A simple sketch

Tucker

Charcoal on Paper

8 x 10

Sketches

These were just some quick sketches of my adorable cousin Gracy. She is a lot of fun to sketch... I love all of her flowing hair! I think sketching is important. It helps me to visualize a possible painting and keep up my drawing skills. As a painter, I think understanding value and being able to translate it onto the canvas is key. Sketching always helps me to focus more on value. These sketches were quickly done, not really studies in value but they still are a good exercise even if you only have 5 minutes!

How to plan a portrait

It can be tricky to do a portrait of six kids but planning well in the beginning makes it a lot easier. Believe me, I am not the best planner but I put my non-meticulous ways to work to ensure fewer setbacks later on. I always start with a sketch. It may not look like much but it helps me familiarize myself with the faces and the composition. The pictures I was given to work with for this portrait were fairly small so I blew them up as much as I could without getting blurry. I had to work between two separate photos to get the best view of each child so drawing out the composition in a sketchbook helps to sort it out. I often make notes in the sketchbook to remind myself of ideas and colors.

Once I am ready to tackle the canvas I start laying out the composition in pencil. I don't normally do this because I usually enjoy just moving paint around and not tainting my canvas with pencil, although when I'm painting six portraits on one canvas I have to measure and re-measure and that is a little easier in pencil. I make sure to measure every head, set of eyes, forehead to chin, ear to ear.... you get the idea. This is not a mathematical method nor is it graphed out. I use my pencil or paintbrush to measure. It's more like eyeballing until you get it right. I like this method because I am still using my eyes rather than relying on a graph. I think it just works best for my brain. After this step is done it's time to start painting! My next post will be about the underpainting.

Yankee

Yankee
9 x 12
charcoal study

A painting of Yankee will be posted soon!

Pig Tails - sketch of the day

Pig Tails
6 x 10
charcoal on paper

SOLD

Wishing you all a carefree summer weekend!

sketch of my cat

Jesse in the Window

9 x 12

charcoal on paper

Available for purchase at my etsy shop!

Just a quick study of my cat. I just loved the way the light hit her fur. Hopefully, I'll get the chance to paint it.

How to Capture Movement

Salsa Dancer

charcoal

18 x 20

This is a quick sketch of a salsa dancer that I did a while back.  It is fun to pick an artistic element to focus on when sketching. Drawing dancers are a great way to study movement.  I love a piece of artwork that captures movement. I grew up fascinated and somewhat obsessed with dance and ballet in particular.  So much so, that for a while I spent every waking moment (aside from school) dancing.  Dance is such a beautiful way that people express themselves and drawing or painting is a great way to capture that expression!  I may not be able to pirouette through life anymore, but I can certainly draw those that are! 

Some tips for capturing movement in a sketch: 

1. Draw with a loose hand.  If you are too meticulous and rigid, you will have a tough time communicating any motion in your drawing.

2. Look at your subject more than your paper.  I know this one is hard for many of us, but if you are concentrating too hard on your drawing rather than your subject, you risk missing the essence of your subject.  Especially if you are drawing from life, don't look away from your subject!  If you have to look at your paper, make it quick!

3. Use a blocking-in technique. In the drawing above, you can see how I "blocked-in" her sleeve.  It is a quick way to capture the shape of something and it doesn't have to be perfect! Even if it take you a few tries, blocking-in can give your drawing a rustic, loose quality that can be quite charming!

4. Don't forget value! The darkness or lightness of something can help translate movement to the paper.  Having light, dark and medium values is crucial to almost any piece of artwork, but especially when one is trying to capture movement! Think of a light, quickly sketched line vs. a dark, heavily sketched mass vs. a broad swash with the side of your charcoal.  These different techniques all describe a different kind of movement and all are really useful.  Variation is definitely more exciting to the eye and helps to move the eye around the paper.

5. Draw in circles.  This is definitely one of those rules made to be broken, but I find that it is easier for me to draw with a loose hand when I draw using quick circle-like movements that describe my subject.  My great-aunt Harryette showed me this trick when I was 7 or 8 years old and it has really stuck with me.  She was a genius at drawing horses.. she could draw them in her sleep!  She taught me that a horse can be drawn using all circles and it really works!  I think any animal or human can be drawn the same way.

AND finally.... LOSE THE ERASER!  This is the best way to learn to draw!  It teaches you to get it right the first time and so what if you have a line out of place?! It only gives your drawing more character!

Riley in Charcoal

Riley

11.5 x 13.5

Charcoal

Here is a simple sketch of my dog, Riley.  I loved the look on his face though.  It captures his impatience and obedience perfectly.  He wasn't really in the mood to have his photo taken, but he politely obliged.

A Charcoal Sketch of Gracy

Gracy at the Lake
14 x 17
Charcoal

Sold

I love how raw a sketch can be. It is so different from painting in that way. With painting, I can go back and fix something, hide something and continue to layer until the final product looks nothing like the initial brush strokes. A sketch, on the other hand, must be carefully and meticulously planned and yet some of my favorite qualities in a sketch are the raw and imperfect smudges and lines that give it character. It is in finding this balance between raw energetic strokes and careful planning and measuring that keeps me sketching!