While my new student drew her first still life I decided to make a few sketches. The man is from a book that I will be talking about soon and of coure, the back of  the woman is my student, and I have every student draw a can of bull dog clips as part of the still life so I decided to sketch that as well.

These are both 30 minute sketches of my niece. I’m hoping she decides to model for me on a weekly basis, but I think she discovered it’s harder than it looks.  She had a hard time holding these poses for the full 30 minutes.  I am pretty happy with them considering how long it’s been since I’ve had a model sit for me.

Does anyone know how to get the white of the paper to look white without washing the rest of the painting out?

A complete course in 40 lessons

by: Judy Martin

(click on image to go to Amazon page)

I came across this book in an email from Artist Daily just as I was thinking to myself, “I really need a book that teaches you how to sketch.”

Unfortunately this book did not exactly hit the mark I was looking for.

There are a few paragraphs in the beginning of each “lesson,” however,  there is really no guidance in the book.  There are tips, i.e. “…if you fill a whole sketchbook with hands and feet you will know all there is to know…” or draw things you have around the house and use a hard cover sketchbook.

There are also ideas of things to sketch, such as, go to the zoo.   Unfortunately for myself, it’s not a lack of what to sketch that seems to keep me blocked.  It’s more of a “how to.”  I have thought a million times, “I wish there had been a class at my college just on how to sketch.”

I want the lovely sketch book that is in itself a work of art.   I can’t imagine anyone getting that from this book alone. It’s a great start for some one who is really just getting started, but don’t expect instruction on how to sketch other than you can use a pencil, pen and ink or watercolor. As an artist I already understand the myriad of media available to me.

I do find some of the ideas helpful and a fresh perspective on how to think about sketching. Buildings for example are extremely tough for me. They are boring and complicated at the same time.  However, if I had looked a bit closer at Martin’s lesson on recording detail while I was in Maine last week, I may have had an easier time of it. I would have done very rough sketches of the buildings as a whole and done more detailed sketches on the adjoining page of their complicated details.  Instead I just wanted to jump in and get it all down in one go.

Still this doesn’t help me with hairy lines, my real obstacle to interesting sketches.

The book is worth a look, but don’t expect to master sketching in 40 lessons.  If you don’t like the way your sketches look follow the advice of my friend Gabriela and ask someone who’s sketches you admire.

I bought a book titled Mastering Sketches by Judy Martin. I thought, “This is the book I’ve been waiting for!”  There are 40 lessons. I am trying to decide if I want to do one lesson a day or one a week. Although they are not so much lessons as ideas or maybe commentary (at least so far.) Still they are good ideas, the unmade bed being on of them.

No matter what I decide I am looking forward to having a guided path to improve my sketching.

I also realized a few things about my sketching habits.

1. I am too much of a perfectionist with my sketches. I hate them all if they are not as good as I want them to be, I erase way too much, and I don’t enjoy the study of my object because I am too busy hating what is on the page.

Solution: After today, no erasers when I sketch. This will make me more mindful of each line I put down and will, hopefully, help me move passed the fear of error. I would just use a pen, but I don’t know how to shade very well with a pen.

2. It may take me an hour to make a decent sketch, but that’s still a sketch when you consider the hours I put into a painting.

Solution: Time. I will get faster over time.

3. If I stop worrying about how boring the subject matter is and focus on what makes it interesting (i.e. focal point) I can have an interesting sketch with out worrying about all the details.

Solution: Stop worrying about all the detail. Everyone tells me to lay the whole thing out first, then slowly build in the details. I must say while I thought I understood what they were saying, it finally started to click today. Even if I rough in most of the scene all I really need to spend time on is my focal point.  I finally get that the sketch isn’t about the whole subject, it’s just about the feeling of the subject.  I have done that before, especially in gesture drawing,  but have never (until now) been able to grasp the concept when it came to sketching.

I don’t know why that was so hard for me to grasp. I can’t explain, I can only shake my head and give a bashful little smile.

These are the very first sketches for a children’s book I am working on. More details to come, I just wanted to show what I have been up to besides working at a bookstore and getting ready to move.

I am not the best sketcher, but I think by the time the book is finished I will be much improved. I am also not an illustrator, luckily the author wants what I do instead of illustrations.

Sorry for the very poor photo quality. I am having an issue with my computer. I have to open everything up as an administrator and I can not open up my scanner that way. I had to take the photos with my cell phone. One day soon I will figure out what the problem is and have it fixed.