Last class of the year!

Marissa Gomez was here! Last class at DW till mid January.  Keep up the sketchbooks between now and then!!!

Egg heads and head shapes

When working with drawing the heads and faces I've usually told people to use the egg shape method by Walt Stanchfield. It's meant to quickly sketch in the construction of the head because many times people forget the volume. It's an excellent way to lay in the head and figure out the perspective by using the nose and the eyes.

Objective aesthetics come into play as we draw in the nose/eyes placement. We all have our own way of sketching a nose or eyes but this quick sketch beginning should be loose. Plus the intersection of the two egg shapes allows for an easy ear placement.

Inevitably once you've become comfortable with the egg equation you graduate to the next level of attitude and acting that's specific to the model. Our drawings become more unique and individual as we push the acting and attitude given to us as the egg shapes morph into caricatured versions of reality.

A particular jaw shape versus a forehead shape, mixed in with a nose shape builds on all the simplistic scaffolding in the beginning of the sketch. The trajectory.

The idea with all this is to try and sketch economically direct! You want to use your construction lines as your final lines. Or at least lines that are going in the direction of final lines. Which means hopefully you won't have to many lines that are aimless.

Here are a few examples from one of my sketchbooks, hope you like'em.


Cafe smug




FIDM girl


Woman on the train


Eukenuba Judge

im·ply

I added simple "orange"graphs to show the overlap example.

Imply

Pronunciation: \im-ˈplī\

• Function: transitive verb
• Inflected Form(s): im·plied; im·ply·ing
• Etymology: Middle English emplien, from Anglo-French emplier to entangle — more at employ
• Date: 14th century

1 obsolete : enfold, entwine
2 : to involve or indicate by inference, association, or necessary consequence rather than by direct statement imply obligations>
3 : to contain potentially
4 : to express indirectly implied consent>

synonyms see suggest

usage see infer

One of the things that I'm always trying to get across to friends and students is to "Imply" shapes behind other shapes. Walt used to draw a circle over a circle and call it an orange in front of an orange to describe overlap.  The drawn lines of the oranges behind the front one where inferred to exemplify body shapes or tree shapes or whatever it was behind what we drew.  The other was the mountain example which was pretty self explanatory.  I'll use the orange example for the post.

     

When you look at the definition of "Imply" it starts with obsolete meaning no longer in use or no longer useful. This could help, by thinking we don't need to draw what we can't see the hidden shapes within the overlap.  The second definition is about inferring and not drawing too direct.  To infer the shapes behind others.  The third we are containing the shapes behind others and the fourth is indirect expression of the shapes. HA! it all relates when you think about overlap and how we can draw the orange behind the orange!

I had to put the examples first, blogger was acting up!

Trajectory of a pose

The trajectory of a pose is set up in the first minute! There's something that happens as we wave the pen around the page waiting for it to contact. We are aiming! Eventually we feel comfortable putting a line down and hope that its the right one. In the onset of the drawing those lines need to have a sense of directon aiming for a target! Imagine if a there existed a magic bullet that when fired it didn't just go straight, it wiggled around and drew a line that formed our drawings. The same kind of aim a marksman may have when he fires a bullet to a target is the same kind of aim we need when we fire off a sketch, but our bullet moves around in that magical line. All too often we don't take the moment to aim and we start putting lines down that mean nothing or fight against each other on the way to that target.
Those first few structure lines are the most important because those are the ones that we are building on and they act as your scope for the rest of the drawing to follow. So all the best as you aim and fire, drawing out lines that are purposeful and hopefully.........hit a bullseye!

Diaz VS. Marquez 2-28-09

LONG LINES

I've been yelling out for so long "LONG LINES" to all the students in my classes. The reason is so that the lines can complete themselves out! There's something that happens when you let the lines continue and go as long as they can. All to often I catch students stopping the line and cutting short its desired destination to the land of balance and rhythm. Let the lines be long and try to lay in their paths from top to bottom. Let them live!!!

This wonderful model is "Karole Foreman"

Soccer saturdays

I've been taking my son to soccer saturdays.  It's been fun to watch him run around like a crazy kid!  The other thing is I've been away from the blogging for a while and I've come back now with a new banner as you can see.  I'm keeping the domain the same so my friends can still link to me- but my reason for the banner change is for what I've been calling "the year of reinvention!"  We all come into a new at times in our life's and today is time to make the change.  Draw! Draw! Draw!

Diego chasing the ball

A mother and child watching on.

A mother chasing after her son who got onto the field wanting to play!

Diego having a "ball."

meeting sketches

these where some sketches that where done in a meeting and the scanner had a hard time reading them but I thought they still had some value. gotta keep sketching no matter where you are

!

Enjoying it

Teaching the gesture class is great and I have a blast doing it.  Everyone in the class is really into learning and they produce a ton of wonderful art.  I can't help but sit down and do a couple of pieces myself when there's so much inspiration going around.  This is Daniella Traub modeling for us, she's magnificent. 

This one was hard but I had fun trying to capture a feeling.

Daniella is tall and all leg,  she's fun to draw.

Thanks Daniella

two train sketches and two from S.D.

Overlap the neck

There's a common problem that occurs when we sketch too quickly or we're just not paying attention. The neck/chest connection just doesn't quite cut the mustard. It happens to me often in the early stages of the gesture and I usually try to catch it and fix it.

The circumference of the neck starts at the clavicle and connects to the back spine of our bodies( obviously we all know that). But many times when we caricature we draw the neck lines right on top of the shoulder line. It runs the risk of having tangents in the drawing and thus flattening out the pose. That neck needs some sense of overlapping shapes to help make it feel connected to the body in a natural way.

I sketched out the examples for this with one of my students and the T-shirt analogy came up. If you look at your shirt you'll see that the hole for your head comes out of the front, not the top where the shoulder seam is. Also, clothing has all the gesture lines we need to help guide us in the line work. Use the collar, use the seams, use whatever it is on that clothing to reveal the form. It's all overlap, and it is needed, unless you really want a flat looking drawing. Even those who draw in a so-called "flat" design style make use of these principles. Shane and Shannon, for instance, use overlap beautifully to show the forms working together, as well as staying completely away from tangents! They're super good!

Down below I threw in a couple of drawings I liked, just for fun.

Hope all's well......