Tensai Tokyo Sketch Thread - Sept 28 Exhibition + Commissioned Work Tests!

[koppa]

ha awesome man freakin big post im ashamed i gotta get back to japan i think

[Bojee]

tensai- Damn Lok, you're putting me to shame with all this great work, I love the heads/figures where you find that touch of detail in them, that makes them stand out as individuals. The girl with the hat and the I-pod stands out for me in this way. I know you see it but I think time constraints might be keeping you from putting it in all the time. I think you do it naturally with architecture, or objects, and now it's really starting stand out in the figures too. Very inspiring...

[REGNIRUTH]

yo, tensai, you sure do have a unique way of drawing the urban landscape of tokyo, best part about it is how loose everything is and that seems to creat a nice charm of the buildings and industrial machinery. keep it up.

[HunterKiller_]

Wow damn. Beautiful lines. Just beautiful.

[Hive_minD]

Confident lines.
I can only hope my lines will be so good in the future!

Chris

[fantasyartist]

I really like those train sketches. Very inspiring sketchbook overall!

[remmy]

I'm frigen impressed with your line work, I'm pretty sure its the technique were you try and create the image with out lifting the pen off the paper or at least keeping it to a minimum. I tried that and it turned out shit but it looks like you masted the heck out of it.

Amazing work i can see you practice a heck of a lot... cause dam does it show. I'll look out for more of your finals.

[ajvenema]

hmmm, im in love with the train sketches!
do those people know u are drawing them?
i also try to sketch a lot at trains/busses, but im kinda embarrassed when people notice im drawing them


by the way, with what material do you work? ink? how do you get the ink on the paper, do you actually use a brush in the train?

[Kicek]

totally kickass man!

[Farin]

I love that style of yours.

this one is my favorite. the hatching adds a new fascinating aspect to your sketches

[Coralinia]

Thanks for dropping by my sketchbool

About your work all I can say is WOW. Love this stuff. Nice style.

[snubbed]

how big do you work? Are the train sketches just a little 5" by 7" book or are they larger? When you color the stuff like post 1022's cart/hut thing - do you do that in Illustrator or another vector program?

I really enjoy your style. It's a style I've always played with, but never seen so refined as yours. Kudos.

[tensai]

Thanks everybody for all the comments, greatly appreciated...

Troy wilkerson - he, cheer man. I’ll wear goggles when posting from now on.

Inverted chalupa - thanks mike. You’re due for an update dood.

Gustherobot - thanks man, I think its all about deciding what is essential and what is not. Squinting helps me a lot…

Krossj - cheers, the last heads were me trying something a little bigger and getting more consistent. I do like them but I’m not totally satisfied with them. Do like the direction though. Keep up your sweet rendering mate.

Koppa - well its big but I wish it was a bit more exciting all over.. Seriously working on it though.

Bojee - Alan heyy man.

I love the heads/figures where you find that touch of detail in them, that makes them stand out as individuals.

Seriously thanks for putting it in one sentence cause I think that sums it up perfectly.
I do often see it, I think I start drawing because of that certain falling in love with a face, but I’m definitely not always able to capture it. I think the pen is limiting as well as liberating but it does sometimes make it difficult to get what you want. I still love doing it though and I know I got my favourites, ipod girl is in there, and a couple of others. The train sketches and figure drawing have helped me a lot with thinking about drawing in general and where I want to take it/where I fit in and I do think it’s helped me to find my own voice. But I do still suck ass 50% of the time so I’m just trying to get better and better.

Renigruth - thanks man. I think its a lot about a balance of loose and solid, and of shapes and forms.

Hunterkiller, Hive_minD - thanks! I think its a lot more about shape than people think, i.e it’s what you do/make with the lines of course. And shapes are a lot about balance, rhythm, diversity and the way you observe etc. Thanks for dropping in.

Fantasyartist - cheers!

Remmy - yeah its a lot about looking and keeping the pen going but they’re not one-liners though - I do lift the pen off the paper. It does take some practice yes, thanks for dropping in mate.

Ajvenema - sometimes people know I’m drawing them but often not. What I often do is look past them to somebody else when I turn my head, so in that turn I observe them, and when I turn back to my paper I observe them again. It’s a lot about visual memory though, so after a while you don’t need to look as often. Plus a sketch only takes about a minute perhaps two or three. So its not that I’ll be staring at them for hours.
I work with a felt tip pen mostly. The watercolours ones are either sketches done in a coffeeshop or restaurant or from the train but then watercoloured later on.


Kicek - thank man. You need to update dood!

Farin - cheers, it’s very nice to work in pencil as well. I’m trying to expand the ink series for a little thing that is coming up but you gotta find this balance between work and play, and I always find it pays off. I.e when I go back to pen after using pencil it will be fresh again. Thanks for your thought.

Coralinia - thank you too.

Snubbed - no vectors, trainsketches are all in a little sketchbook that fits in my back pocket. Like a moleskin but then not as outrageously expensive. The other stuff ranges from B5 to A3 to B3 to A0 paper sizes...


Alright - these are from yesterday:
Did pencils for the first time and then inked them. Was kind of liberating to be able to correct a shape or stretch something a bit. Glad they didn’t come out stiff or whatever.. All in progress.







Save for web takes some colour away but here's a little watercolour


Comments and crits as always appreciated

[ccsears]

where to begin, man...

"lok24march36.jpg" is one of my favorites. the way you cut out the unseen foreground guy's profile as a negative shape is sheer spur-of-the-moment genius.

all of the others are great too, but you were in "the zone" on that one.

[Magic Man]

Yo bro, long time no see, its great to come back and see you continue to do great work. Really digging those vehicle sketches and beautiful confident pen work in those urban sketches.

Hope you're keeping well mate, what are you up to these days? Anyhow, stop into my sb sometime, got a whole bunch of new stuff and old stuff uploaded, would love to hear your thoughts =)

Take care and keep rockin'

Daz

[bhanu]

awesome awesome awesome just great sketches mate.

[tensai]

ccsears - chris, thanks bro. you're right, and i have a couple more that have the same thing, but with that one i was riding the flow.

magic - hey man. long time no post - good to see your dump with great stuff in there as expected. here there is a lot going on right now, mad lot of work, exhibited in the hong kong shenzhen bienalle, and something like it coming up i'll talk about that more when it's closer to realisation. cheers for dropping in man.

bhanu - hahaaa cheers bhanu.

these are from yesterday.

watercolours on the scooter, a little too cold and too saturated but i'll just use the next one to think more about that. i don't intend these to be perfect or whatever.



touched up the last painting and rescanned it. colours also look more like the original now.
did two graphic tests but i think i prefer the watercolour painting.








and a shoe from last night. i love this one in real life and it deserved some love.


comments and crits as always greatly appreciated.

[Flaskpost]

OH MAN. The last three updates shows a fuckload of improvement.
I love it! You´re adding alot of knowledge and skill to your style. It´s awesome.
The scooter is badass. And so´s the portraits in lines.

[oishiiniku]

Your style has really evolved into something coherent and confident! Great use of graphicky shapes and negative space. The picture of the food stall from a couple of days ago is especially cool.

Keep it up!

Ta, Nick.

[Brendan N]

Watercolours are just outa here - terrific stuff: love the colouring on them, well chosen hues make the image pop without making it colourful. You got my background sir.

Faces are great as always, showing steady and solid improvement with each update.
thanks for sharing, made my day.
cheers

[Bojee]

Oh wow dude, I missed a post somehow, these are golden! There's so much sense of play when you do buildings and things, it just jumps off the page at you. You really give them life, or find the life in them. I'm really partial to the scooters and car. The watercolor versions are great too, love to see one of the car. Have you played around with paper you draw them on if your going paint them? So inspiring...

[Kan Muftić]

Great work as usual!

[Alexandr Pascenko]

awesome lines dude , seriously, i think they even got more confident since the last time i visited. also i love this ( japanese?) environments you put out , all this cables , lights , wrinkles, details brushstrokes , makes really inspiring images.
last update really punched me !
cheers

[tensai]

i'll post replies later, many thanks.
still looking at the shoe. tried a graphic one, did a linoleum cut and made a huge version with tombo marker on very nice paper that i can't scan and might even not be able to photograph in my studio cause i don't have enough space to back up. i'll try later on.

actual linoleum scan - haven't been able to make a print yet. didn't have any proper inks.
also a tip - always, 100% of the time, cut away from your other hand...





gouache wip






comments and crits as always greatly appreciated!

[Farvus]

Amazing sketches, man. I like your last gouache wip. The blue works well with warm paper color propably beacause these two are close to complimentary.
It might sound a bit weird but some of your objects on still life drawings fell like they could be some living creatures. Especially in tn the camera sketch. The organic lines are placed in such a way that it creates subtle movement in the eye.

Cheers.

[Bojee]

Cool, cool, all good, I'm excited to see the finish on the last one.

[REGNIRUTH]

how do you approach your drawings, with the loose lines and stuff, i've never seen people drawn like that, i've always had trouble giving my drawings more life.

[bhanu]

you drawing monster you

[paperX]

hey man sorry for not dropping by in so long....really love all your updates! I gotta say, your approach to your art and life as a whole are very inspiring to me...your continued experimentations in different media are looking more and more exciting than ever, definitely keep that up man.

I've always wondered something about the beautiful flow and line work of your sketches, when you do them...do you work very fast and sorta let the pen flow kind of thing, or are they results of more careful slow observation? I kinda imagined it to be the former, although I guess it could also be the latter....only you've mastered it to the level where you can work very fast at it ....

I'm just curious as i've heard that works that look they've been done really really fast aren't actually the case during the process, its just the limited but correct and confident lines/brushstrokes that give the illusion that the work was done spontaneously. I wonder what it's like in your case

all that said, i honestly want to thank you for all the inspiration and encouragement.....keep working strong and all the best for everything

[HunterKiller_]

Thanks for the tip, tensai.

It's possible, could you please give me some tips about drawing shapes, or some things you did to see/drawing in shapes?
I think I'm still too linear with my way of seeing/drawing.
Thank you very much.

Love those bikes, btw.

EDIT: Oh, PaperX already asked everything I wanted to know.