Sketchbook Post, January 13

Here are some drawings from the ol' sketchbook. I've never been good at keeping a steady sketchbook – but every once in a while I manage to focus my energies on the task and get a few pages properly vandalized. 

These scribbles are some of what I've made at the breakfast table over the past couple of weeks. They are loose, informal studies from the web and a book or two. For the pencil drawings I tried to re-ignite my long-unused half-assed semi-ambidextrousness, but it was very difficult. Theses drawing are combo lefty-righty to accommodate my short flurries of raging frustration. I was never comfortable with delicate left-handed drawing -- big charcoal figure studies done with arm and wrist were pretty easy -- but noodling with the fingers is always tough. Moreso now! 

ANyway. There's nothing special here. I'm just trying to keep the blog and the love of drawing alive.

Pollinating the Blog... With ART!

I update the blog once in a while, just to see if it still sprouts viewers. Surveying the stats, it appears that 5-20 bots look at the blog every day. Once every month or two I'll get a few of days of 200-300 hits as a few people look around after I've posted artwork somewhere else.

There is much more activity when I post regularly, but I haven't done that in a long time. After I make a new post – and get a small charge from seeing my artwork up here on the internet gallery wall – I often feel inspired to make more; and that feeling fueled the frenzy of posts I made in the early years of this blogspot endeavor. I still get that feeling even now, but it has been dulled by the fall of the community that used to revolve around blogspot and by the understandable 14-year itch.

I drew these on my iPad in Clip Studio Paint. Four of the heads were referenced from random portraits
found on the internet, but I discarded the reference after I roughed in the features. The rest I free-styled.

I've mentioned this many times before but I often worry that my working life and the ennui that settles upon most of us as we grow older has dulled the joy of making art for pleasure. When I manage to make the time to draw, I enjoy dragging the pencil across the paper – I don't much care if the result is any good, I'm there for the experience and the thrill of the moment. The drawing itself usually underwhelms me but I feel better for having done it.

So, here are some underwhelming doodles sprinkled upon the dry soil of the blog. Perhaps some viewers will appear, and perhaps more art.

The End

Random Heads

Head sketches based on mugshots found on the innernetz. Used one those floppy brush pens that gush, dry out, gush, dry out. Hard to tell what you're going to get from beginning to end of each stroke. Great Fun! If that's your idea of fun. (I hate it.)

The End

Heads. More Heads.

Some more little head drawings. All of these were improvised, no reference.

Kind of a cheat to keep the blogposts flowing by posting half-arsed scribbles but it's inspiring me to get the lead out and start drawing in my free time. I'm usually so burnt out from work that it's hard to persuade myself to assume my working pose after having been there for 8, 9, 10 hours already. But I'm enjoying it. Still have to take lots of breaks and I should exercise, too, but it's fun enough that I'm starting to look forward to it!

Some Head Doodles

I haven't done much lately, so I whipped up a few quick head scribbles.

Drawn in Photoshop!

I'm trying to find extra time for personal work, and I have a comics project I'm really hoping to get to. With luck and determination, I aim to have some substantial output to share here. If not, I'll doodle more heads or some other slightly lame thing...

Head Sketchbook Project Staggers Along

I'm determined to finish my heads sketchbook project, and this is the second post since it's latest revival,* but it's clear that the blog can fill up with an annoying run of head sketches in a hurry if I continue to update in this fashion. I'm not sure how I'll handle it from here on. Possibly I'll wait until I get 16 or 20 drawings before posting them.

I'll worry about it later. Here's the latest batch. Random heads off the Internet! Drawn with an assortment of pens.

Gauri: I did a little pencil shading with an old 6B. I found an old set of watercolor pencils and took a chance, coloring in the square around her head. I applied a little water but the pencil refused to melt into watercolor like it should. The pencil set is probably 20+ years old so maybe they have a shelf date.

Ezra & Ezra: Started each of them left handed, switched back to right after total frustration set in.

The End.

See two posts back for that story.

Let Us Finish This Damned Thing!

In early 2008 I bought a small sketchbook intending to fill it with head studies. I misplaced it after several months and two or three dozen drawings. A year passed. In late 2009 I rediscovered the book, promptly drew one head (very poorly) and placed it on a high shelf in the closet. The world whisked around the sun a time or two.

In 2011 the book came out from hiding and – again – I drew a single head. It was better than 2009's solitary effort but not by much. I must have been discouraged. The book settled back in the closet, out of plain sight and easy reach. Like Van Winkle's eyelids, the cover shut and did not open for a very long time.

In 2015, February marked yet another rediscovery. The tiny sketchbook had completely fallen from memory and was such a surprise that it prompted a blog-post where I spouted off about how this time I would see it through to the end; but a measly four drawings were all that I generated, two of which appear here. March contributed one half-assed effort – that would be Jon. Jon wouldn't be joined by Arlene until June but she was followed quickly by three Contessas.

Today, ten months later, the book is back in play. Wilhelmina was drawn this morning. I'm about 1/3 of the way through the book.

Enough! I'm not putting it back in the closet. I'll never learn to draw at this pace.

Let us finish this damned thing.

Little Heads, Little Post

I post quickly in the midst of a  monumental, days-long house-cleaning. I haven't done much blog-worthy work lately, so these grubby little heads will have to do. Drawn in Manga Studio. I googled a few faces, did rough caricatures, then tossed the pics and ad-libbed.

 Just goofing around, as usual.

Happy Birthday, Blog!

To celebrate, I'm reviving an old blog project. I bought a little sketchbook back in 2008 and decided I would fill it full of head studies and post it as I went. The process: I google random names on image search, scroll down until I find a head that interests me and then I do a quick sketch. That went well for a short time, but this was before the advent of easy digital photography, and I tired of scanning, importing, cropping. Then I got tired of drawing those little heads that I was too lazy to scan.

It fizzled in mid 2008. I found the sketchbook again in 2011, decided to begin again. I still didn't have a decent digital camera and quickly rediscovered what a pain scanning was; and so, after two or three unpublished heads, it re-fizzled.

I found the sketchbook again last weekend. I did three heads yesterday, two of which are here for the blog party. When I finish another head I will post the two-page spread and continue the proud Head Sketchbook tradition, until it fizzles yet again, which is also a Head Sketchbook tradition, but not a proud one.

Here is a link to a few of the other Head Sketchbook posts.

I painted the paper green a few years ago, thinking that maybe the notion
of painting heads would excite and compel me to keep this project going
as a painting exercise. That was the last thing done to this sketchbook. Fail.

Happy Birthday, Blog!

Addendum:
Nine years ago today, I published my first post here at blogspot*, and I embarked upon... a colossal waste of time! Just kidding! Kinda.

My goal was to try something new and to push myself to create more personal work and keep the inner creative fire kindled, with the ultimate goal of finding a way to make a better career as an artist.

Well, I still have the same job. Don't get me wrong,  I get to draw and illustrate – and I think I'm making more art than at any other time, and I'm enjoying it as much as I ever have –  but I'm not making a very good living at it. And I'm not creating any personal artwork to speak of.

So, another Blog birthday resolution! I will revive the freelance career, which has been in hibernation for nearly a decade. I haven't had a (decently paying) freelance job in an extremely long time. And I will put a priority on personal work, with the hopes of finding a way to make a better living and a better life through doodling.

Afterword:
I am considering shuttering this blog and beginning anew elsewhere. Maybe a change of scenery will help me keep this going. Socially speaking, Blogpot has been a bit of a ghost town the past few years.  I might set up shop elsewhere and try doing this differently.


*Ha! "Blogspot" autocorrects to "Bloodspot."

More heads

...I sketched these one morning, killing half an hour or so before having to start the annoying and evil commute to work. In the interest of making these doodles more interesting I stained them in P-shop the next day.
...They are inventions. No reference was involved, nor was there any desire to make them look like anyone in particular. It's just an exercise in improvisational noggin drawing.

*...............*...............*

More heads, but they are from reference. My routine for these is to image search a name and then draw from any portraits of interest-- for example, "Lawrence" are the names of the two guys at the top left.
...This is an exercise in filling up a sketchbook full of head studies. It's fun and I think it's good practice; but most of all I hope it gives me a broader knowledge base when I invent my own characters, as in the previous picture.

The End.

...

Sketchbook Head Posts Combined...

Posted these heads individually before, but it made for a tedious series of readings/lookings. So I bundled them up into one post.

Superman and Tarzan

Superman and Elmo Lincoln, the first guy to play Tarzan

Tor and Coleman Hawkins

I recently bought the six issues of TOR that were published by DC Comics in the mid-'70s-- they consist mainly of reprints of Joe Kubert's TOR stories from the '50s, but the first issue had a new (for '75) story. How can you go wrong with cavemen and dinosaurs? You can't. And now, after reading the books again, here at my desk, listening to the Coleman Hawkins CD, making these two head drawings-- I think every time I look at TOR, every time I think about cavemen and dinosaurs, I will hear jazzy big band swing music in my head.
... That's cool.

Boris and a Mandan Indian

Referenced from a Boris Vallejo painting and a book about American Indians.
...In my youth I yearned for a copy of "The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo," published in 1978. Though I saw it many times, I never had the right amount of money at the right time. 10 bucks was a heap of cash! I found a copy in a used book store this year-- 5 bucks! Patience paid off.

A Woman and A Face in the CrowdA couple of more faces from the Time-Life Old West books.

Hiram Revels and a Woman

Made a real effort to throw down some watercolor on these drawings. Total disaster. The paper rebelled and my lack of skills made it worse. I started to try to fix it in photoshop but I decided it wasn't worth the effort. Ugly.
...I tried out a Bienfang watercolor brush pen for the drawing of Mr. Revels; I wasn't really happy with how it worked out. It was not the pen's fault, but I considered the drawing a loss and thought I might as well put more watercolor on there-- it couldn't possibly be worse! Well, wrong again.

The End
,

Some Guy and an Apache

It's a shame that the handlebar moustache has gone out of style in the mainstream. I think they'd look just as striking poised above a business suit as they do above the body of today's aging biker. The bow-tie doesn't need to come back, though.

The End

.

Dick West (deceased) and Joseph Pulitzer

Pen and watercolor stains-- I don't think I've figured out what I'm doing with the watercolor yet. I was compelled to color it because of the texture of the paper-- it's rough and practically invites watercolor, but it doesn't hold up to the moisture and makes drawing on the flip side a bit wobbly in addition to it's natural pen-resistant ruggedness.
...Maybe I'll just stop with the watercolor; the goal is to draw heads. Color isn't the point. (Sure looks dull without it, though.)

...The End
...

Charles Dana Gibson and Charles Angelo Siringo

Head Sketchbook Project revistited:
...My "Head Sketchbook Project" has stumbled, fallen down and bled to death on the sidewalk-- only twelve posts in about a year. I had the goal of filling a book with head drawings; scanning them, posting them; making use of the blog to encourage some specific practice on my part, but that has been a failure. Time to rethink it, rev it up and try again.
...I've taken on a smaller book-- about 3 inches by 5-- so that I can easily carry it with me; so that only one head fits comfortably on each page, effectively restricting my tendency to cram head upon head on each blank sheet. Nothing crushes my momentum like one badly drawn head ruining other, less horribly drawn heads simply by being next to them.
...I will doodle from reference; most often photos and the work of other artists. I'm not necessarily aiming for accuracy in likeness-- although I hope, as I improve, that quality will naturally fall into place-- I'm chiefly concerned with observing and absorbing a wide variety of features, so that when I draw from my imagination I will have a greater range of invention.

The End.
...