Showing posts with label Drawing Lab. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Drawing Lab. Show all posts
More Drawing Lab
One of the assignments I'm working on right now with Drawing Lab is the one where I have to draw EVERYBODY. The lesson recommends using index cards and a pen - we are supposed to be drawing by feel, without looking to much at our subjects, and our subjects are not supposed to be posing - we are supposed to draw them as they move.
There is a coffeeshop method, where you sit in a public place and watch people eat and draw them, but I'm too lazy for that. I just turned on my tv and drew the people there. You have to be careful not to pick a show where everyone is deliberately beautiful, because then your pictures don't look like people in particular, but comic book images. I watched and drew Twilight Zone people.
One of them is Martin Landau, not that you could tell, and another I think in Mariette Hartley, but none of them look quite like those people.
Drawing old, wrinkly, bald people is fun!
There is a coffeeshop method, where you sit in a public place and watch people eat and draw them, but I'm too lazy for that. I just turned on my tv and drew the people there. You have to be careful not to pick a show where everyone is deliberately beautiful, because then your pictures don't look like people in particular, but comic book images. I watched and drew Twilight Zone people.
One of them is Martin Landau, not that you could tell, and another I think in Mariette Hartley, but none of them look quite like those people.
Drawing old, wrinkly, bald people is fun!
A cat of my own
You may recall that I had to draw 30 cats for a drawing assignment; to be honest, I probably did fifty before I had enough. Then I looked at the book and there were some additional assignments. The first was to digitize (scan) our best cat and apply the faux offset printing effect on it.
You have wonder about a book that teaches you how to doodle cats, but assumes that you can already do a faux offset printing effect digitally (is that a PhotoShop thing? Because in PSP, you have to juggle layers to do it).
Anyway, the next thing we were supposed to do with our cat was to use it in our normal art. My normal art is inchies, ATCs, and cards, so I printed out a sheet of cats in three sizes. Here are some inchies:
The shape of this cat makes it very easy to cut out, and since I had relatively thick lines, it reduced very well. The think the plainness of the cat really offsets the backgrounds. Now, to the ATCs:
I thought that this would be a good size to embellish an ATC while allowing a lot of background to show. I just had this painted background lying around, plenty for this ATC and the inchies. This fits the Gingersnap Creations paint challenge. The thing about acrylic paint is that it resists water based media, but you can use alcohol markers and pens on it just fine.
This was a colorblocked background that I made from old scraps of paper. I realized that my largest cat would fit on it fine if I turned it to a landscape orientation.
I like a plain white cat, but it also occured to me that the cat would take well to coloring, paper piecing, and even this:
At this size, the lines are bold enough to hold their own against the zentangling. I was going to leave more white space so that the cat would look like this one that I know in real life, but I got carried away. The cat is in my computer, I guess I can do whatever I want with him.
What a coincidence that the theme at Fun with ATCs is cats!
Would you like to play with my cat? Here is the plain scanned HiRes image:
Just click it to see it full size. If you use it, I would love to see what you make! Share it and I will send some love your way.
You have wonder about a book that teaches you how to doodle cats, but assumes that you can already do a faux offset printing effect digitally (is that a PhotoShop thing? Because in PSP, you have to juggle layers to do it).
Anyway, the next thing we were supposed to do with our cat was to use it in our normal art. My normal art is inchies, ATCs, and cards, so I printed out a sheet of cats in three sizes. Here are some inchies:
The shape of this cat makes it very easy to cut out, and since I had relatively thick lines, it reduced very well. The think the plainness of the cat really offsets the backgrounds. Now, to the ATCs:
I thought that this would be a good size to embellish an ATC while allowing a lot of background to show. I just had this painted background lying around, plenty for this ATC and the inchies. This fits the Gingersnap Creations paint challenge. The thing about acrylic paint is that it resists water based media, but you can use alcohol markers and pens on it just fine.
This was a colorblocked background that I made from old scraps of paper. I realized that my largest cat would fit on it fine if I turned it to a landscape orientation.
I like a plain white cat, but it also occured to me that the cat would take well to coloring, paper piecing, and even this:
At this size, the lines are bold enough to hold their own against the zentangling. I was going to leave more white space so that the cat would look like this one that I know in real life, but I got carried away. The cat is in my computer, I guess I can do whatever I want with him.
What a coincidence that the theme at Fun with ATCs is cats!
Would you like to play with my cat? Here is the plain scanned HiRes image:
Just click it to see it full size. If you use it, I would love to see what you make! Share it and I will send some love your way.
Drawing Lab - Week 1
I just bought this book that I thought would help me with my drawing -
Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun (Lab Series)
- and the first assignment is to draw 30 cats while lying in bed.
I know, this is only ten of them, but I have a short attention span. I just have to do 10 at a time. I can't draw 30 cats at one sitting.
I do understand the point of the exercise, though. Real artists don't pick up a pencil and create art on their first try. They draw something over and over until they figure out how to make their image look right. Only amateurs think that everything they do is great. Pros know that most of what they do is just practice for the real thing.
Also, lying in bed is supposed to help us be more relaxed. Unfortunately, for me, it isn't relaxing. I don't do anything that involves sitting up in my bed, like reading or writing, because waterbeds aren't designed for that. There are only two things I like to do in bed, and they both start with the letter S. Sketching isn't one of them.
Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun (Lab Series)
- and the first assignment is to draw 30 cats while lying in bed.
I know, this is only ten of them, but I have a short attention span. I just have to do 10 at a time. I can't draw 30 cats at one sitting.
I do understand the point of the exercise, though. Real artists don't pick up a pencil and create art on their first try. They draw something over and over until they figure out how to make their image look right. Only amateurs think that everything they do is great. Pros know that most of what they do is just practice for the real thing.
Also, lying in bed is supposed to help us be more relaxed. Unfortunately, for me, it isn't relaxing. I don't do anything that involves sitting up in my bed, like reading or writing, because waterbeds aren't designed for that. There are only two things I like to do in bed, and they both start with the letter S. Sketching isn't one of them.
