A few more weeks of SBS Polishing have gone by. Koosje re-introduced us to negative drawing and this week Vin Ganapathy showed us in some short vids how he sketches people, beginning with real life figures/friends and finalizing with photo reference.
Vin uses Tombows to colour his people … and last week I received my first Tombow from Japan (2.80€, including p&p) (incredible). It is a calligraphy pen and is something like a hard pen brush. It is just … magic … there are no other words for it. Especially in the Moleskine calendars I have for my daily gesture exercises.
Anyhow, before I forget, here are a few examples of my people sketching acitivities using the Tombow or an edding1800 (Felix Scheinberger introduced me to this pen). Some are from photo references and some a drawn while I was at an artisan’s market today. Two spreads are of my gesture drawing activities.
Well, as mentioned, I’m on the next SBS Kourse: Polishing
The first week is “comic strips” with Danny Gregory.
Before the week began, I decided to shave off my beard and ‘stache. So you’ll see some newer self-portraits here.
I tried (and failed) to stay up all night to start Polishing as one of the first. So I started drawing my bedtime espresso and chocolate muffin. I also watched a video with Danny and drew him for about 30 minutes.
Most of these pics are in my A6 Hahnemühle sketchbook with my Lamy Safari “F” nib and Lamy ink.
late night espresso and muffinwhere’s my muffin?conversation comic stripMy day as a comicKonrad-Adenauer-Brückeice cream truck (2 minutes)mirror imageme, from photoview of Bonn’s skylineDanny Gregory
Week 6 of SBS Seeing Klass. Ended April 7th, 2016.
Actually, I believe — in retrospect — this may be where all the trouble began (I stopped my daily gesture drawing, I gave up drawing for hours a day, days passed without me drawing at all).
This Klass with Liz really shook me up … analyzing complex patterns seemed to be so tedious and basically impossible for me to manage.
We attempted to draw nicely patterned teacups (of which I have something ranging from zilch to “non at all”) with ink and then paint them with watercolour.
Additionally, we went out and drew some buildings.
I took on an extremely complex topic of drawing my rococo style mirror (I haven’t got many patterned things … or perhaps I’m not looking properly).
I also decided on filling my A6 Hahnemühle sketchbook … taking watercolurs completely out of the equation (because of the paper in said book).
What I kept on noticing was that the non-analysis seemed to work better for me and I kept slipping into the well-known behaviour of just playing it by ear. My brain was refusing to compromise, denying myself to slow down, look, measure, compare. It was confusing and made me doubt myself.
But I have also been reading George Leonard’s book “Mastery”, where he describes that if you attempt to learn something new, you may perceive a drop in your skill level especially if you have been whiling away on a plateau for some time.
I’m slowing getting back into my daily gesture sketching, taking it in little steps. Perhaps only 20 minutes of 30 second gestures a day. I have also started drawing a slower sketch every day or two (I’ll drop a post here too with some of those pictures soon).
So let’s not fret too much. This was the last week of Seeing and there was a lot to learn, so that I actually believe now that I should have taken a longer break before starting the next Klass … but I’m now on the Klass Polishing at SBS … some of that stuff coming up on a blog near you soon too.
analysis of view from bedroom windowView from bedroom windowView from bedroomView from living room window, no analysisPatrick’s DuploCappuccino cup
Teacup and mirror analysisRococo mirror: analysis 1analysis 2after analysisRococo mirrorMirror before any analysisBuilding opposite bakeryOur houseneighbour’s car
SBS (SketchBookSkool), “Seeing” Klass, week 4 with Cathy Johnson.
Have you ever tried to sketch a tit? A starling? A sparrow? Wow, they are so fast, why can’t they stay still? But … one moment … they are doing the same 5 things over and over again. Bingo, squiggle here, curve there. Just … let … me …. look.at.you.again … ok … bit of blue there. Wow, there’s a robin in the magnolia! Is that a pidgeon up there on that tree 200 metres from here? Oh, the lawn is crowded with blackbirds, how did that happen?
So, now I sketch birds in 5 seconds and give them a bit of colour based on memory. And I try to find out what type of birds they are, and I was never interested in birds before … well not this type anyways.
Today I sketched the birds on the spot. On the first day, I took photos of “my backbird” and drew from the photos. On the second day I looked out for birds, and the ones I saw, I drew from reference photos of The Internet. Then I tried to draw from memory (birds I’d seen one hour earlier).
Ok, last day of this kourse, but I still sat down now (9 pm) and last night to fling some paint onto those watercolour sheets. It’s getting hard to find still life objects … I thought! These have all been drawn using a Lamy Safari “F” nib with water soluble, royal blue ink. The lines are continuous-contours. There’s just a break for the ring and the book. These were really great exercises and I’ll try to keep up with them.
Into the 3rd week of “Seeing” at SBS (http://sketchbookschool.com), my second kourse there. Watercolouring over water soluble continuous contour lines.
This is the latest painting (Tuesday night) (about 10 minutes), going with the flow:
This was Sunday night (the date is wrong on the pic) (20 minutes), keeping those whites free, letting the paint roll:
Sunday morning (30 minutes) … very exact … using glazing, letting things dry:
Saturday night (artificial light), seemed messy to me, but now it’s one of my favourites, the shading, the messiness, I’m sorry, I think it’s gorgeous:
Ok, before I overload the previous blog post, here are the collected results of another week at SketchBookSkool (join it!). This is the second week of the “Seeing” Klass with Koosje as teacher. We are all making selfies. And as I am currently working with Alphonso Dunn’s “Pen & Ink Drawing (a simple guide)” (buy it!) … most of my results are in … pen & ink.
Ed got me going with this one … I enjoy seeing his results and the progress he is making with his toolset (https://mostlydrawing.com). Every now and again, he will upload a bunch of self-portraits. Now I’ve got into the habit of drawing, painting, sketching myself once or twice a week too. Here are the results.
2016/01
15/02/2016
26/02/2016
24/02/2016
24/01/2016
21/02/2016
22/01/2016
22/01/2016
19/01/2016
22/01/2016
21/01/2016
20/01/2016
27/02/2016
22/02/2016
2016/03
2016/03
2016/03
I’m using different sketch books and scrap paper. I use different tools in no specifc order they are
a Lamy fountain pen
Faber Castell Pitt artists pens (S, F, SB (soft briush))
a dip pen (numerous nibs)
Pelikan wax crayons
F-C Polychromos colour pencils
F-C Albrecht Dürer watercolour pencils
watercolours, with Kolinsky paint brush, or Koi waterbrush
biros (nothing special, just what’s handy)
pencil (very very very seldom)
The Lamy is great for on-the-go, I use it to jot down anything (e.g. telephone numbers) or sketch people. At home, I switch to biros or Pitt pens. It’s then nice and relaxing to use the dry colour tools (wax crayons, Polychromos or Abrecht-Dürer), but if I want something really demanding with the chance of achieving a sense of success (no, scratch that, it is always worthwhile), well, then I’ll get out the dip pen, Dirk Weber ink and Horadam watercolours, not to forget the Da Vinci Kolinsky brush. That reminds me, it’s time to spend a few hours with those lovely tools again and “ruin” a few pages of watercolour paper.
Stuartdraws 