Another athlete courtesy of Sports Illustrated.  In this case, Donovan McNabb doing what he does best: scramble out of trouble.

This sketch started out as just a study of his arm and hand, but I thought I needed to give the disembodied arm a little bit of context; so I sketched out the rest of his body.  Maybe if I do enough drawings of individual parts, I’ll be able to put them together into a cohesive whole someday.  This method was good enough for students during The Renaissance; it should work for me.  Right?

This is what the rest of the page looks like:

Oh well, learn from your mistakes and move on, right?

My preliminary goals for 2010 are:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.

And for those of you wondering, those glowing orbs above my subject are Christmas ornaments hanging on the tree behind his chair.

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.