Monday, January 3, 2011

sketchbook scans

(I just saw the last couple of posts on a regular computer monitor. Oh man those scans are yellow. I'll see about posting nicer versions in a bit. Doing art on this laptop can be tricky!)

This first image is an exercise where I look at someone for a second, then look away and draw my impression of them. From that first image I begin breaking down and exaggerating forms. The sketch with the heavy darks was my initial drawing. This person was very beautiful, and at some point she noticed our drawing group and came over. I quickly flipped the page so she wouldn't see what I'd done to her. The flower was kind of a give away.

The green creatures are an example of marker bleed through my sketchbook pages and how I use that to play with. I try to take advantage of the random forms my tools offer up as a place to play with something unique. I wouldn't have drawn that otherwise. It's quite fun and learning to have fun in this way has had the side effect of making me relax about my physical work. I can't say I'd be happy initially, but if I dropped a sketchbook in a bucket of water it's likely I'd find up sides and play around with the results. In my mind I'm a messy artist, in practice, I'm kind of a stiff. As Scott would say, I want to rub my face and roll around in it.






3 comments:

Keelamari said...

Amazing! You have such a great design sense? What do you find is really beneficial when it comes to picking up such mad skills?

Katy Hargrove said...

It's a big question, but the jist is paying attention to the real world and also paying attention to the abstract world. Life drawing is relatively straightforward. The abstract stuff I find trickier because it has to be grounded in reality at some point, and from there things can go horribly right or wrong depending on the choices made. Doing a super simple breakdown of real shapes, like on a head. Then paying attention to fine details on a real head and pushing them to extremes. The most satisfying images tend to be the ones where you think you went too far and tried pushing further still. Then to supplement all that, just looking at what other artists have done and are doing. Trying to pick up some of their visual language and playing around with the ideas that their lines and shapes lead you to. Sometimes the art you dislike has the most valuable lessons in it, because we tend to dislike things that fall beyond the bounds of the visual language you've developed for yourself. It's like listening to foreign music in a way. All this sounds a bit weird written down I think.

Lamar Mathurin said...

these sketches are so much fun. hard at work, keep it up!