In keeping with my goal to draw more people, I decided to draw this pic of Roger Federer from a recent Sports Illustrated. This was my 2nd sketch, and the one I am happiest with.
This is what the rest of the page looks like:
Author Archives: Jeff
Pouring Water Into A Glass
Sketched from a photo on Stock.xchange. The drawing is out of proportion and crooked, which I attribute to the couple of glasses of wine I drank before pulling out my sketchbook; but if you squint and look away quickly, it might fool your eye just a little.
Oh well, learn from your mistakes and move on, right?
Goodbye, 2009
Just a quickie sketch of the train under our Christmas tree. In another couple of days it’ll be gone until next year.
My preliminary goals for 2010 are:
- Draw more. In 2009, I only managed to draw a couple times per week — maybe not even that if you average it out. I firmly believe that getting better at drawing and painting is largely a matter of practice; so if I want to get better, there is no way around this.
- Draw more people. I have steadfastly avoided drawing people as much as I could. At some point, though, you realize that drawing people well is something you need to learn to do. 2010 is the year I start down that road.
- Rely less on line, and more on areas of tone/color. I have a tendency to outline everything, then fill in the areas like a coloring book. Sometimes, this is a nice effect; but I rely on it too often. Time to change my approach.
- Do some finished pieces. So far, my portfolio is almost entirely comprised of drawings and paintings in my sketchbooks. Time to do something worthy of hanging on the wall (or at least, on the fridge).
Well, goodbye 2009. You were a good year (artistically speaking). I feel like I did get a little bit better, and I had a heck of a good time. I can’t wait to see what your baby brother brings.
Nap Time
After my experience drawing someone in constant motion, I moved on to a more stationary subject. Again, the likeness is not quite there, but at least I am starting to gain a little confidence.
And for those of you wondering, those glowing orbs above my subject are Christmas ornaments hanging on the tree behind his chair.
Mario Time
This is my nephew. He’s doing what most kids his age do on Christmas morning – playing video games.
It’s not a very good likeness, but I was more interested in capturing the shape of his body. Even that was more difficult than I expected; turns out, he’s a very active gamer. Don’t let anyone tell you playing video games isn’t exercise. He didn’t stop moving the for more than a few seconds at a time. Maybe next time, I should just snap a photo and draw from that.
Mountain Bluebird
This mountain bluebird is my entry for Everyday Matters challenge #125: draw a bird.
Drawn from a photograph in the book Born Wild by Henry H. Holdsworth; a photo book of young animals in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.
Haircut
Drawn while waiting to get my own hair cut. This one was particularly tricky because the barber never stopped moving from one side of the chair to the other.
Classmate
I finished my work a little earlier than some of the others, so I drew a classmate while I waited for the critique to start. I’m still not 100% comfortable drawing people, but I’m getting there.
Trash Can
Drawn during a short break at drawing class.
Negative-space Chair
A simple, scribbly sketch while waiting for drawing class to start.
Dilapidated Farm
A 1-minute pencil study for a barn that will be going into a larger finished work.
Wisconsin Farm
A 15-minute sketch from my trip to Twin Lakes, Wisconsin.
Tombstone Angel
I found this on top of a gravestone in some tiny graveyard in the middle of nowhere. The light was hitting it in an interesting way, so I sketched.
Main Street Laundry
Actually, this is the building next to the Main Street Laundry in a little town called Twin Lakes, Wisconsin.
I sat on the sidewalk and drew this building while, apparently, half the town sat inside the diner across the street and watched me. Eventually somebody came out and yelled, “What you drawing?” I answered him, and he replied, “Mavis thought you were doing homework. I said that a strange place to be doin’ homework!”
Funny how people have no compunction about asking what you’re doing if they think you’re drawing. If I had been fixing a lawn mower or balancing books on my head, I’ll bet nobody would have said a word to me.
Lincoln Park Conservatory
This building near the Lincoln Park Zoo is comprised of a bunch of greenhouses and is one of the more interesting looking buildings in the area. My perspective is all screwed up on this. Also, I should not have tried to capture such a detailed subject with charcoal in such a small format as my sketchbook.
I’m going to have to give this one another go sometime soon. Unless the weather doesn’t hold out; in which case, I’ll have to wait til spring.
It’s Honeycrisp Season
As much as I hate to admit it, I learned about Honeycrisp apples from Oprah Winfrey. It was on one of her lists of her favorite things, and I stumbled across it on the web some time ago. I thought, “I like apples, what the heck… let’s try these honeycrisps,” and that was it. I was ruined for other apples. Now, I look forward to September/October the way a kid looks forward to Christmas.
The season is almost over, though the local grocery stores will continue importing them from some place south of here for a little while longer. Thought I would capture one so I could daydream until next year.
Cat Toy
These pictures of a cat toy were done for my drawing class.
The top one is a pencil drawing and was a study in composition. We spent a good hour or more sketching out different compositions until we found one we liked. I liked this one because it is just plain silly… looks to me like the scene of a crime. There is a cat out there somewhere hiding from the authorities.
The bottom picture was a pen study in shading and line quality. The gist of the exercise, as far as I can tell, was to demonstrate how lines can be made to simulate shading from a distance.
A Corner of the Den
Our condo has a small area at the front of the living room that is not exactly part of the living room, but neither is it a separate room. The floor plans referred to it as a den. I suppose with an open floor plan, you can call any area anything you want; but I get a kick out of showing guests “the den”.
This was a 30-minute sketch: 4B pencil in my sketchbook. Just trying to capture the light/shadow from the lamp.
Brown Paper Bag
Hobos are known to share their brown paper bags. I’m not a hobo, but I am still willing to share mine with you.
This was drawn in class this evening. 18×24 charcoal on Canson drawing paper which was graciously supplied by the instructor. This was too large for my scanner, so I had to photograph it with my phone (because it seemed like too much trouble to dig out the good camera); that dark spot on the bottom-right is my shadow.
My Secret is Out
So there you have it: the eggs that I’ve been drawing are hard-boiled. Just a little insurance against one of them trying to make a run for it, taking the death leap from the table to the floor in a misguided attempt to escape.
Simple Still Life
Following the lead of my drawing instructor, I purchased some gesso and have painted a couple of common items flat white. This helps to simplify the light/shadow interaction and allows me to focus more on shape and shade rather than having to worry about things like reflections or distortion caused by viewing things through glass.
You’ll probably see these items appear again in future drawings.
Drawing Class
Fall is officially here. Summer activities are no longer in the way, and the weather isn’t completely frigid yet, so it is the perfect time to sign up for a drawing class. The School at the Art Institute of Chicago offers evening and weekend drawing classes, and I’ve been toying with the idea of taking a drawing class for a while now. Classes started on the first of October; I am enrolled in ‘Beginning Drawing’.
I drew these eggs last night as part of my homework. This week was our second class, and the topic was shading. We spent the bulk of the class drawing white objects on a white surface. As boring as that sounds, it turns out to be a great way to learn to see subtle variations of tone; and as you can see, white can actually be pretty darned dark.
My hand-eye coordination still needs some work — the egg on the left is a bit misshapen. But I feel like I am improving even after just a couple of weeks of class. If nothing else, I am becoming much more comfortable with charcoal (check out my previous attempts with charcoal to see what I mean).
Another Crack at the Crock
I was happy with my loosey-goosey sketch of that garlic crock the other night, and (apparently) lacking much in the way of creativity, I decided to try it again: this time a little more controlled, and I tried to make the composition a bit more interesting by placing a bit of garlic in front of the crockery.
I stuck with the Cotman paints and waterbrush just for the sake of seeing whether I could keep things from getting too messy.
The main issue I have with this is that I don’t think I got quite enough contrast. This has been an issue that I’ve had from the beginning; though I do feel like I’m slowly improving in that regard.
Garlic Lives Here
As I slowly reintroduce art back into my daily routine, I thought I would try a very loose painting today. This garlic crock stood out while I was cleaning up after dinner. It keeps moisture from getting into the heads of garlic stored within, and it looks nice sitting on the counter.
I eschewed the under-drawing, opting instead to lay down the paint directly. Accuracy suffered, but I like the looseness of the image. I also opted to use my student-grade paints and a waterbrush for this one, because they are just less hassle to deal with; and tonight was all about minimizing hassle.
Yellowstone Campsite
My artistic output this past month has been–shall we say–light. In part, this was due to the planning and preparation for a two-week camping trip out west.
I had great plans for drawing and painting for hours at a time. But the reality of camping in Yellowstone and Custer State Park (South Dakota) was that we were either driving, hiking, sight-seeing, or cooking/eating/washing-up almost every waking hour. We did manage to shoot close to 1400 photographs while we were out there (hooray for digital photography! I would NOT want to pay for all that film to be developed), so maybe I’ll try drawing from some of the pics we snapped.
I did manage to spend one afternoon painting at our campsite. This was our home for most of the trip.