I recently posted one of my latest life drawings. It occurred to me some time ago (as I use Adobe Illustrator at work,) to add colour form and shape into the drawings and see what happened. Well, this is what happened:
I use a Wacom intuos tablet at work – they’re great tools, essentially they’re a mouse but also work like a pen, pencil or paintbrush. As well as tracking across the screen responding to pen pressure that can be used in many ways (like making the line you draw thicker the harder you press). at home I have an old one – a graphire 4. It no longer works with my operating system osX El Capitan. so I have done this one using the track pad on my laptop – which has taken much, much longer.
Using Adobe illustrator also makes it easy (and quick) to adjust colours
Wacom products are great, but they’re expensive. Looking into it I have seen this on Amazon: Huion H610 Pro Graphics Drawing Pen Tablet, there are MUCH cheaper and have great reviews.If anyone of you guys out there has any experience of using one I’d love to hear from you.
Detail: I left the sketchmarks in the 10 minute drawing in the background as it added a nice texture.
Vancouver has great coffee, and great coffee shops (such as my favourite ‘Our Town‘ in Mount Pleasant – where this photo appeared on ‘Road to Wherever’ last year). Soup bowls full of rich coffee are served to customers, like myself, who sometimes over-indulge.
So I was in Our Town, with a sketchbook trying to get into the flow of drawing. It wasn’t forthcoming, when a couple sat directly behind me. While listening to their conversation, which may have been over-caffinated, I began draw. Their exchange was a little peculiar, I honestly have no idea if it was a first date, breaking up or perhaps they were rehearsing a play. I also couldn’t really hear what he was saying – men talking at a lower frequency in a crowded place are hard to hear (sadly), but she was a bit fierce and really articulate – my favourite line of hers was “Don’t be pretentious, it brings me out in a rash” she then challenged him on his heterosexuality (twice) and they left together for dinner… quite happily it seemed.
I’m often amazed at other peoples’ conversations. London’s listing magazine, Time Out, has a section called word on the street – pieces of overheard conversations which are often quite funny / weird / ridiculous – if you like that kind of thing do have a look.
I think this particular conversation had a direct influence on my drawing!
I think this is from 2006 – I really like it. I was drawn in a place called ‘The Art House’ in Lewisham.
The standard at the Art House is quite high, I think a lot of people are artists or ex-Goldsmiths Students because it’s near the college.
If you’re thinking of going there to draw do note its a ‘come and draw as you please’ place, you’ll get advice if you want it.
There are other places where they set a task each week.
This could be; “draw with your left hand”,
“Charcoal only this week”
“Don’t look at the page – just the figure”
“Your pencil must stay in contact with the page”
And many more… such as collage only, pull the image from black paper using white chalk,
My favourite is when they made lighting for ‘chiaroscuro’*. But I only had that at extra curricular classes in art college. So if anyone knows of a place that does use lighting in London let me know!
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*
chiaroscuro |kēˌärəˈsk(y)o͝orō, kēˌarə-|
noun
the treatment of light and shade in drawing and painting.
• an effect of contrasted light and shadow created by light falling unevenly or from a particular direction on something: the chiaroscuro of cobbled streets.
ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from Italian, from chiaro ‘clear, bright’ (from Latin clarus) + oscuro ‘dark, obscure’ (from Latin obscurus).
I’m moving home soon, I went through some old things having that clear up. You know THAT horrible clear up, where you find things you haven’t opened since moving in. Most of which is essentially junk. This time I’m cutting right back, I mean it – its the most boring job ever.
On the plus side I found some old prokect work from university – the first time round, 1997/2001 and some life drawings from 2005. There was also a drawing about my mum from 1993!
I’ll show some of these over the next few weeks. This one is a life drawing probably drawn about 2005.
A couple of recent drawings from the National Portrait Gallery, I’ve posted other ones before.
Even though I got there late I did get one lengthy double portrait in. We were asked to blend two images. Which was fun, I didn’t do it to the brief because it was meant to be profile. But I wanted the man on the rights fantastic eyebrows to stick out, and they would have been lost. Ha! So ended up with this Mount Rushmore thing I quite like.
The second image, Frazer, was a wonderful, dynamic modern sculpture. It somehow reminded me of 300, Dark Knight & Sin City author / artist Frank Miller – even though I only got 5 min in before the session ended I wanted to do this in a much rougher, more angular style that suited the sculpture but the result is nice for the time I had.
I love that place. I always leave these sessions feeling really happy.
I went back at the Friday night drawing class at the National Portrait Gallery. I have talked about the Lateshift programme before. I’m not Leonardo DV but I’m comfortable with a pencil.
But i forgot there was a brief.
This time it was to take two pieces of paper a pencil and a marker. First on the larger piece of paper to just create the shading, and then to place the second peice of (tracing) paper over the top and complete the detail. It was actually really hard. Its like drawing backwards for most people. I think the most common approach is to draw the detail and structured lines first, and shading is essentially filling in.
I went to the National Portrait Gallery Lates last Friday . They had a drawing exercise drawing the busts of some ancient famous people, I had to have a go. Don’t know who this guy is, and I wondered how hard it would be to draw a beard.
When I was young my dad ended up with LOTS of paper. I don’t know how. It was 1979. Seems strange to have a heap of paper arrive, but it was normal at the time, when you’re 9 years old you dont really have a yardstick for what normal is – so you just get on with your paper-filled life.
Anyway – my point is I drew, I had been drawing before that, but when the paper came I drew and drew and drew. Dogs, houses, spacecraft, dinosaurs, cowboys and indians – I even did crayon rubbings of the furniture. Mental. It took years for the paper to run out.
Over time I became what the other kids in my first/lower/infants school called “a good drawer”. I entered a National competition, I think it was World Wildlife Fund – I won it, but was sick the day of the award so my dad went to collect it. The prize? £15 worth of book tokens.
Anyway – I kept on drawing and went on a foundation course to build a folio for an arts degree. Looking back I wasn’t really interested in art as concept or what it could say, I just loved drawing so I did it again and again and again. Didn’t want to write, or analyse, I would skip those classes, but stay late for extra life drawing. I just wanted to draw, well by then …draw,get drunk, go to parties and chat-up girls.
So academically I was a bit lazy, when it came to university applications, I didn’t make the cut. Then I got stuck in crappy jobs for 6 years – I had fun otherwise, I had good friends, chatted up girls and went to parties – but working life was boring and it went nowhere. And I stopped drawing.
Its a tragedy – why did I stop? Worried about day to day life I guess, which I did find a REAL shock after being in education for so long.
Eventually I went to University – in 1997, and I could draw again. I wasn’t as polished, but the skills were there.
What’s my point? Well, I have two points:
ONE: National Portrait Gallery invite the public in late on a Friday to draw from paintings, photos or statues – they lay on equipment. The standard of people varies; some are good some are not so good – but it feels great to be in a room where everyone is drawing. If you’re around and you know what I mean by this you’ll go. If you don’t know what I mean, try it anyway – whether you think you’re good at drawing or not – it’s fun, it’s free and it feels good.
TWO: If it’s fun, it’s free and it feels good and its not hurting anybody, don’t have a six-year gap, keep on doing it.
Road to wherever 