I just finished one of those huge 18" x 24" sketchbooks.  It’s nice to be drawing two nights a week again.  Before hiding the sketchbook away forever, I could some quick photos of some of my favorites. :)  Enjoy!

Sketches of 1 to 5 minute poses

I really like the "less is more" look of these short poses

Longer Poses

It’s pretty amazing how many muscles go under and around each other all the way down the arm. It’s also interesting that each finger is controled by two muscles in the fore arm.

Also, the muscles from the upper and lower arms interlock like links in a chain.

It’s interesting that the same lines you might use to draw hair, also work well for muscles.

Here’s a thought: don’t clean up your hobby –or whatever it is you’d like to get done but keep putting off.

Why is it that so many people come home from work and waste away watching tv? I have this theroey that it’s because tv is so easy. There’s no obsticals to overcome, no work to do –it’s already hooked up! If you had to hook up your tv every time you wanted to use it, and then disconnect it and put it away when you were done watching it, no one would bother! :) it wouldn’t be relaxing, it would be work.

So why do we even consider “putting things away”? (especially our favorite things) The act of setting up and putting away can turn something you want to do into something that’s too much trouble to do. (seriously, would you watch tv if you had to set it up and dismantle it when you were done?).

I realized that, after a long day at work, I often just take the path of least resistence, which is tv. This also means a week will go by and I’ll ask myself, “why haven’t I done any of the stuff I wanted to do ( like sketch or paint )?”

All of this clicked in my head for me after I tried out a suggestion from some one in my painting class. “the trick is, you’ve got to set everthing up and then leave it out. Don’t clean anything up and you’ll alway be able to paint on a moments notice.”

And It worked! I’d find myself wandering past my ready-to-go painting desk and spotting something I wanted to try out. I’d make a few brush strokes while standing and find myself sitting down. Then, next I realized, it’s two hours later. Much of the time I’d normally find myself in front of the tv, I now found myself painting. :)

It worked so well that I went out and bought a bigger desk. :)

I signed up for more Chinese brush painting classes! And boy am I out of practice. :) –I was spacing on how to mix my grays :)

I think I’ll be looking back through this blog at all my notes from last time:
http://www.dannyburbol.com/category/art/chinesebrush/

But here’s some plum blossoms any way :)

Enjoy,
~Danny

I’ve been working on anatomy lately, starting with the spine and ribs.  I was actually on a plane from CA to NY last week.  I started this on the 6 hour flight there and finished it on the 6 hour flight back.  (it’s all Micron 005 and a #2 pencil) 

Want to try? here’s a reference :) GOOD LUCK! :)

I’ve been tring to make time to sketch more and I’ve been trying to experiment with approaches I don’t normally use.   

Normally I start with a gesture and start marking landmarks to keep my proportions in check before I start, then I move on to making contour lines.  After all that, I’d normally start shading.  But this always leaves me with these sketches that have hard outlines around everything.  Like a cartoon that’s trying to look real by having a lot of shading work inside the lines.

So, just for a change, I was trying to capture as much as possible without making lines.  I was blocking in big areas with the side of the charcoal.  Which means you’re laying down information to define the forms outline show volume at the same time.  It’s pretty interesting.  Here’s a couple 10 minute poses to illustrate.

In the first one you can see how quickly the form takes shape and "lines" start to form –but not as "lines", instead they are "edges".  For example, where the front leg overlaps the back leg.  It feels like there’s a line there, but there’s not.  In fact if you trying to draw a line there it will never be as thin as this "line" created by to edges meeting.

One other thing I’ll just throw out there while we’re looking at the legs.  Note the vertical strips of value I made with the side of the charcoal.  I was trying to fill in large blocks of space all at once… so a vertical line seemed like a nice idea, even though it goes against the curve of the form.  I figured I just try it out to see what it looked like in the end.  Basically, I feel like these legs look like the belong to a robot.  They’re not round, they’re angular and blocky.  Just and interesting observation.  If I had moved the charcoal from left to right along the curve of the legs they would have, no-doubt, looked much rounder.
 

In the second image, I was continuing with the "don’t draw lines" experiment.  I tried to draw as little as possible.  I have some dark spots, some medium tone and I tried to leave all highlights blank white.  Again I made a lot of long lines that following the arms and legs down.  for example, the back arm is not finished so you can see it’s just one long stroke with the charcoal.  But even though I didn’t have time to give it much more attention, it still look like it’s there (your mind kind of fills in the rest)

As I got a little more creative with those "edges instead of lines".  the heads are not outlined at all but you still get the feeling that the fingers are there.  Also note that the back was done in the direction it should be when you’re trying to make thing look round.  So you can compare the back’s shading to the legs and arms and see how the direction of the stroke make a difference.

No lines.  Give it a try some times. :)

~Danny