Mor pre vue

Project cooking...

Pre-view

So, Something Else is taking me longer than I thought to get going. Here are some sketch notes that got me started.

We;ll be living up to the title of this blog with a big project soon.

Fish or fowl

My artistic sensibility has clearly been formed by comic books, but that assertion is almost meaningless when you think how many different sensibilities are represented in comic book art.

Gil Kane

Cliff Chiang

Mike Sekowsky

Joe Kubert

Curt Swan

And those are just the favorites that came to mind first.  If you check out this Top 100 list, you'll see a still wider spread of style and approach.

And that's what's driving me nuts abut this drawing business. Not only don't I know how to get where I want to go, but I don't even know where I want to go.

Anyway, the Daily Double is back on the shelf. I'm going to try something else.

For now, here's a little unfinished vignette starring Virago.

Daily Double 11

Today's prompt: Draw a lotus flower.

Today's drawing: 

So, I am continuing the gestural theme and the working with the pen-brush. I still don't have control of the line weight, just like I am not yet fluid with chord changes on the uke.

From the files:

I tried to find something that was kind of gestural. These folks sure have long arms, don't they?

Daily Double 10

Today's prompt: Draw Narcissus in love with his own reflection

Today's drawing: 

Pencil sketch and inked on tracing paper. I used a Faber-Castell Pitt artist pen B for most if it, and the Copic for the wavy stuff. He has a T-shirt because, whatever.

From the files:

A pencil sketch with another mythological theme, I guess.

Daily Double 9

Today's prompt: Draw an opera house

Today's drawings: 

So first I had to find an opera house. A Google image search brings back mostly the one in Sydney, but then I recalled my favorite opera house.

The Opera House on Eureka, Nevada. I'll blog someday about my visit to Eureka. Anyway, I overlaid a grid on it, as I did with the Model T drawing, and did a pencil sketch.

After I had the pencils, I wanted to try my hand at inks. My first effort was with a Copic Sketch 110 - I guess it's an artist's pen, or a pen-brush. I have zero confidence in trying a real ink brush; using the fat end of this tool is a far as I go. 

I tried to control the line weight but I am not sure how successful I was. I do like the fluidity of it; good for the impressionistic style I was aiming at.

Then I tried with a straight edge and a fine felt-tip, just to see the difference.

I didn't try to do an architectural rendering; it's still pretty impressionistic, just more geometric.

From the files: Nothing from the files today.

Daily Double 8

Today's prompt:  Draw determination.

Today's drawing: 

In the first D&D game I ever played, I rolled a critical fumble while my character, Ragnar, was fighting a hill giant and he fell down a steep cliff. Then one of my party mates rolled a critical fumble and shot Ragnar in the back. Then the hill giant rolled a critical hit and smashed Ragnar's head like an overripe watermelon. But he was on his feet. Determination.

Great game. I like some of the energy in the sketch.

 From the files:

Cowgirl sketch on graph paper?

Daily Double Double Header: 6 & 7

The sketchbook as closed for the holiday yesterday.

Yesterday's prompt: Draw one of the American Founders.

Yesterday's drawing:

Of course, I went with my go-to American Revolutionary, the radical Tom Paine. I did a pencil sketch and then inked it on tracing paper; it came out okay, except his eyes got a little crazy in the inking. I used this image as a reference: 

This makes him look more like Judd Hirsch than mine does.

From the files:

This is some generic guy. I think I was playing with shadows. I don't like it very much.

*******

Today's prompt: Draw a page full of ears.

Today's drawing:

Funnily enough, the guy who taught the cartooning class I took years ago went on an on about ears - particularly the Marvel Comics house style on ears, which he called "How to Draw Ear Squiggles the Marvel Way," playing on this. With these sketches, it seems to me the more detailed it is, the less it says "ear."


 From the files:

Another generic guy, but he has an ear showing, anyway.

Daily Double 5

Today's prompt: Draw a Ford Model T

Today's drawing: 

So, I knew I wanted this to be cartoony, but I still wanted it to be right, if you know what I mean. So I followed one of the tricks I read in an art book while we were browsing the shelves in Half-price Books today and did this:

I think it worked pretty well. I wonder how to get good at drawing it fifteen times, from different angles, like in an Archie comic. I guess by drawing it a thousand times.

 From the files:

I wasn't drawing a lot things back in the day, but this guy has a lot of fiddly bits on him, so I thought he was an appropriate match. I look at him now and I have a mixed response: it;s not terrible, technically, but it also doesn't have a lot of life.

Daily Double 4

Today's prompt: Draw a page full of straight lines, freehand.

Today's drawing:

So, I'm not sure what this accomplished, but I am sticking to the plan.

 From the files:

I must have drawn hundreds of Spider-Man images like this all through high school. This one is from years ago but much later than high school and is probably a lot better. My memory of my high school sketches probably overstate their quality. But maybe not. Anyway, it has lines in it.

Bonus sketch:

This chicken was up in the corner of the page that had Spider-Man. It might be the best thing I have ever done, now that I look at it.

Daily Double 3

Today's prompt: Draw the Beatles.

Today's drawing: I do need to do something about how these scan.

I'm still not sure that what I am doing is drawing or cartooning. I also still don't know whether I need to focus on learning to draw if I want to cartoon, or whether just steady cartooning will improve my drawing. In any case, what I was trying to go for here was the verve and body language of the animated Saturday morning Beatles show. Not quite there.

From the files:

This is a finished piece instead of just a sketch. There's more detail and a little more "realism," but it's still a cartoon, innit? I like it, though.

Someday I am going to find a nice essay that describes in detail the difference between drawing, sketching, cartooning, and illustration.