The devil in this case being the seduction of details. I went to Philip Solomon's open studio last night and started out reasonably enough, using my newly-learned technique of roughing out the pose with the side of a short piece of soft charcoal. But I knew I had 4 hours and very quickly I was… Continue reading A Night with the Devil
Tag: Drawing
Charcoal in Chicago
One day's half-hour poses at the Palette and Chisel, trying to do things á la Graves's Life Drawing in Charcoal. 12 x 18 or 18 x 24 inches using vine charcoal and a kneaded eraser for the highlights. I'm working on my edge control. Right now I'm doing too much line drawing and… Continue reading Charcoal in Chicago
Practice, practice, practice
This is a half-hour charcoal drawing from a photo on the http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/ Web site. My new large monitor makes it fun to draw at home. Although it's often-repeated that you shouldn't draw from photographs, I think it's helpful for practicing the basics such as proportion, layout, etc. and makes it easier to draw from a… Continue reading Practice, practice, practice
Gouache in Chicago
I'm finally back in Chicago on Fridays: 1, 5, 10, and 15 minute sketches in charcoal, and 30 minutes in pencil and gouache. This painting was done in my 5 x 8 inch Moleskine sketchbook, so the lighting is different above and below the fold. I'm looking for larger paper that takes the paint (or… Continue reading Gouache in Chicago
New Drawing Set-up
I had to upgrade my computer system to be sure I was compatible with others I work with when I design books and newsletters. A side benefit of upgrading is I can rotate the 24-inch Dell monitor so I can draw from reasonably large photos on the Web. In the photo I have a French… Continue reading New Drawing Set-up
Portrait of a Friend
After my friend Richard saw a watercolor self-portrait I did a few weeks ago, he asked me to do his portrait and sent me some photographs to work from. He probably expected a watercolor, but this is the result, done using Procreate on my iPad. There's a lot more smoothing in this picture than I'm… Continue reading Portrait of a Friend
Mixing It Up
This is a half-hour traditional-media pencil and gouache sketch in my 5 x 8 Moleskin, with a little digital finish thrown in. In the original, the model's left arm didn't read right. So for the first time ever, I took a picture of the painting with my iPad camera, imported the image into the Procreate… Continue reading Mixing It Up
IPad Sketching in Chicago
Friday at the Palette and Chisel open studio I tried my first iPad sketches from the figure. This is the best of three attempts. The light lines are the first drawing, then I made a new layer and came back with a thicker line and started roughing in the shadows. Obviously, there's a lot of… Continue reading IPad Sketching in Chicago
Color Studies
Now for the real fun—I hope. After all those squares à la Josef Albers, this exercise is more along the lines of a real picture (exercises are from David Hornung's book, “Color: A Workshop for Artists and Designers”—see previous posts). The parameters are to use 6 or more colors, each twice, in order to get… Continue reading Color Studies
Back to Chicago
Bored with using charcoal when I got to the last half hour of the evening open studio at the Palette and Chisel, I decided to do this small (10 x 8) gouache sketch in a new Moleskin sketchbook. It's messy, but it was fun to do. I had trouble with the sketchbook paper because it's… Continue reading Back to Chicago
Ken Crocker Artist 