00

A couple more life studies done in gouache. One at a park and the other at Badger Lake on Mt Hood, Oregon.

testing the water...

2010-12-28T02:27:00.000-08:00

This is a test of sorts. Trying to get the settings how I want.

The image - gouache on paper, aprox 3.5 in wide.