Figure Drawing, pt.6

The best thing about pre-writing some blog entries is being able to post them while at San Diego Comic Con. And so....

The next two sessions are combined here, for the simple reason that we happened to get the same model. Right around this time I finally asked the organizers if they had something against men. I certainly haven’t minded the female models we’d had exclusively, but I’m doing this partially for my own continuing education so men are necessary. It was explained that they do use some male models but they either aren’t available for the evening drop-in sessions I go to, or have flaked, and that in general there are just fewer good male models in the area. Not willing to drop trou and get up on the podium myself, and content that it wasn’t some weird guys’ club after all (though women do attend to draw) I got back to work with another great model.

After using my brushpen for a few weeks and getting comfortable with the fast but careful block-in graphic-styled drawings I decided I had to move on with it. I wanted to try two things: I wanted to loosen up and try drawing in a sketchier style, and I wanted to try using it for a 20-minute pose to practice whatever shading techniques I might use. Though capable of finer lines, a brushpen is not a rapidograph, capable of the tiniest of marks. You also always get black when you apply it, unlike soft mediums like pencil and charcoal, where you can vary your pressure to produce light lines. And though this stuff may be elementary to some, as mentioned I’ve never been a pen-and-ink guy.

I pretty quickly turned to fast hatch work similar to what I actually do in pencil. I didn’t worry myself about the strokes being a little sloppy. I’m not entirely happy with the 20 minute effort, but it’s a start and an example of me not letting fear keep me from trying something.

I did switch back to pencil for another 20 minute and produced the following:

And lastly, the conte stick again:

Figure Drawing, pt.5

I suppose I didn’t want the front page of my blog to be filled with tons of nude drawings, for the blog to become primarily a figure drawing blog, so I’ve gone on about other things for the sake of variety. But figure drawing sessions have continued and I’m a little backlogged, although I haven’t gone for a few weeks due to being completely slammed with life, the same schedule crunch that has made blog updates irregular lately—convention season. I’m missing the figure drawing, though. So while these drawings are new to you, they were done May 5^th!

Working with the brush pen has been a great experience. The immediacy, the commitment involved is frightening and exciting and it really focuses your mind before putting marks down.

However, the previous session’s pencil drawings really got me in the mood for some more of them, too. So for the longer 20-minute poses I went back to them.

The last pose of the evening was 40 minutes, something I wish we had more of. I can almost always take up whatever time is granted, but 40 minutes seems to me the ideal length for a quick study. I always find I’m rushing at 20, and often having to plan which parts I won’t finish.

Kaaaa-BOOM!

Music and painting always seem related in my mind. I often make music analogies to painting and vice versa, and it’s often the soundtrack to my life or at least to certain pieces.

In 1995, Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was the main soundtrack to my life. I turned 21 around its release and it was the sound of a band with something to prove at a time when I felt like a young artist with something to prove. When I traveled to Seattle with my then-girlfriend/now-wife on my 21^st birthday, in part to be interviewed for Duelist Magazine, Mellon Collie posters were all over cd shops and the like. I saw them three times on the year-plus long tour that saw the band implode by its end.

I followed them over the subsequent years, but not with the same fervor I had up until that time (the prior album, Siamese Dream was likewise a huge part of my art school days). I didn’t see them again…until last week. In the intervening years I started and ended my own band, got married, started Daydream Graphics, burned out and practically ditched illustration for a couple years, worked a year for a small videogame company, got my (art) groove back, painted a ton of illustrations and moved to three countries. Which is to say, lots of time has passed. The sorta-but-not-really-reformed group decided to land in Asheville, NC for 2 weeks and played a series of shows at an under-1000 person tiny club, for cheap. What luck, as I was nearby!

My ears were ringing for 3 days after the first show I went to on the 27^th, but it was worth the small amount of permanent damage. The past couple years have had me in small villages and without a car that made seeing concerts practically impossible, and I am always up for a good show.

Video clip I shot on the 5^th (16mb)

It was a nice treat to head back on the 5^th for a second show. Once again, they managed to reduce my brain to soup. Given the pre-convention season headaches (far greater than most years as I am on the eve of getting my first book out) it was much needed catharsis. I went to be rocked out of my shoes, and they did not fail to deliver. The shows also reinvigorated me to attack my daytime hydra of projects and preparations the last couple of weeks, the same as they did back in the day.