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  • Sunday Sketchbook

    A bad day at the office …

    I spent most of my time today dragging compressed charcoal across large sheets of paper and ended up with nothing to show for it. These images were drawn with Conte pencil in my sketchbook, 9”x12”. Two other pages went straight into the trash bin.

  • Saturday Sketchbook

    Anna

    The model was on all day, I would love to have more time with this dynamic pose. This was a 5-minute sketch.

  • Tuesdays at Orr Street

    Tilly

  • Sunday Sketchbook

    Helen

    Sunday was not a good day for me. Here is one pose drawn twice within a 25-minute period, first with compressed charcoal, then with Conte pencil. The uneven line work in the pencil sketch will be evened out (or obliterated) with further rendering work.

  • Saturday Sketchbook

    3-minute sketches ….

  • Tuesday at Orr Street

    Cameron

    Candid quick sketches of the model during a break.

  • Tuesdays at Orr Street

    Tia

  • Saturday Sketchbook

    Helen

    Uneven line work. but I like this pairing. Two similar seated poses—unplanned.

    With a new model, I tend to go really slowly as I try to familiarize myself with the unique details of their anatomy. Sure, there’s a way to do an anonymous, expressive figure, never mind the details; but I want to be able to conjure an authentic likeness. I want to understand the true anatomy.

  • Man on the Street

    A guy I passed by on the street. Drawn from memory.

    I found my way to Shortwave in Alley A. It was quiet there, two employees, a few patrons, plenty dark. I had in mind to sketch people in the coffee house, but I couldn’t stop thinking about this guy that I had passed on the sidewalk on my way downtown.

    His mouth, shaped like a fish hook, appeared from 12 feet away to be a greeting smile, but I realized as I got closer: he wasn’t smiling. I’d seen him once before, but only once, so he was familiar and strange to me at once. I thought that my expression was warm. His was extremely neutral. No smile, no nod—just a rugged, good-looking badass pretending that I wasn’t there and it wasn’t cold as he strolled headlong into the wind on a December afternoon.

    I couldn’t figure out how to draw his unique mouth without it looking like he was smiling, so I tamed it down. H looks more friendly in my sketch than in my memory. Adding warm colors doesn’t help any.

    Digital sketch using Procreate on iPad.

  • Tuesdays at Orr Street

    Alexa

    I’ve been spending a lot of my time lately going back to basics, and my drawings have suffered for it. It’s an interesting phenomenon. Anyway, tonight was a cerebral exercise in blocking in for portraiture. Not a bad attempt, but this sketch is missing some of the vibrance of the model’s natural beauty.