jkior's Sleeping Classmates and Ink Studies

[jkior]

I'd like to start a sketchbook thread with my work from the RISD 6-week Illustration summer program. These are only a few from today; I'll post more of my work from earlier in the program as I get it ready. I haven't had any formal art training before this. The teachers - especially in this particular class, foundational drawing - don't really tell the students much about technique. Anyway,


(black and white ink and brush on 22x30 bristol) This one was much cooler on paper before the teacher suggested to use "white" ink on it - the two media didn't mix well at all. But it looks cooler on the computer this way. The building in real life really overwhelms its surroundings, so I made it tilted and distorted on purpose.


(black ink only and brush on 22x30 bristol) I like this one better, took about half an hour. Both this and the one above are on the Blackstone River in Providence; the thing in the center of the water is a floating metal basket and bouys for the "waterfire" show. I really like this media - although this is the first time I've ever used it, I'm definitely going to be doing more on my own time.

These are some faster charcoal studies of the other students. I was trying for more interesting lighting in the second one.


I really don't like vine charcoal. I'm getting compressed as soon as possible.

[t.m0]

Hi there,

really like your drawings. You can even tell it's Providence, nice job

I'm not so sure about the tilting of the building though... IMO it looks even more menacing and overwhelming now!

the second one's my favorite

keep it up

cheers.t

[jkior]

Thanks. Yeah, I was trying to emphasize the overbearingness of the building.
Anyway, here's a bunch of gesture drawings from foundational drawing class
when we had a live model in last week:

My favorite, for starters


The assignment here was to reduce the figure down to two lines. did a bunch, this was my favorite


Most of these are 60sec gestures, concentrating on flow of force and motion,
not proportion or likeness to the model (obviously!)








Yeah, the model was a he, but what can I say. . .










And a few longer ones.


This is probably the closest likness of the actual model






These are all vine or compressed charcoal on 18x24 newsprint.

[dakoscwash]

Wow man. Veeery nice work. I love the gestures and the Providence ink painting. How old are you? I'm doing a similar program in D.C. I soooo badly want to go to RISD. Is it nice? Keep up the good work.

[jkior]

16. Never had any formal art training before; I've only studied on my own. Most of what I'm doing is for the very first time, like that brush and ink. The program is open to 16-18yr olds. I'm paying the absolute minimum - no meals, no residence (I live locally) which is something over $3000 for six weeks. I don't (personally) think that the program is really intense enough compared to what it could be. Would I reccomend it? Probably, but keep in mind I've never taken anything wlse to compare it to. The biggest thing I'm getting out of it is probably being forced to use new mediums that I've never tried before, like the ink and charcoal here and the gouche I posted elsewhere.

Anyway, two ink/brush on 9x12 bristol. Started the first one over lunch break and didn't have time to finish it, I'll post the finished version when its done.


This is a faster one of the dojo where I work out while I was waiting for class. I like doing city stuff and water better, but I need to practice landscapes and organic stuff, so:

It was better before I added in the dark trees in the center background.

[jkior]

Nothing incredibly exciting today, just a few rough sketches.

Only had an H pencil with me at the time, so it's really more of a prelininary sketch than anything else, but you can see the rough lighting on the big memorial in the background and the trees.


And some gestures of two skateboarders at the same time. I've never done gesture drawings of people in actual motion, so I ended up closing my eyes and drawing the last pose I could see. Fun excercise, but makes for really messy gestures. Oh well, you should be able to see a few of them.

[Stray]

I like your gesture drawings, the skateboarders are lacking a little bit, but doing gestures of skateboarders sound really difficult, you should try to find some people who aren't moving around so much
Don't be discouraged, keep going and you'll get more replies.

[Crunch]

keep it up man. some of your gestures are very nice. sometimes a bit too loose but the energy and flow is nice. keep it up but try to show more of the figure...look at ron (fredflickstone) and androids and kchens figure drawings. keep drawing and draw alot. live it...breath it. sounds corney but any of the pros will tell you that you have to love this stuff if your going to get good.

draw draw draw

[jkior]

Foundational Drawing homework assignment this week was to do a "non-conventional" self-portrait, medium of choice, b&w, with a distinct foreground, middleground, and background. My first attempt was unsuccessful, so I started. . .


another one:

Pretty much reality. Yeah, I know the anatomy of those legs is just wrong, but I do kinda like the way the head came out. I'm going to see if I can fix the legs tonight. I may also possibly make the wall in the background darker, especially behind the second guy. What do you think?

[jkior]

Today was the last day of foundational drawing class; this is the last week of the program. Anyway, the class was basically totally disorganized in the afternoon - the teacher didn't give any assignments to do while he was looking at everbody's portfolios to give an overall grade, just "draw." Nobody else actually did any relevant drawing, and a lot of them slept all afternoon (yes, in 'class'), so I had an excellent opportunity to do some head studies. Now, I've never done anything even close to these before, and this was completely without instruction from the teacher/ta, so they're very rough and "beginning." I think a few came out surprisingly (to me) well, though.

I didn't think I could actually shade a face, so I started with plane studies:


And this is where I've been at with my heads for a while:


More of the same:



Then, suddenly, something worked out, and it actually looks like a face! Then she woke up and moved, so the drawing got truncated:


Another pretty good (comparatively, I know) one. It was better before I screwed up the mouth:


Back to the old mistakes:


And one more sleeping one that worked pretty well:


These may not look too impressive, but they are a giGANtic step foreward for me. These are literally the first times I've ever done heads that looked reasonably convincing. I know they're really rough, but I'm major excitement!

[Stray]

After reading your explanation I couldn't help but picture a room full of sleeping kids with one guy in the middle drawing them all, which made me laugh out loud, a lot...
Anyway I really like the last one, keep going and I'm sure you'll continue to improve.
You should show some work in that new subforum in the finished section and get some serious crits from some of the pros in the community. It sounds like you could probably learn more from them in a few days than you did during your summer program.

[Blind]

Hi Jkior... just wanted to say I think your ink & brush stuff is really nice. It has a really cool mood to it... for lack of a better explanation. Can't wait to see more.

[jkior]

RISD pre-college ended today. I almost wished I had a really long trip to go home instead of just a fifteen-minute drive (I commuted) to kinda put some sort of ending on it.

I've decided that I''m definitely going to the next ca US workshop, preferably in Austin.

Anyway, some more head studies. These were all before class started, so no one was sleeping. I did most of these with only a few seconds of observation. Now that I look at them, I think they all need a lot more value definition. Again, charcoal on 18x24 newsprint:



Yeah, I know this guy's face is falling off. . .


Our basic design teacher. I like the craggy facial features in this one. . .




Didn't actually capture the likeness well in this one.


This is the same person as the last image in my last post. For some reason, it's really easy for me to draw the shapes in her face:


I think the nose was cool here


And now for the goodies (1 1/2 hr on 9x14 bristol, brush and ink):

I think I'll crop the left side.

[jkior]

Here's some more work from RISD that had been absorbed for grading by the teachers.

This is actually from the same class that all the gesture drawings above are from, about an hour and a half. The teacher didn't give us the amount of time that he said he would, so it's not finished:


The ever-present gourds:


This is from illustration class. First time I've ever used ink in anything even close to this; dip pens.


Another from the same session:


A configuris image for Poe's "The Raven."


And another one. That's supposed to be the shadow of the raven.


My favorite illustration assignment. I hadn't really done any painting at all before this project (acrylic):


We were supposed to design a label for a non-alcoholic fruit or water beverage; I did two:

(Sorry for the bad photo quality on these two.)

And finally, a cd cover:

[jkior]

Anyway, I'm trying to keep up a pretty strict schedule with art practice, at least through the rest of August. It will probably change once the school year starts.

An ink sketch on the street while I was waiting for my brother's drum lesson to finish. This was in Fall River, which is a much more unpleasant place to do this kind of stuff than where I was in Providence, virtually in a park.


Still life with basic shapes to practice form and shading technique. Haven't done one of these in probably two months, so I'm a litle rusty, especially in the inter-relationship of tones. 14x17 Bristol: