Lagomorphosis - Vin's Sketches

[vineris]

@syrella - Thanks for the tutorial! I paint traditionally so I do a lot of mixing from primaries. My traditional paintings don't often use more than 6 colours -- three primaries, white, burnt umber or payne's gray, and chromium oxide green. In fact I think limited palettes are more my problem than the opposite, a few years ago someone commented that it was unusual to see me do a picture with more than two major colours. I will think about colour theory some more, though, it's always a learning process.

@Amarok - You're absolutely right. I should check my values a lot more often.

@wutangclam - Hi! Thanks for the kind words! There's a few of us Albertans floating around the forums here. I think there's even a couple from your neck of the woods so keep an eye out.

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This past week has been a little on the busy side. I've had some paying work (woo!), I've been putting a comic book together (I'm at 14 hours and counting, I need to reletter several hundred strips) and my husband got food poisoning so I've also had very little sleep (he's on the mend now). I did make it out to Sketchcrawl (just barely) with a lovely local sketching group, and I think I'm going to attend their meetings once a month and do more sketching from life. I have yet to scan my drawings from the weekend, though.

Here's some more journal pics I meant to post earlier:

The waiting room at the medical clinic:


We went to the candy shop to buy my mother-in-law some birthday candy. And we loaded up on toffee while we were there!


I promised my husband I'd paint a creepy sheep for him.


Coming up: more figure drawing, more journal/Sketchcrawl sketches, and hopefully a few things I've been finishing up in between real work.

[Flashback]

That's some really awesome ink toffee drawings. I especially like the curves from the warps.

[vineris]

That's some really awesome ink toffee drawings. I especially like the curves from the warps.

Thanks! The wraps had some really neat shapes and I was planning to do a bit more with them but I came back in the morning to find that my subjects had been eaten. :/

[rem92]

Your color pencil stuff looks awesome man! i also dig your landscapes on ink.. really inspiring!

[Star Eater]

I also sketched in the waiting room at a hospital recently. It's actually a great way to pass the time.

I have to know, what's with the user title? Is it a fetish?

[vineris]

Your color pencil stuff looks awesome man! i also dig your landscapes on ink.. really inspiring!

Thanks kindly!

I also sketched in the waiting room at a hospital recently. It's actually a great way to pass the time.

Yeah, I do that quite often. It beats waiting room magazines!

Actually, a few years ago I was in for surgery at one of the hospitals here, and I was stuck for hours in an empty waiting area while my surgeon operated on an emergency case that had come in. This was about the time of the last big flu scare so they had thrown away all the magazines. Eventually I got one of the nurses to bring me some paper and a pen and I drew the waiting area and some cartoons. They took my drawing away when it was finally my turn to go and some weeks later the doctor said that the nurses still had it at their post. I don't know where I'm heading with this except that it really helped to be able to do art in a hospital and it was nice of the nurses to appreciate it.

How are you doing, btw? I assume that since you're posting regularly that everything went as well as could be expected.

I have to know, what's with the user title? Is it a fetish?

It's a reminder to not take myself too seriously. It's hard to be too pompous when you like foot coverings.

Although I do have more socks than will fit in my sock drawer so maybe it IS a fetish.

[Black Spot]

Why haven't I been here before? I read your whole SB back to front - I was sure I'd been here. I just love those crayon drawings - you should do more children illustrations with them; maybe plot it out digitally first.

Noticed that on the last life drawing the legs were a bit weedy and short - I tend to do that as well.

BTW it wasn't your comment I was griping about.

[Star Eater]

How are you doing, btw? I assume that since you're posting regularly that everything went as well as could be expected.

Aw, so kind of you to ask. I never followed up that thread as I felt like I was looking for attention. Don't want to take away from
your SB either. But since you asked it's going well. Now its just continual blood tests and CT scans for the next couple of years but it is
in serious remission.

Thanks for the sock explanation, I'll try to post something that's actually useful next time!

[vineris]

Why haven't I been here before? I read your whole SB back to front - I was sure I'd been here. I just love those crayon drawings - you should do more children illustrations with them; maybe plot it out digitally first.

Probably because I haven't been very good about socializing. Since CA went down I realized how much I missed all you regulars so I'm trying to be less of a hermit.

Your idea about planning traditional work out digitally is great. I used to do a lot more imaginative work traditionally but one day I realized that I had terrible problems with skew. All my sketches were tilted so badly that I was embarrassed to show them. So I switched over to digital while I tried to figure out a solution, and then improving my digital work took up most of my interest. But it would be nice to be able to use all those traditional skills I learned to do more than the occasional still life or landscape.

My husband says that he's got a pile of carbon paper stored in the basement so after I'm finished with this last contract I'm going to try printing out some of my unfinished children's sketches and transferring them to paper.

Noticed that on the last life drawing the legs were a bit weedy and short - I tend to do that as well.

Life drawing! It feels like every time I go there I have the best intentions to measure better, stylize more and in general do things differently so that I learn something, and none of these intentions survive the first five minutes of the session. It would be wonderful to go to a proper class sometime and be taught by an instructor who can explain things.

Now its just continual blood tests and CT scans for the next couple of years but it is
in serious remission.

Awesome! I'm really happy to hear that. I hope things keep getting better and better.

[vineris]

More life drawing. This was one of my better sessions this year, I think. I tried hard to draw larger than I normally do and to not just copy what was in front of me.







I like this model. He does more theatrical poses than a lot of the others.

[vineris]

[Luk999]

Nice sketches. My tip is looking for gesture and proportions first. Then, after you are good with these things, pay attention for muscle shapes and details.

[anivy]

I really love your style Its really great seeing your progression from the first page in your SB to the latest work, thanks for sharing!!

[Black Spot]

Big improvement with the life drawing. When I get too precious with them I revert back to stick men - works wonders.

[vineris]

@Luk99 - Thanks. I think I've got gesture down fairly well, it's probably the proportions that trip me up.

@anivy - Thank you!

@Black Spot - I think I some kind of breakthrough this session, but unfortunately the two since have been more of the same. Maybe I just don't go often enough. Still, it's nice to know that improvement is possible.

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Journal sketches:

Trying to split my attention too much while waiting for breakfast:


I grew this great Amish Paste tomato. Unfortunately they are very prone to cracking to this guy rotted before I could eat it. Next time I'll have to draw faster. Its friends were delicious, though.


Painting at the farm again, did a quick sketch of the barn just before I left:

[Greenhouse]

I like those life drawings! You got quite good shading and volume on them. Mine always tend to get too flat and too tall
Are you going to do any crayon drawings? Please do, cause those are very beautiful!
It's always nice to see the latest from your life diary! Keep it up!

[vineris]

I like those life drawings! You got quite good shading and volume on them. Mine always tend to get too flat and too tall

Thanks! I'm still working out some kinks, like the too-large heads.

Are you going to do any crayon drawings? Please do, cause those are very beautiful!

Yes, I'm working on a slightly larger one so it'll take me a few weeks. I don't know if it will turn out in the end because I'm trying something slightly surreal, and also I accidentally used my inking paper instead of crayon paper (it's like drawing on wax *with* wax...), but it's looking not too bad so far.

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Well, this life drawing session was completely awful. I did the face well a couple of times and everything else just went totally wrong, from proportions on.

[vineris]

So behind on scanning and posting! Even my sketchblog has not reached the end of October yet. And it's all sketches because the finishing effort is going into the paid work which can't be posted yet.

This weekend I'm taking a bit of time out to design some Christmas ornaments and make a few tiny holiday cards. And hopefully I can get the rest of my comic work done in the next 2 weeks so that I can finish up a few of the cartoon things I've been playing with. Next time: silly stuff from my evening dates with my sketchbook!

[vineris]

Sketches!

[vineris]

More random crap from my evening sketchbook sessions.







If I have the time, I like to end my day by sitting in bed and drawing whatever comes to mind.

[vineris]

It'll be nice to finish some of the stuff I'm working on...

[Odd Berry Creations]

Very nice sketchbook! Love your shading.

[Gibi]

Great diversity in this sketchbook! I also checked out your portfolio which I think is awesome! loved the bear in the woods illustration, was this an assignment?

#259 landscapes are gorgeous! Here the hatching works really well but with the human figure this can come off a bit stiff using only one type of line for shading like in the waiting room or breakfast sketch!

[vineris]

@Odd Berry Creations - Thank you!

Great diversity in this sketchbook! I also checked out your portfolio which I think is awesome! loved the bear in the woods illustration, was this an assignment?

Thanks! It wasn't an assignment, it was something I did specifically for the portfolio. Some of the children's publishers on my list were looking for more realistic animal drawings.

#259 landscapes are gorgeous! Here the hatching works really well but with the human figure this can come off a bit stiff using only one type of line for shading like in the waiting room or breakfast sketch!

Yeah, a lot of the human figures are from life, so I have to sketch very quickly just to get them down. By the time I get to hatching the figure has usually wandered away, so I'm stuck with whatever I sketched in the first few minutes. I should do some longer portrait or figure studies in ink.

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I joined the local Urban Sketchers group in October, and went out for a sketchcrawl with them at one of the local cemeteries:



And some more pub sketches from later in October:

[lillianlai]

Other than being such a helpful moderator, you're a great artist too! I really like the variety of works in your sketchbook, from works in progress, sketches, to different use of mediums in paint and pencil crayon, etc. I especially like the life sketches, pencil crayon and plein air works.

It sounds like you're getting a bunch of helpful critiques but I think you're in a really good place where you're learning and drawing a lot. All I would say is to keep on at it! Only way to get better for suure.
For painting, in reference to what someone said about values, I found that when I started to learn how to paint that it was really helpful for me to take a look at paintings by well known artists and grayscale them in photoshop to study how they used value. Repainting them is a great way to learn as well as it forces you to study how the artist worked and achieve effects.

Greaaat sketchbook, keep at it

[vineris]

@lillianlai - Thanks for the suggestion about studying values in famous paintings! That's something I haven't tried yet.

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I suppose it's update time again. I've finally finished that paid job I was doing, I've recovered from my cold and I'm slowly getting caught up with scanning and finishing sketches and updating my various online accounts.

This is from last life-drawing session I went to, probably the last one I'll be going to this year. The model didn't show but one of the regulars does modeling there on occasion and she was nice enough to step in.





I liked her use of the scarf in the poses. Apparently I should just forget nude figure drawing and go hang out at fashion shows.

[vineris]

Tried bringing some chalk pencils along. They were a little too hard, not nearly as good as conte crayons (but a lot easier on my hands).


Back to good old graphite.


I was looking at James Jean's sketchbooks the other day and I've come to realize that my sketching is really pretty awful. I'm so used to cleaning things up in ink or rendering that I've done a really shitty job of sketching for far too long. Of course I'm not going to be James Jean anytime in the near future, and I'm not going to try for presentation sketchbooks, but surely I can fill them with something a little better than the one-step-above-stick-people crap I've been putting in them. I go back through them to get ideas and there's hardly anything in there worth working on.

Anyway. My finished work is improving since I started working from home but my sketching has gone all to hell. I'm going to see if I can improve that over the next few months.

[vineris]

More random cruft from November's sketchbook.

[vineris]

A WIP for a Hallowe'eny sort of picture. Still need to make some suggested changes to this, but I'm so behind on fixing things.


Oh well, at least the paying work got done!

My self-portrait for Self-Portrait Day:


This year I managed to get an acrylic portrait done. I tried to do a very stylized, flattened portrait and although I'm not sure it entirely worked out, it was something new for me and I actually quite like the original. At least it worked out a lot better than last year, when the acrylic portrait was so bad that I had to scrap it and do a digital speed-painting at the last moment.

It's too bad that the media I'm proficient in are very slow. It would be nice to do a self-portrait in pencil crayon but there's no way I could finish it in 12 hours.

Aaaand some Christmas ornament designs:



These are kind of cool because I've been painting wooden Christmas ornaments with my friend and her mom for oh... four or five years now. It's a neat crafty thing we do once a year. My friend is very much into RPGs and a couple years ago asked me to do up some original designs. Now, the designs that I would do for myself would be a little bit more edgy, but I thought that it would be nicer to draw something that might be appreciated by people who don't want zombies on their Christmas tree. So these are what I came up with.

Yesterday we had the painting party and I managed to paint two of these. I didn't have this example with me so they turned out a little different, but I think that they're both fairly nice. One of them still needs some varnish and a little bit of finishing up, but I'll try to snap some photos when I get the chance and post them here.

[vineris]

From the November Sketchcrawl.

Some snow-covered basketball nets outside the library:


A man I saw in a cafe:


One of the local Farmers' Markets runs on Saturdays inside City Hall:

They had some nice gourds and I went home with a sack of apples. Mmmm!