CAPS (the Comic Art Professional Society) had its April meeting yesterday, and we had a live model sketch night. I should have taken a photo of our model, just for comparison. For me, such evenings are great, because I don’t often get the opportunity for drawing, especially not from life. It always makes me feel a bit insecure, because I don’t spend as much time practicing with artwork.
First we did a series of one minute sketches.
It was good to be stretched doing sketches.
This one above, I wanted to get a better rendition of her eyes. Not sure I got what I wanted.
We had more time with the remaining sketches.
The lower right corner on this sketch was me trying to work out the way her curls worked. She had rolled her hair in a unique fashion, so they were a little challenging to capture just right.
The last sketch of the evening was a five minute sketch. Below is the result. I didn’t want to fuss with it more because it felt right just as it was.
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I opted to go to black and white ink again with Number 18. I wanted to try a bit of working from negative space. I had a photo of a fashionable model. Again, working freehand with no preliminary penciling involved.
For Number 19, I wanted to try drawing a panther. A friend had posted the photo on his Facebook page and I liked it. Since I was on the black and white kick, the panther had an appeal. The challenge was doing it totally in black and white, because I didn’t have any greys to use. I opted for cross-hatch for the parts I wanted to be that slight grey. He’s a very slinky creature, this panther.
So, yet again I’m posting multiple days’ worth of work.
For Number 14, I opted for a monochrome approach, using solid blocks of space. I’m trying to look for different ways of looking at things. This is something bolder than I often use.
I decided to go more abstract with Number 15. I’m back to my stippling. Here I decided to play with the spectrum sequence. The basic background thought was of flame. So the yellow bands went down first. Then, still thinking “flame,” I added orange and then red. However at that point, before I moved from red into the pink to purple range, I decided to work the other edge of the yellow: green. I didn’t want to go over-board with that, since the aim was to have most of the remaining space (negative space) be the blue-purple background. So a little bit of green, then the lighter blue, and then the blue-purple filler.
When it came time to do Number 16, I decided to do some practice in contour drawing. I haven’t done such in ages. Technically speaking, I fudged it a little, since the point is to do the whole thing without lifting the pen from the paper or crossing lines. I did restart lines in this, but for being out of practice with it, it turned out okay.
Inktober #6 is another crosshatching portrait. It’s another character from my fantasy world, Arveniem. This is a preliminary sketch for the character of Gwyric, which may change in the future. I’m not sure if he’ll stay looking like this.
With Inktober #7, I decided to try a very blunt inking style with the marker, also sticking to a flat black. If I were using color, this type of boat-on-reflecting-water thing would be a breeze for me. I like doing those. But when I only have black to work with and a broad, blunt style, it really is a challenge. But I’m pretty well satisfied with these results.
With Inktober #8, we get a dragon. How can I not have a dragon in this collection of drawings? Would it be me without a dragon?
With Inktober #9, I turned to my enjoyment of sequencing of the spectrum. I decided to be stylized about it here with autumn leaves. Experimenting again. I’m not so sure about the results here. The color limitations of the set of markers I’ve been using were a little frustrating. But I sort of decided at the start of the month that I would stay with the set of 12 markers, even though I have other markers with greater variation in colors.
The Inktober project continues.
When it comes to pen-and-ink work, I often call myself the “Queen of Stippling.” All those little dots! But I find that I can often get a great deal of subtlety in shading with stippling. So yesterday for the Inktober project, I thought I would give crosshatching a try.
Looks like my pattern will be to post the previous day’s drawing each day. Of course, I might catch up and post a finished piece on the day it was done.
