sketchbook 01/31/09

I think I found another spot in the city where I could sketch people in various poses unobserved: a food court in the heart of China Town.

sketchbook 01/28/09

IF: Climbing

This is my official submission for this week's theme of, "Climbing". My original intention was to submit the plane climbing in altitude, but mid way through, I realized the Adam West's Batman climbing a wall would be a lot more appropriate.

sketchbook 01/27/09

The spread above started with "And so it begins…" on the left hand of the spread. I was going to leave it but thought that the spread should be filled in a bit more. So I did with nonsensical phrases and word combinations.

IF: Pale

In the midst of this Canadian winter, all I could think about is the first day that's warm enough to allow me to wear shorts and to expose my pale legs for the world to see.

sketchbook 01/22/09

The above spread was meant to be a quick series of sketches to loosen up, just as the title implies, "Quickies". However, it didn't turn out that way and as I progressed through the sketches, from left to right, I added more detail and hence more time to these guys. The looseness that I so desire from my sketches has evaded me again!

sketchbook 01/20/09

Another sketch from a cafe. This one at the Kahawa Cafe on College street. Quite small and therefore, no hiding the fact that I was sketching people at the adjacent tables. The gentleman in front of me on his laptop was quite accommodating and basically sat still for me. On the other hand, the lady on the left hand side of the spread knew I was sketching her kept on moving around, so I couldn't get a good head shot. So, I basically drew in a fictional head when I got home.

Question: When you're out sketching, how do you remain "unseen" so your subjects don't get the jitters from being your subject?

sketchbook 01/19/09

As I continue to use my sketchbook, I realize I'm not much for composing a page. Clearly this is the case in this spread where I drew the ubiquitous Museum dinosaur and overlayed that on two kids I drew earlier in the day.
However, with that said, I've taken great inspiration from the sketchbooks shown in Danny Gregory's, An Illustrated Life and will attempt to be a bit more composed in future spreads... I hope.

sketchbook 01/18/09

Go big or go home #2

This refers to an attitude I'm trying to embrace when drawing with new mediums and or combining familiar mediums in one drawing which might lead to a disastrous and or successful result. So here it is and I think it turned out ok.

sketchbook 1/12/09

A before and after spread of the totem pole at the Royal Ontario Museum.

IF: Contained

Well, I thought I'd give it an extra bit of effort for this week's Illustration Friday theme of "contained" and get it done on the weekend... and I did. Woohoo!

I've always been interested in working with graphite so I thought I'd use it to render the pepper mill. As mentioned previously, I've been looking at Paul Calles pencil work and I love his pencil strokes. When viewed closely, they are abstract patterns but when viewed within the context of the entire drawing they form a cohesive figurative rendering. I had that in mind and some parts I've achieved that and in other parts, not so successful... But as my college teacher said, "go big or go home".

Each drawing I do definitely is a learning process.

Amendments

An extension to the last Illustration Friday's theme of "Resolve". I've read that there are some lawns contained in Zen gardens in Japan that are maintained by people who cut the grass with a pair of scissors. Now that's RESOLVE!





This is the original watercolour I did for an earlier post with an ink outline. I like the variation in line weight and the solidness it gives to the drawing.

IF: resolve/ Sketchbook 1/8/09

This week's theme was slightly difficult for me to wrap my head around it.
My official submission for this week's IF theme is on the right, but I also included the entire spread from my sketchbook, a habit that I've been doing for the last few entries of my blog.

So enjoy and tell me what you think.

sketchbook 1/7/09

The truck on the right drove off before I could finish painting it.

sketchbook 1/6/09 - blog worthy?

I actually did this sketch yesterday at the local Starbucks. Since it's winter, I find that sketching in coffee houses are the ideal location to capture people in all sorts of poses. Unfortunately, at times, I forget that this is not a figure drawing class and my "subjects" move because, well... they aren't models and some of them have to scratch their noses when it itches.

The other thing about this particular sketch was it's "blog worthiness". I originally didn't want to post it because it didn't meet some standard that I had imposed on myself, but then I read Lynn Chapman's post and it reminded me that this is a sketchbook and not some final piece and being not so precise is an OK thing to be. So alas, here it is.

sketchbook 1/4/09

I'm still trying to get my "pencil legs" and figure out how to render certain things with graphite. In this case, sketching at Starbucks during the evening proved to be a challenge when it came to rendering the darkness outside. I've been looking at Paul Calle's, "The Pencil" and it's been really inspiring.

sketchbook 1/2/09

sketchbook 1/2/09

IF: Clandestine

I'm currently reading Robert Ludlum's "The Bourne Sanction" and that's where my head was when was thinking about this week's theme.

I really like the look of water colour but unfortunately the end result of my watercolour painting typically is a bit too stiff for the medium. However, I'll continue with this frustrating medium and see where it leads me.