Car drawing

While on break, the inspiration hit to sketch the faces that we passed in the adjacent vehicles next to us. Now I'm not crazy enough to sketch while driving at the wheel the way Walt stanchfield would but I sketched these people while my wife drove. If anyone is traveling this weekend and your "not" in the driving seat, give it a shot, it's fun. The nice thing is the window of the subject's car gives them a nice natural little frame and it helps compose the sketch on the page. Oh and one more thing don't get car sick. Have a nice forth of July!

Back from break!

Hello anybody,

I had a chance to do some sketching while up the coast so here ya go.



This sketch was done on a beach where my son was chasing waves!



The big aquarium of sea kelp at the Monterey Bay aquarium.

These next two are dear to me becuase my son and wife were having such a wonderful time swinging together on the playground near the hotel. there's a simplicity to the moment of joy my son had while swinging by himself. We should all be so lucky.

Vacation time

Im out for a week. I'll be back on the 26th of the month. Hope you all enjoy this little diddy. It's a cintiq'er.

have a good one.

a small lesson 02

Many times we as story artist and gesture sketch artists concentrate so heavily on the characters facial expressions that we sometimes forget that the person we are sketching has a cranium. I have fallen into this trap many times and it isn't always easy to remember becuase we want the expression on the face to read. Tom Gately{who works at Pixar now, and is an amazing artist}would always get on my case about it. After a while of getting this banged into my head, I think I got it...I think. This is a small sketch that I did to illustrate the simplicity of the head. Its kind of like drawing two eggs overlapping each other. If we dont put something on the back of the head of a character or sketch, we just get a flat face with no construction to hang on to.

Remember the cranium!

I love fridays

It seems that I keep doing this liquor theme on fridays. Oh well, Cheers! Heres to the weekend!

One of my favorites

I did this one a while back in the class. Her name was Marissa Gomez, a very talented model, classical poses with a bit of attitude.

a different type of anotomy

What I mean is the anatomy of a sketch. I had to take a pic of this piece because it was done a large newsprint. This is a bit of insight to what goes through my head when I'm teaching students and trying to instill them with all that I've learned from Walt Stanchfield. He taught many principles for sketching an art and I've always said to the class that it really is hard to think of all of them and squeeze them all into one drawing. This is why we do so many drawings in one class {at least 40 drawings easy}. Anyhow, in one of the last classes I held I sat down in a moment of inspiration and drew this drawing as quickly as I could. Along the way I wrote down all the thoughts I had when I was laying down the lines. The drawing took about two to three minutes to finish and it was an interesting excercise for me, as I drew I wrote and those two ideas coming together helped me solidify my encouragement for the students, I got excited! I eagerly got up and showed the piece in hopes that some of what I talk about in the class was reinforced by this little map of sorts. A map with a few of the Walt principles he taught. Certainly there are more principles that exist, not only these but within gesture drawing these truly are some to look out for.

Squash and stretch
off centered head {not stiff]
more wieght on one leg
the other relaxing
perspective on foot placement
shoulder to hip differential
twist of the spine

Keep drawing!!!

No matter how busy you get in your daily lives, try and keep the pen moving!
Draw!Draw!Draw!Draw!Draw!

Tryin' to catch up!

The students in my class are doing some really nice work. I'll post the notes for this weeks class soon. Here are a couple of my sketches I did, "tryin' to keep up" It's not easy.

Happy hour?

I hope you go to some happy hour tonight! It's Friday!!!

Maze

I called this a maze becuase it's all over the place. I usually preach one drawing a page to people but sometimes when I'm doodling I get a little crazy. This was done on the cintiq.

three 4 Tuesday

Okay, so my 3, 4, 2 joke is cheese but it sounded good when I typed it down. So, here are a few from recent days. Hair seemed to be a theme. Have a good one.

Ennio Torresan 2

WOW!

It's the first word that comes to my mind when I see this fabulous artist take flight in my gesture class. Ennio Torresan has a natural ability to draw just about anything in an amusing and different way. He comes into my class a little late stumbling across drawing horses and sculpting tables holding a big art box and over sized watercolor pad. I notice him setting up like a mad man in the corner. I pay no attention to him yet becuase I may be talking out loud or helping another artists with their drawing. All I hear is boom, bam, crash! This guy with his Eienstien hair do is still getting set up. Time goes and I'm making my rounds over to him and by the time I get to him, he's got a smile of contentment on his face and in his hand he holds a large japanese brush filled with permanent ink. "I'm having so much fun" he tells me and I look at his drawing and WOW! This guy is taking everything I've tried to inspire him with and taken it to a different place. He's just making art! He doesn't care what it looks like, he's not going for a portfolio review, he's just drawing free! He has no limits to his direction and I encourage you to look at each and every piece here and enjoy this deceptively simple, yet powerful work that Ennio has done. (FYI-- He was so inspired, the last drawing is of his wife, he did at home)

chillin`

next week will be better for more post!

Challenge yourself with back shots

Many times I've seen artists move to get the best front or side pose they can. I think thats totally fine, but there is a certain challenge to drawing someone from the angle given to you in the moment. James Robertson {theironscythe}does them very well. Here are a few of my back shot drawings, I don't mind doing them.

Sharky's

I was at Sharky's one day with my old friend Jim Hull and we saw this character. Nothing in this drawing was exaggerated to much he really looked like this. Obviously I did this when I got back to the office.

three new sketch pages

Happy Monday. These three sketches have interesting stories behind them. The first one was in a hair cut shop, the same one from a previous post. This mother held on to her child's head the whole time I'd seen them,as if to direct her path, pretty funny. The second drawing, I had to do, because of the booties this girl had on. She strutted her stuff! It was priceless. And the third was done in a coffee shop in Newhall where these two punkers stood out like a bright day amongst all of the other folk in the place.

OKAY! Maybe this is more my style

I need an assistant!

So where can I get one of these bright eyed, smiley faced, straight out of Harvard, peppery sort of assistants these executives have? I sure am busy!

Unearthed sketch page

Sometimes our offices seem like layers of earth. Excavate and see what under those stacks.