Paper and Threads

These paintings of David were done on October 18th, my last Wednesday afternoon for 2017 at Battery Park City.  The program runs from May 1st through October 31st, but I couldn't attend this week.  These poses are for sketches ranging from 5-15 minutes.  I am drawing using more of the techniques I'm learning at FIT, and can finish a sketch and also paint it in the allotted time.

This week at FIT our models posed in front of and next to props so we could sketch them and "attach" them to the background.  The woman is wearing a real Gibson Girl costume on loan from The Society of Illustrators.

For our final drawing for the evening we sketched all 3 models simultaneously - in 12 minutes.  I was surprised that I made it all the way down to their feet in the allotted time and could even add color behind them.

These large sheets of paper were photographed, not scanned, accounting for the background color. 

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Nina Johansson was the artist for our final week of the Sketchbook Skool Imagination Course, and we saw her One Year Imagination Project, and a demo of how she approached each day.  She used a Moleskin Datebook Planner and did an original drawing, with ink, on every single page.  Each one of the drawings is a little masterpiece, and she demonstrated how she approached the drawing, which was also awesome.

I'm still trying to generate ideas and art for my imaginary character Axel.  If I can accumulate enough drawings, maybe I can make a book for my grandchildren.  In these drawings, I was inspired by a star, and sketched a child's bedroom with glass stars hanging from the ceiling, a star-making workshop, and an advertisement for stars for sale.

Our homework was to draw from our imagination every day for 7 days to establish a habit.  She believes that we need to develop muscles for our imagination.  Two summers ago I sketched from my imagination for 100 days, and I believe she is correct.  I am only posting 3 drawings, and hoping that I can finish some others this very busy week. 

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Part 1:  Mass vs Line:  We do very fast warm-up poses just to establish mass, as opposed to Line.  I discovered that I really like using Nu-Pastels to delineate mass in 2 minute gesture sketches on the 18 X 24" paper.  I bought skin colors since last week and here are my most recent warm up sketches.

Part 2: 

Drawing  and Opposition: Drawing from head to toe, alternating between sides as you move down the body.  How does one side of the shape compare to the other?

I wasn't familiar with the term "opposition," but our Professor had us quickly draw three pieces of toast - showing how we could change one side from the other, or even leave one of the sides as an incomplete line.

We sketched many poses from our two models for the rest of the class - always sketching back and forth from the head to the feet, and creating sealed up shapes like a children's coloring book.  I selected these two 18 X 24" sheets as an example.

Emma in Black Evening Gown:

Emma in a tank top and drop crotch pants and Kevin with his Mohawk and Fancy Glasses:

Part 3:  Drawing Negative Shapes  for parts of the figure or to carve out the entire figure by drawing parts or all of the background.  I was totally confused by this.  I do look at negative space to establish the positions of arms and legs, but that wasn't the goal for this exercise.  Our wonderful professor Janis Salek demonstrated how I could make the sweater vest on the model as a negative shape.  She sketched the dark graphite image, and then I tried to reinforce her teaching (right).

White sweater vest drawn as negative shape by filling in the black sweater:  

White Shirt Drawn as Negative Shape, by drawing the background, and then I added pencil to the whole background. 

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Sketchbook Skool Ohn Mar Win Videochat: I already posted my homework from Ohn Mar Win's Class. but on my wet-in-wet "watercolor play" homework, I left out the mark making until I divide it into magnetic bookmarks (Oct 14 Blog Post).  When I subsequently watched an inspirational one hour+ Q and A session with Ohn Mar, I did a quick sketch of her with a pen and spent the rest of the time dreaming up types of pen marks I may make on my bookmarks.  I love my very low stakes "Pen Sketcher" book that I used for this page, I feel so free to doodle and make messes.

Sketchbook Skool IMAGINING Homework:  Stefan Bucher

Our Week 4 IMAGINING artist and "creative" is Stefan Bucher, and although he is a creative in many fields, he also is known for his website Daily Monster.  http://www.dailymonster.ink/

In class he demonstrated a technique based on fancy ink blots which he uses to start his monster drawings, and then assigned us the task as homework.  I made two ink blots and used both to make my version of a monster.

There is also a Ted talk by Stefan which I really enjoyed, and it is focused on his OCD mind that never stops wanting to create the next step in any project,  I think you need to "cut and paste" this link.  Don't stop watching the talk until you get to the Saks 5th Ave "Yeti" commission!  It is my favorite part!

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Helping My Imagination to Overcome Resistance:  Several summers ago I decided to spend 100 days drawing from my imagination,  I filled 100 pages - and had fun doing it.  I used pen for all drawings and smooth copy paper bound in a book - low tech, and low stakes.  My inner critic ignored me! 

In order to continue periodic drawing from my imagination I bought these inexpensive sketchbooks, and use them to play.  I really have a different mindset when I draw in pen on these pages - and that makes me happy.

Drawing a Collection From My Imagination:  Our first homework assignment from Ohn Mar was to either cover a page with a repeated design, or draw a collection.  I chose the latter, and just made up shapes for glasses and bottles.  When I decided to paint it, I transferred the drawing to watercolor paper using tracing paper and graphite, and then painted it.

Imagination and Play:  Our second homework assignment was to play with watercolor - wet in wet - without having anything special in mind.  Ohn Mar then added random white pen marks to her watercolor.  I want to use my watercolor painting to make more magnetic bookmarks, so I didn't add pen.  

These are recent magnetic bookmarks I'm using that I made from watercolor paintings. 

Here is a link to a previous blog post describing how to make them: 

http://www.paperandthreads.com/2012/06/more_watercolor_magnetic_bookm_1.php 

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