ccsears sketchbook

[DanielC]

Good stuff man !

[ccsears]

i drew this same pose sunday morning, and i left that drawing over at my friend's place where we were drawing. this is just a pencil sketch from memory with some idealization of the face thrown in. kind of a little personal test of my visual memory. it's fun to try every once in a while.

my (limited) understanding of what illustrators call "figure invention" is that it's mostly remembering and remixing. sometimes it's reinventing from another angle, but i really think memory plays a huge part. the memory thing takes different forms too. sometimes i remember a shadow/light pattern, sometimes it's more of a line thing. usually depends on how i drew it the first time.



anyway, i guess my manners have been kinda bad. from this page forward anyone who leaves a comment gets a thank you for their profile.

imaginary thanks! this is a close-up of what i did in a 2-hour pose. afterwards, i probably spent another 20-30 minutes tidying up some lines and erasing a few things.

Andrade thanks! the idealization can mean a few different things depending on the context.

here, mostly it means finding things that you want to emphasize and designing how you want to emphasize them. for that one, it was mostly looking at the model, noticing things that could be adjusted slightly to make a cool shape or rhythm, and then drawing them that way. it doesn't mean ignoring likeness per se, it mostly means finding essential things i can use to organize, simplify, or amplify.

it can also be a kind of characterization--making a hero an ideal hero, a woman a glamour model, etc. in advertising and video game work, you have to do it all the time. make the fat guy look super massive, make the girl's boobs bigger, legs longer, waist narrower. etc. etc. etc. that kind of stuff relies on archetypes from the past and current trends.

look at leyendecker, rockwell and mucha. that's all the idealization you need for starters.

stylization is more like finding your own personal "rules" for how to do something. those three artists idealize what they see and then add their own stylization on top of it.

anyway. i'm rambling again and this is all bullshit semantics. when you draw, don't be a slave to the model. find things you can use and then put them to good use.

DanielC Thanks man!

[ccsears]

farking around in painter before bed.

[animosapien]

jeez wat a collection...
and so much of work with no mistakes to point out..
your sketchbook is awesome.
I liked the last nude,..great lighting and mood to it..
fantastic strokes...

what else should i say..?
well..would be happy to have you onboard my sketchbook with ofcourse yopur valuable comments...
keep inspiring

[retardedmonkey]

Beautiful work chris! I really like how that sculpture is coming, any chance of more updates for that?

The paintings look sexy too. You're a great inspiration to us noobs

[animosapien]

yet another quick post...

It was a mistake that I judged you with those last page posts...
late night yesterday I sat for a while and I was going through your sketchbook...
Especially page 13 just below those storyboards...

I dont know or even care if you are an atheist or whatever..
but for sure there must be someone- a figure somewhere in your mind, whom you consider supreme...
i think you should thank him/her for making you such a fantastic human being ,apart from a great artist...
seriously...man...

Your works make me feel i have achieved NOTHING in my life...

Wish I could meet you someday anad may be buy you a drink with wat's left in my pocket...
I consider myself honoured to have steeped in..literally...from the bottom of my heart...

And this i say cause i dont need to flatter anyone...
Live good and work more...
and pls be my friend...

[ccsears]

ummm.... no comment. doing this for ____.


start of a tiny oil painting at Jeremy Lipking's studio


tuesday is soylent green day. thursday is sculpture day. gotta fix a few things, but it's coming together...






retardedmonkey Thanks. Thursday = Sculpture Class... only 2-3 more weeks so i gotta get crunching on it. if i don't finish, i'll probably work on it at home. don't know if i'll cast it though because that costs $$$$$

Animosapien Thanks, man. I don't have time to leave a detailed comment in your SB tonight, but I dig what you've been up to. My roommate in college was indian-american, and his younger brother-in-law is an artist too. it's always cool to see how the culture influences the work. while i lived in japan, i did a lot of woodcarving under the instruction of a traditional japanese woodcarver. from one of his books, i learned that the origins of buddhist sculpture come from india, and the sculptures in india originated after alexander the great passed through. prior to that there wasn't any figurative representation of buddhist deities. i'm not sure if that's also true for hindu deities though.

that's a whole different thing.

Thanks a lot for your comments. I'm not a great artist by any means, but i have definitely taken a strange path through life so far and have seen some crazy stuff. being stuck out in the desert, kind of gave me a lot of time to think about stuff. basically, i sympathize a lot with people who have struggled to learn how to make art, and those who don't have access to good teachers, etc. because i was one of them myself.

i was talking to my friend mark the other night. as he put it "you realize you've been given the keys to the kingdom and the gate in that wall is open. but you have to crawl through it." that's very true. i've found a lot of people who've studied under some of the greatest names out there who don't succeed just because they're too proud or stubborn and therefore are unwilling to crawl. as i remarked a while back "the urge to create is universal, but the opportunity is not."

so, mostly i'm just thankful to have an opportunity to learn some of this stuff before it slipped away. what little i can pass on, i try to.

[retardedmonkey]

The sculpture is looking great. I'm not sure what to critique on it, but it looks good. You don't think you'll be able to finish it?

First off money is stupid, its a dumb idea imo. Free stuff is better. What all goes into casting it?

The paintings are looking nice too. I'm going to ask a question that is most likely been asked millions of times but...did you got to school or just teaching yourself through workshops and stuff?

Keep all this sweet inspiration coming please!

[animosapien]

cool..
thanks buddy..
i never knew that you camee and went through my sketchbook...
but pls do spare a phrase..a comment..a critic...anytime you get some time...

wat you said is true..
its like.. you make one good sketch and then..its like making you cry ..cause it makes you so very happy inside..
and then it motivates you for the next work...
you said it...
its not a tough task to achieve great skill.
but its tougher to reach a certain level where you become so humble...

There is this ancient indian saying..

Each feather on your cap you add..
should weigh like a stone..
the more you add..
the more it makes you bend your head down...
i guess its a simple saying with a strong message..
keep going and ..
ofcourse..
awesome sculpt..

[ccsears]

i got sick and light-headed this morning so i missed out on some drawing. i did manage to get this 20-min sketch in though. a study in designing and abstracting shapes. Chromosome does a beautiful job with shapes in his sketchbook. you should check it out.


still working on this... will post the whole image when it's done.


this is a bonus... my friend/teacher/mentor gave me a copy of his first gig after studying with his teacher. he said the original was black and white oil paint. as you can see, mark's a complete badass.



retardedmonkey the mouth is still off. the ears need to come out a little further. other than that, it's close enough to work.

casting a sculpture is a big deal. when i was in college, we averaged about 4$/pound for the bronze, but we did all the work ourselves. most foundries charge something like 15$/pound. so for a 30-pound head, you're looking at 450$ US. that doesn't include taking the mold so you can invest a wax copy and pour the bronze. making a mold takes a lot of time and money too. if it's complicated, you have to get latex, plaster, a bunch of tools, etc.

anyway... i've done the whole process myself back in college. from moldmaking all the way to wearing the fire-protection and pouring the bronze into the mold. i love it, but it's a huge amount of work and costs a lot of money to have someone else do it. keep in mind, artists only get 33% of what a sculpture sells for. typically, the gallery gets 1/3, and the foundry gets another 1/3.

as far as my art education goes... i had no art classes in high school from 16-19 years old, and i didn't draw much between ages 19-24 because i was getting my engineering degree. after that i spent 2.5 years in the sculpture department, but didn't finish my degree for financial reasons. then i did a year of woodcarving in japan while i was studying at a very high-level language institute. when i moved to california, i was lucky to find mark (the teacher mentioned above) and his school. i took the 5-week long program and then studied there every weekend for roughly 3 years or so before the school folded. keep in mind, i've been surrounded by some of the best movie poster illustrators and concept artists in the business. but even then, my contact with these teachers was somewhat limited by my air force / boeing job, moving from city to city, etc. they more or less "gave me the keys to the kingdom" but i realized i had to crawl through the gate myself.

i still hang out with mark and he shows me things here and there. we're kind of past the point of him needing to show me how to draw a head or whatever. mostly these days he shows me new techniques--like the stuff i'm using for the mermaid illustration above--and we talk about concepts, compositions and "higher" shit. you know, decision-making stuff where it's good to have a second opinion. mark's taught a hell of a lot of people, and drawn some amazing shit. i was looking at his sketches for the Apollo 13 and Total Recall posters the other day...

anyway. this is a long answer. the short answer is--a teacher can give you a framework and correct certain mistakes, but without a fucking shitload of drawing mileage, none of it matters. i can't emphasize enough just how much drawing it really takes. i've been averaging about 70-80 hours per week for a long time. what passes for "a lot of drawing" in most colleges these days is a joke.

other than mark, john watkiss (see Ashley Wood's new Swallow 5 book coming out soon), mike butkus, and nathan fowkes, have all helped me out a ton. each one of those guys is a pro in the industry though. mike does movie posters, nathan does color comps for Dreamworks, john does comics, movie posters, absolutely incredible storyboards, and now fine art too. like i said though... it takes a ton of work because none of the answers they give you means anything until you're at the right point to ask the right questions.

animosapien thanks man. i'll keep on plugging along.

[retardedmonkey]

Thanks for that reply chris! I was curious about the sculpture because I wasn't sure if I could get it done cheap up at school here at our sculpture department. If you want I could look into it for you, but shipping the thing back and forth would most likely cost just as much :/

About the education though, I'm curious because of my own...new experience with schooling. The drawing and painting classess there are a joke. I'm trying to get as much drawing in on my spare time as possible, but its hard on top of school stuff and all. Kind of sad I have to try and fit drawing in to my schedule while I'm at art school. But yea thanks for that reply and always being so helpful!

I'm loving that mermaid painting, really great stuff as usual!

[Victor B]

love the work ccsears the mermaid is especially coming out nice, looks to be traditional not Digital did you re do it or is it just mine eyes that deceive me? Thanks for posting

[ccsears]

I've been trying to post artwork without ranting or too much advice-giving, but here's some quick stuff.

retardedmonkey it sounds stupid, but the first step is realizing you have a problem--just like alcoholics anonymous. most people i went to school with didn't care one way or the other that they weren't getting enough drawing in. anyway, i'm going to assume you mean figure drawing, because landscape drawing is almost always available one way or another.

1) if you're limited in time, narrow your scope. for example, the 100 pairs of eyes that i drew on the first page of my SB thread were done in a small sketchbook while i was working 80-hour weeks in a missile defense lab. i wanted to beef up my eye drawing, so i narrowed the focus to that--how to design eye shapes, simplify my lights and darks, and adapt hatching to "soft" edges. so i bought 3 entertainment weekly, national geographic, etc. and did them. just keep something for reference in your backpack at all times and do it whenever there's a break.

i highly recommend you buy a copies of "hollywood glamour portraits" and "hollywood portraits of the 1950's" published by Dover. they're cheap but excellent books of black and white head shots of movie stars. you can't go wrong in studying them.

2) get a couple of pads of tracing paper. every night before you go to bed TRACE a head or figure. trace paintings, trace photographs, trace whatever you feel like working on. BUT, don't be stupid about it. realize that tracing is about decision-making: light vs. shadow, line vs. no line (contour vs. disappearing soft edge), shape vs. rhythm, etc. my suggestion is to do the drawings similar to that last head sketch i did here. make decisions, design shapes, understand rhythms, reinforce ideas. i could easily fill in those shapes with 2-3 tones and then be ready to add a few details and finish it.

... tracing takes the biggest scary variable out of the equation: proportion and placement. but it leaves the rest of them there for you to wrap your head around. AND it's fucking fast. you can easily trace a head in 5-10 minutes. do one before you go to sleep every night and when you wake up.

(((...on the other hand, if you want to get all serious about proportion, just do some bargue copies. that's mostly what they're for, in my opinion. but they're more advanced than what they look like.)))

3) draw from memory. (that one is kind of advanced) but if you draw, say marilyn monroe from a photo in the morning, try drawing her from memory at lunchtime and see how you do. don't try to copy per se, but just remember the decisions and relationships you noticed while drawing her before. when your mind blanks out, that's kind of an indication of two things--1 your visual memory can strengthen up further still, and 2 if you weren't making a decision or describing a visual relationship, there's nothing to remember. feel free to tweak it and have fun. draw a caricature of her from memory, or draw the zombie version of her. drawing from imagination usually involves playing on your visual memory.

4) if possible, find friends who want to pitch in and start a drawing group. it's always the hardest thing to do, but it isn't impossible. talk to your art department and see if they'll let you use a classroom after hours and/or help you find a model from the ones they use for class.

5) hang out in the classrooms at night and copy whatever they might have around that's useful... skeletons, anatomy models, ecorches, plaster casts, etc. i used to do that a bit back in IL.

6) start looking around for drawing opportunities away from school. maybe at a local artists' group, maybe at an established art center (like the palette and chisel in chicago), maybe at a community college adjacent to the bigger university, etc. chances are there might not be many opportunities, but get used to searching for them and taking advantage of every last one. who cares if the instruction is crap or the rest of the artists are sucky? just go to get time in front of the model. get used to looking too, because you have to start over like this every time you move to a new city. believe me, it sucks.

7) do what fowkes told me: make drawing so simple and convenient that you can't NOT draw. if you always have your materials with you, always have reference with you, then there's no way you can be stranded without a way to draw.

8) if you're still strapped for resources, check out characterdesigns.com. hong ly has some really huge sets of nicely shot reference photos up there for free. probably a couple hundred of them. find a cheap way to print them out at a decent quality--black and white would be fine. and stick 'em in a binder to carry around. posemaniacs.com is fine if you're in front of a computer, but it's kind of limited in a lot of ways too.

9) keep some variety. understand that an illustrator needs to be able to draw, for example, a head at different scales--the size of a quarter, 2-3 inches for a full page 18x24 figure drawing, and life size for a portrait. what you decide to do while you're drawing changes somewhat. be flexible to a certain point.

10) don't chase dogma and rules. the rules people like to give only make sense once you have the experience to understand them. don't worry about them because you'll be drilling them into your head over and over while you practice anyway. don't be the asshole who tries to draw an 8-head tall dwarf!

VictorB Dude, you get extra bonus points for the Hamlet reference. Internet high-five for that! yeah, i'm redoing it. had a photo shoot with a model, redrew it and redesigned the shapes, enlarged the drawing up to about 12 x 40 inches. now i'm learning the old school movie poster shit--airbrush, acrylic, colored pencil--that butkus, struzan, etc. all did.

[HunterKiller_]

Sound advice once again from Mr Sears.

Head sculpt is looking great. Is it suppose to anybody in particular?

I see you redid the mermaid traditionally. It's fantastic.

[Victor B]

Haha , great advice, and can't wait to see where the mermaid ends up cause it looks GOLDEN now.

[Chromosome]

Great stuff man. Sculpture, Painting, drawings. You refine your shadow shapes alot better than I do. I'm envious.

[sfa]

That bust is looking better and better with every post. You really nailed his likeness. I have to admit that I pass by it every Monday on my way to Sean Cheetham's class and feel somewhat strange that I know the creation but never met the creator. I should introduce myself someday.

Thanks for sharing your stories about Mark Westermoe. Kevin Chen always mentions how big of an influence he was on him. I wish I had gotten back into art when Associates was still around. I would have liked to have studied under Mark even for only for a little while.

How are Lipking's workshops? I was thinking about enrolling sometime next year when I have some extra cash and a bit more painting experience.

Finally, I work a 7 - 5 job during the week and thus only have time to focus on my art during the evenings, but you reminded me that I can fit in even more practice if I just make it convenient for myself. Thanks for that.

[ccsears]

this isn't finished yet, but it's getting there... Need to finish it before I go home for the holidays.


speaking of which...i'm going back home to IL (chicago suburbs) for the holidays this Sunday. after that, i probably won't be able to post until New Year's.

my birthday is New Year's Eve, but since i have no f'ing social life and all my friends have their boy/girlfriends or husbands/wives and/or children, i usually wind up doing absolutely nothing and going to bed early. which is good because the Palette and Chisel has a 12-hour drawing marathon on 1/1/2009 starting at 7am. I've made it there the last 2 years, so i'm going to go for it again. If you're still sober and want to draw and can handle the cold to make it downtown, maybe i'll see you there:
http://www.paletteandchisel.org/

HunterKiller Thanks. Yeah, this is from life. Our model's name is Leslie. He showed me his modeling portfolio, and he has an absolutely kickass Colonial American outfit. super nice guy, great model too. his first time posing for sculpture and my first chance to do a head from life. no shit, it's my first time sculpting a portrait, but i've been itching to do it for a long, long time.

VictorB Thanks, man. It's closing in on where I want it to go, but it probably needs another pass or two with the layering technique.

Chromosome Thanks. Seriously man, your shapes do kick ass. I love ballpoint, and you've got it down cold. Someday I gotta come up to the bay area and go drawing with you.

sfa Thanks. I'm very lucky to know Mark. The passing of the school was really tragic for a lot of people, and Mark has had a really rough time. I won't go into the details, but it was harder than anybody can imagine and he's paid a very heavy price for it. It was a great school though. I used to drive down there and sleep on the model's bench in a sleeping bag. The damn thing was too short, so i had to prop up my feet on a chair while I slept. It was crazy, but Mark knew I was serious about this art thing and he really helped me out and gave me a second chance at doing it for a living.

Kevin's a great artist and designer. I've never met him, but I know his work. There have been a lot of misunderstandings and miscommunications and tragic bullshit--much more than any normal person could take. I just hope people focus on the good things about it because it was a very special thing. I think everybody who ever studied there recognizes that, and I'm willing to bet Kevin feels the same way about it. If you do run into him and he wants to get in touch with Mark, tell him to drop me a line or message here.

Lipking's workshops are good. He's a great painter and a nice guy. I don't know if I'll be able to continue because it kind of conflicts with the quick sculpt class, but he's a cool guy and I hope to paint some more with him. There are painters of all levels in there, but it always helps to have as much experience as you can get.

Fowkes is the master of lighting a fire under someone's butt. which is kinda funny because he's the most mild-mannered guy you'll ever find. his work is inspiring and the down to earth way he explains how he set himself up to put in that kind of mileage is really helpful. if he offers it again, i'd suggest going to his 1-day lecture "from student to professional." he doesn't go into too much technical stuff there, but he really helps you focus on the habits and mindset it takes to take everything up a notch, put in a lot of mileage, and become a better artist.

Feel free to stop by whenever you want. I usually show up early for the Thursday night sculpture class. i'm the sloppy looking schmuck wearing the Cubs hat.

[rebel rebel]

wow... your work is like 7 kinds of awesome... the mermaid painting is coming along ever so marvelously

loving everything here!

[ccsears]

more work on the mermaid... almost done.



more work on the sculpture. if i don't finish it in class i'll probably take it home and do it.





rebel rebel thanks!

[ccsears]

forgot this one... did it at the laundromat the other day. from my teacher's book of poses. it's out of print, but might be available again someday soon. will post info if/when it happens.

[Extollere]

Damn dude, that monochrome cover painting by Mark Westermoe is absolutely insane, any chance you could scan that image so we could get a clear look at the pic? Oh and hey, since you travel around a lot (right??) you should think about driving down to North Country for a class or workshop with Ron Lemen, guy has some great insight on art philosophy...he's a great teacher, very articulate.

[ccsears]

yeah, a pointless bump.

i'm going home for the holidays. if you're in chicago for new year's, try to go to the marathon at the palette and chisel--www.paletteandchisel.org

happy holidays and new year!

[Imaginary]

Cheers, merry christmas and have a happy new year!

Looking forward to seeing the sculpture finished btw.

[kidult]

Happy xmas and have a merry new year - updates rock!

[retardedmonkey]

Chris thanks alot for the advice up there!! Really solid advice as usual.

It mainly is figure drawing that is lacking for me and I've been going crazy drawing them lately. I really like your idea of the tracing paper, I've always been afraid of using tracing paper because I don't want to cheat. Although that really is a perfect way to easily see the decisions that other people have made or make my own different ones from a real photo.

I think the thing I'm figuring out lately is the amount of dedication that will go into me getting any better. I'm glad there are people like you around for guys like me to get motivated by, so thanks alot for that.

So yeah consider all your advice being put into practice!!

The painting is looking amazing, and that sculpture is coming along nicely!

[MJ_Alcazar]

Hey, you won't remember me. But you directed me towards a man named Paul Smith when I was having trouble over in the CHOW thread one time.

I'm liking how that sculpture is coming along. It's looking pretty good.

I like your work. The moods you manage to create are awesome. Keep at it!

[staticpen]

Ah, happy holidays mate!
I'm without internet at home, so I rarely have a chance to come here with enough spare time to catch up and browse around... but I did some catching up just now, and I gotta say, stunning as always. The bust you're working on is looking amazing! I love the idea of sculpting... it looks like so much fun.
The mermaid reflection painting is coming along pretty nicely, too.
And as always, the figure sketches are some of my favorite things of yours.
But I gotta say, I always appreciate how much detail you go into when you feel like you've got something to say. I'm the same type of personality, so when you really get into things, it's just the thing I'm looking to soak up.
It's hard staying motivated for me, not knowing any other artists, not being in university, and not having the internet to browse places like this, but I do have saved webarchives of your hatching in pen and ink mentor threads and have got a lot out of them so far. So thanks very much for putting the time into those. I've learned quite a lot from them.
Finally, what an opportunity to be able to be around the likes of Fowkes and Lipking and the others... I can only imagine, haha. But I do have a question about John Watkiss... you mentioned he does story boards. That's something I'm very interested in pursuing as a profession, and I was wondering if there was any place I could see some of his boards? Or even any sort of idea how he got involved with that, because I've done searches online and I can't seem to find any place with real advice on becoming a story board artist, or what sort of direction one should take in school to get in that field.

Thanks again, and as always, your work ethic is very contagious... I wish I could stop by every day. ;D!

[alicelefay]

I have looked your whole sketchbook and your thread about hatching...both interesting, useful, and inspiring threads.
Thank you for sharing your experience and your thoughts, it means a lot to people like me, self taughts and a little confused about "Where am I going?" LOL
And...I whish you a wonderful and creative new year!

[MeTaL-Mike]

fuck dude this sketchbook is a bless to look at great stuff man!!!

looking forward to seeing more from you man