Shehaubs scribbles

[Shehaub]

I am a bit of a late bloomer. I started drawing for my kids when they were little and it just sort of developed into a personal interest. (My oldest is now 20). I have put off starting my own sketchbook because of my age, but I was so inspired by Lee's Sketchbook that I thought I would be brave enough to start my own.

The first is a cat I did in Pointillism from a photo. I just wanted to see if I could get the fur right with tons of dots. My micron pens were dried up, so I used a fine tip gel pen. Never again. The paper was smooth bristol.

I do okay with a photo, but my life sketches .. uggh. So my current goal is to get better at sketching from life.

The next two are just sketches of the family in the living room watching TV. The last are sketches from our camping trip. Kids move a lot, so it is a challenge to get something down before they change positions. I am trying to fight the urge to erase when they move.

I am not working with my own computer, currently, so let me know if these pictures need adjusted.

[Nerahla]

Hi shehaub! No need to feel bad about your age here, you're not the only one My oldest is 13 and I only began my trek into becoming an artist a little while ago. I couldn't even draw stick figures when I started -- hahah!

Anyway I am glad you posted here!

I love the cat! And quick gestures like you are doing here from life are allowed to be a little slopppy, so dont get yourself on that -- you are just trying to get down the pose and feel of the figure.

So, let's see some more!! Post lots!

[Lee W]

Welcome to CA and great first post in your sketchbook. The cat came out nice, I would never have the patience to use pointillism, it would eventually start looking like dashes than points I took a tour of your blog and you have some really nice still life paintings. And don't worry about the gestures from life being a little messy, it's just to capture the pose or movement.

[zweiDee]

welcome Shehaub, The Cat looks very nice and realistic, you painted that with dots, that sounds of lot of work.
post more pls...

best regards
zweiDee

[Shehaub]

Runecaster - I took a look at your sketchbook. You are doing some pretty cool stuff. Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook.

Lee and zweiDee pointillism is time consuming and I don't see how anyone could do it full time, but about once a year, I tackle a piece just for the heck of it. I map it out very lightly in pencil and then put it on a board in my living room to work on while I listen to the TV with my family. Once the map is there, I can go a little mindless. It is the only time I can do art and talk at the same time. Just a rough estimate - this took me about 10 hours to do. Its on 11x17, but as you can see, I masked off a decent border. Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook!

Here are some more sketches out of my living room. One of my daughters has a very thin upper lip. I have a lot of trouble getting her nose-chin area figured out.

[Looped_Warrior]

Great start... It feels weird critiqueing because I also am 20, but I really think you should get a scanner or access to one....

I cant really see the sketchbook pages too well. If you dont have access to a scanner just take a picture of one page at a time, but make sure that you are in a very brightly lit room so you arent relying on the flash for light... that could help...

I do see some bridgeman stuff in there though, that is always good to see! The life gestures look good from here, but the sleeping longer study looks a little out of perspective... maybe not but we'll have to take a closer look..

the cat looks great! Keep it up I will be checking back!

[Chymo]

Welcome Shehaub, like others have said don't be ashamed of you age (I'm only 15!) that sort of thing doesn't matter around here. Love the cat, it looks very reallistic. Keep posting.

[Lee W]

10 hours to do the cat in pointillism? I can barely stand doing anything that is longer than 3 hours anyhow, when doing faces and figures, don't worry about the individual features but just concentrate on the shapes and its placements. Treat it as if you are painting a still life.

[Shehaub]

Looped_Warrior - I have to earn every bit of perspective. It does not come naturally to me and that study shows it. I knew her head was wrong, but just as I thought to correct it, she woke up and moved. My effort to fix it without her laying there only made it worse.

OldNoobie- You are right. Letting go of what I think I see vs. what is really there is easier on inanimate objects, for some reason. The ironic thing is, I don't particularly like still life, I am just making more progress there, so I continue to do them, hoping the information will eventually cross over.

Chymo- Thanks for the encouragement.


Here are todays efforts:

The first is me playing with lighting between gesso layers. I totally botched the nose. I am not happy with the eye in the shadow. I do like the angle of the head and the creepy lighting. Artagain Paper and charcoal. I like the Canson better. You don't have to be nearly as brutal to get the darks. Since I have two pads of this, I might as well use it up.

The second is a quick still life study I did this morning. 6x6 Oil on Panel
Raw Umber, French Ultramarine and Titanium White. It is a continuation of learning the properties of individual colors.

[Shehaub]

Here is another small study. Nothing exciting, but proof that I am working on things.

6x6
oil on panel
Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna, Titanium White

[AmontilladoAg]

I really like your work here and geez, louise -- that cat! Nicely done!

Lovely still lifes, and you're doing exactly the right thing sketch-wise: drawing! a lot!

Keep up the great work, Shehaub

[Sirio_Brozzi]

Hi Shehaub, nice start so far, its good to see you're doing studies from real life..That stuff will provide the foundation knowledge to branch out later on. I really enjoyed the cat piece, admire you had the patience to work on it all that time. Keep it up!

[mechanicalstrings]

Go for it, chica!

Only thing I suggest is maybe elongating the lines to give a little more gesture to your figures. So they don't feel so confining and geometric, ya know?

Or that's just the industrial design line thing that was beaten into me, talking.

Keep it up though! It's good and that cat is awesome. Kudos simply for tackling such a precise pointilism. I used to be ALL about pointilism. Why I don't know but you either have to be mad, dedicated, or very focused to finish a piece. (I'm a hodge-podge of them all... )

Oh, and a good way to fix picture/scanner shadows on your work without ruining your lines with brightness/contrast fixes, is to play with the levels in photoshop. Works like a charm.

[Looped_Warrior]

Hey nice new works youve put up here... the book painting was very successful...

[Lee W]

nice still life studies one thing about vine charcoal, no matter how dark you try to make it, it will always look gray.

[Shehaub]

mechanicalstrings - I don't understand what you mean by elongating the lines. I do agree they are very geometric. I am not very confident and I think its showing.

Thanks, Looped_Warrior. That is actually a book with a picture frame on it. I wasn't sure if I could make it look like a part of the book or not. I may play with this idea a bit more.

OldNoobie - Yup.. It is what it is.


Here are a couple more from the weekend.

The still life study is 6x6 oil on panel
Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna, Titanium White

A continuation of my two color plus white studies. I am pretty happy with the milage I got out of the two colors, but I really screwed up my first layer of paint and fought with this painting from start to finish. Now I know that laying on a thin layer of oil to paint into only works when one is doing transparent layers. For direct painting, its a mess!

The self portrait is Graphite and white pencil on Artagain paper. I like the Artagain for pencil work. It seems to take layering pretty well with graphite. Getting closer, according to my husband.

Edit: Sorry about the pictures. My computer is down and until we can get it back up and running I am stuck without photoshop to make these any better.

[Identity 2]

I'm really impressed with your pointilism work keep it up because it is of a very high standard

[Shehaub]

Identity 2 - Thanks!

I have more sketches, but I am not posting them until I get a scanner hooked up to this computer. The diagnosis on my computer is that the motherboard is fried, so I probably won't be getting that fixed until after I get all the kids rolling in school. I sprang my ankle so I am stuck doing something that I can sit down to do.

Here is what I am working on currently. I am probably going to use this as a study for a painting. The original is at ARC. http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/databa...e.asp?id=31750
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/art.asp?aid=4001

This is about an 8x10 on an 11x17 Smooth Bristol. Just to show you how I have this set up, the first is my drawing board. The top printout is a much lighter version of the bottom. I can see details in that much better. I don't have a color printer, so I am using a combination of the two printouts plus a monitor. I am doing this study in a Bargue Drawing style.

The second is just a progress shot. The third is a close up of Athena. She isn't completely done. I am still adjusting and punching in those darks.

[Shehaub]

A couple more progress shots. I forgot how long it takes to do Graphite. There is still something wrong in Venus's eyes. I haven't nailed down the problem yet. I hope to have this done by the end of the week so I can take it out to the studio and start transferring this to canvas.

[Shehaub]

Just a progress update. Juno is started. I am going to lay down the general values and then pick out that transparent fabric later. Once I get all the general shapes in, I will refine and "glaze" over everything to get nice even layers of graphite.

I don't have as much time to work on this lately. Getting all the kids ready for school. I have two headed for college, two headed to Jr. High/High school and two still in elementary. Thats a lot of school supply shopping. Uggh.

[Lee W]

that study is coming along great wish I had the patience to do a study like that ...

[Shehaub]

This is the final result of the graphite study. I am moving on to the canvas to start the grisaille. All C&C are welcome on this. It has been a really long time since I have done a graphite study like this.

[showdownmetal]

the girl all the way on the right is off. her eyebrow is too far from the edge of her face, or just the dark shading in general, and her nose is off, not sure how but if you look at it im sure you'll see it.

[Lee W]

looks good the darks seems kind of light but that could be from the camera.

[Shehaub]

Thanks showdownmetal for your observations. As I transfer this to canvas, I will double check those angles and measurements.

OldNoobie - Those darks are a bit light. They may not be quite as light as shown in this picture. Since this is going to be a guide for my grisaille, I left room to go darker with layers. Last time I did an underpainting, I went far too dark and was really struggling with it. I will have to see if this will work.


Playing with traditional DND style female dwarf ideas. I was thinking barbarian class for this particular one. I am just wrapping my mind around the idea of rougher features, like beards etc. while remaining feminine. I just kind of pulled pieces of this and pieces of that for a reference. There aren't very many examples of female dwarves. I am still wrapping my mind around this, so all crits are welcome.

[Shehaub]

Some studies after reading Loomis. I need to get the basic head structure set in my mind.

[Shehaub]

I haven't updated my sketchbook lately, but I have been working on stuff.

The first is my grisaille I am working on. The rest are sketches out of my various sketchbooks.

[Shehaub]

The eagle is copper on paper. 16x20

[Shehaub]

I just got a new computer, so I can upload stuff again.

Learning to use color is a challenge for me. Most of these are oil on 6x6 panel. I find myself at a loss as to what to do with the backgrounds.

[Smoke]

I still think that cat with dots is the best thing in this thread. I can't imagine how frustrating that must have been D: