Archive for December, 2008

Idyllic Christmas

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

cat-and-xmas-tree_2Every once in a while, I sketch something that I’m really happy with.  This is one of them.  I think I really captured the silence of the moment.

The Corner Pub

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

burwood-tapI love street scenes.  But it’s cold, so I don’t expect to do much of this until spring.  I was on my way to do a little Christmas shopping.  A foot of snow had fallen during the day, and I just couldn’t resist snapping a pic of the scene so I could draw it when I got home.  This is a thumbnail sketch using a Pilot G2 gel pen.

Boxes

Monday, December 15th, 2008

boxesBoxes are surprisingly hard to draw accurately.  Their simplicity is, I think, half the difficulty.  It becomes easy to fall into the trap of drawing what you think a box should look like instead of what it actually looks like.

The individual boxes look OK.  But I think I’ve got the perspective a little messed up.

Messy, Messy

Monday, December 8th, 2008

unmade-bedOK.  I admit it.  I didn’t make the bed today.

But I did draw.

I’ve felt that my drawing style has been too stiff, and I wanted to do something very loose — almost scribbling.  As it turns out, this technique is called “scumbling”; and it was a favorite technique of mine back in the day.

I had forgotten about it until it just came out of my pencil today.  It more or less “just happened”.  I was getting tired of smudging my drawings, so I decided to hold my pencils more like a paint brush.  The result was a very loose, almost out-of-control sketch.  I really had fun with this.

Once again, my perspective and proportion are off.  The bed is a queen-size, but you’d never know from this rendering.  And it looks like the footboard is narrower than the headboard. Still, I feel like I’m making progress.