Sketchbook

Week 3:

Gallery

Day By Day

Day 10: I realized that these stick figures are actually really helping me see the angles of the body in a different way. I must concentrate on the figure as a whole and think more about the abstract shapes that it makes as one.  Who knew you could learn from from stick figures?!

Day 11: Actually day 11 only consisted of the two figures on the left and the head oval. I became very frustrated after the bottom figure and decided to call it a day before I went to work.

Day 12: I came up with a happy medium between the stick figures and the more detailed drawings. I was planning on just doing a few more gestures today (Saturday, Day 14) and calling it a week, but last night I had the over-whelming urge to draw some gestures so I did.

Day 13: Technically these were done on day 14, but I am grouping them sort of, by 10s and just calling those days. Again I figured I would just sit down and do 10 for today and that’s it. I would confess my sins of playing Ninja Warrior on Facebook for an entire day. (Well technically I ended up sleeping 12 hours until 2 o’clock in the afternoon and only stayed up until about midnight, so not really an entire day and I blame my little brother. It’s so his fault.)  However…..

Day 14:  I ended up modifying the stick figures so that I would hopefully have something that could be done quickly as well as help me get the proportions a bit more accurate. I believe I did 15 of these as well as flip back to Day 11 and fill in the page for a total of 50 gestures. By a nose on this one…

I will also say that Ninja Warrior was not my only pit fall.

The last two weeks have been a bit crazy. However, from the craziness came good. I was able to spend some fantastic time with my best friends and I think we all needed it no matter it came about by the tragic loss of another friend. Sometimes it takes a tragedy to make you drop everything that “needs” to be done in order to focus on your real priorities, such as loved ones.  Danielle will be missed greatly by her friends and family, luckily, for us she made the world a better place while she was with us and her memory will live on for a very long time.

Week 2 I decided to change things up a bit, out of necessity and to try something different. I love Sharon’s style so I decided to take a small tip from her work. While Sharon does do the full figure, I wanted to work as fast as she does. I was very distracted this week with getting a new blog (thanks to Nick for helping me figure it out) and a few minor house hold issues that took a lot of time.  I also have been very curious about the differences between how illustrators work as opposed to fine artists.  The first 4 days I just concentrated on getting a line of action and trying to express the movement. I think doing fast, stick-figure drawings really helped me see a bit of the difference in the approach. I loved seeing the motion and the movement. It helped me get a sense of the slight weight adjustments the body makes.  By the 5th day I was bored with the stick-figures. They are very fun and I will most likely go back to them, maybe start to develope them a bit more as I get faster. To keep myself interested in the project though I went and bought another reference book by Mark Edward Smith. This is The Nude Figure: A Visual Reference for the Artist. I will try to add a link on the side bar.

I remember once in a class I was in where there was an illustrator w/ a bunch of fine artists, the question came up what’s the difference between the two and is there a difference? The disappointing point was that the illustrator wouldn’t participate. She would say we were wrong about something but not actually give her reasons.  I think that there are and there are not differences. It’s also a question that will  most likely never be answered or could be answered.  I also understand her frustration at having to defend her art for what was probably the millionth time, but I was more interested in hearing her discuss it than actually figuring out if illustration was the same as fine art.  Any thoughts?

Premise:
Sharon over at ArtBySaw just finished a project she titled 50 Cars/50 Days. I know, her title creativity is genius. Anyway, she wanted to start something else and she came up with 30 Days/300 Figures. I believe she changed the title of it, but whatever. I jumped on the bandwagon and here we go….

Day 1.
It’s taking me a bit to get into the groove of gestures. I started out doing 5 minute gestures, but it seems a bit much. Maybe if I was doing watercolor because then I would need time for the painting to dry. As it is I am using a smallish notebook (one that I bought in Santa Fe, it’s pretty) and I am using pencil. I am relearning everything my life drawing 101 teacher told us as I go.

I started a day late so this week I only have 4 days, but I am doing 12 gestures a day instead of 10. (10 gestures 5 days a week x 30 days = 300 figures)

Day 2
The first day I used an ebook, but I quickly became bored so I switched to the book that I have. I am continuing to loosen up.

Day 3
If a gesture is not going to go the way I want it I do erase it and start over. I know I should get rid of the eraser, but my sketchbook is so nice that I don’t want really ugly sketches in it…just slightly ugly.

Day 4
I was really able to loosen up on the fourth day. I was always told that for gestures, because they are so fast, you need to get to the important part of the pose right away. On these two pages I was able to let myself leave a good chunk of the figure out in order to focus on the important parts and to do it much faster than the other 3 days.

If you want to join along leave a link to your site in the comments after your first post.

Note: Originally posted on 10/9/09 at blog.limitedpalette.com

My favorite gesture by far.

3 minutes is almost too short for my style. The wet on wet technique that dominates my way of painting does not work well in such a short period of time. There’s no time to dry between layers and while everything blends together beautifully there’s no definition in the figures. 5 minutes however, at least when using just two colors is just right. We tried a six minute long pose and it took the spontaneity out of it.

The first gesture of the week. I enjoy this one because it shows my progress from the first time I took this class. I was known as puddles that semester. Not because I have a habitual problem wetting the floor, but because all my gestures looked like puddles of color. Beautiful puddles, but puddles none the less. At least this one has a ghost of a figure. That makes me happy.

This is a quick painting of Joe. I had to make up a project during the week we used a model and he was kind enough to sit in for me.

This is a conte blocking. You take a piece of conte and use one tone to lay out the basic shape of the person, then you press harder to get another tone for the shadows. You only shade in the darkest shadows and you only use the 2 tones. You also only use the broad side of the conte. The purpose for all that is you just want an abstract form, no details. He looks like a samurai. I love it.  

Another gesture, same woman