The birth of Henrietta

Juggling a few assignments, I move on to Henrietta. Wow... what a hairdo! This exercise is about foreshortening and of course continues building on the skills of drawing the figure. I was able to rough out her form in line this morning and will building on her the next few days. Now if I can just get a hairstylist in to help her with that mop!

And seeing these pictures side by side, I can already see where I need to make adjustments. FUN!

Suzy sketch

Nurturing a Twinkie hangover, I finished my line drawing of Suzy and am ready to send her in. The assignment to send in is the line drawing of Suzy, the shading of my naked lady friend, and the face parts shading exercise. So it's all going into a big envelope and into the mail. Two lessons left to go! Woooohoooo and a big Yeeeeha!

Suzy taking shape

So I darkened some of the lines of my Suzy sketch and ya know, she looks like something out of a child's coloring book! Something is just not right here and I can't put my finger on it. But since it's for an assignment, I'm wondering if I'm not going at this as a mechanical exercise as opposed to letting the lines flow. Not sure, but I'll keep at it.

Here's to you, Suzy Q!

Patience!

In working with this assignment to draw the lady's head, I decided I would sketch out a grid first so I can be accurate (for the sake of the assignment and my own artistic perfectionism). So wouldn't ya know it... I used my full 30 minutes figuring out how to set up the stupid grid! And I'm not sure I set it up right. Time for patience. I'd rather start out with a proper set up than to find out half way through that I didn't.

So in the meantime, enjoy this head study I did some time ago...

Doodles, noodles, and a night stand

Spent some time doodling noodles. One loop turned into another into another. I did it in pencil although I wish I had done it in ink. So I know next time, ink time!

Was sitting in my bedroom and just got a hankering to draw my nightstand. Realized that the bed next to it is really BIGGER than the nightstand, so proportion didn't quite sink up here. But it got the ink pen flowing and me out of the refrigerator.

Portrait journey

So now I'm getting back into this portrait for my art class. I put the assignment photograph on a light box and traced the outlines. My focus here was more about figuring out the shading which perplexes me on many occasions. Trying to get the shading to produce the effects I want. So here's the first go around. I expect to do many more so if you get bored, hang in there!

More faces!

Quite honestly, I had no desire to shade and tone and draw nice clean lines this morning. I was more in the mood to just color outside the lines! So no planning or layout, I just took an ink pen and went at it.

The first lady is a portrait I'll be working on for AIS, so you'll be seeing more of her (yes, it's a woman!). Just wanted to lay down some lazy lines loosley (lay lazy lines loosely... more fun with words). But as I work more on it, she'll start to look more like a real person.

The second face is Tina from Mark Simon's book, "Facial Expressions." Tina is in love with me, she just doesn't know it yet. So as an expression of my love, I created her in scratchy line. If this doesn't win her heart, nothing will.

Face parts

This is yet another practice assignment for my AIS (Art Instruction School) work. The face parts are already there, the exercise is to shade them adding tone and texture. In my 30 minutes this morning, I was able to get a lot done. You can see an unfinished outline drawing in the bottom left corner.

Tomorrow... part DEUX!

Ink a tree

Say "ink a tree" three times fast. Lots of fun when you've got nothing better to do!

I drew this while I was sitting in my car at a lunch break. It was either do some sketching or subject innocent bystanders to my singing to the song on the radio. I decided that letting others enjoy their day was better than my own personal gratification.

A nose by any other name

Thought I'd pick a couple of noses to sketch. Get it? Pick? Oh, I crack myself up. Not my proudest accomplishment, but at least I'm 30 minutes closer...

Arm and hand

If I had a question for God today, it would probably be, "Lord, why did you make the arm and hand so sophisticated?" He'd probably answer, "So you can hold a Twinkie with a firm grip." I'm not sure that's what He would say, but I think it's a good guess.

Meanwhile, I struggle with the complexities of the human body...

Back on track

Back on track with my figure drawing and my art course and stuff! So says the brave guy with the pencil...

Child's camera?

I drew this with nothing more than a felt-tip pen, my sketchbook paper... and my left hand! Yes, my non-dominant hand. I guess you can say that this drawing is from my inner child. Interesting how the voice of the inner critic was practically silenced during this exercise. Just scribbly lines with no worries about proportion or scale or vanishing points. Just scratching... just because.

It's a really freeing exercise. Try it if you dare!

Moleskin junket

I carry around a small moleskin sketching book in my man bag and got brave enough to do some sketching in front of people. The first sketch was a bunch of warm up followed by an interesting resemblence to a viola case. Voila! or should I say... Viola!

Next, it was time to pick up my boys from school. Some poor mother or caretaker just couldn't resist the chance to snatch a few zzzzzz's. Harmless subject, yes? So I scratched out her likeness before she started to snore or drool. Some lady was sitting next to me and when I finished, she asked me if I drew for a living. I told her that I was a photographer, artist, writer. Should have said that I was DaVinci reincarnated, by why cause trouble when everything was so peaceful?

Until tomorrow (or hasta later)...

Time is ticking away...

I started drawing a watch and the next thing I knew, a television box took shape around it. It just reminded me of how many hours, days, weeks, months, and years that we allow ourselves to be sucked into the idiot box when we could be playing, drawing, painting, creating, loving, and living. And time lost today is time we never get back.