After doing a random AS3 search for some code that might let me outline text clean/easily, I stumbled on this post by Tom Carden.  It’s a short and sweet little post with some sample code.  However, what caught my eye was his clone function (note, that’s a screenshot to the right, please go to his site if you want to see/use the code.).

Basically, my thought process was: "what the? why is he for-each’ing an array created on the spot? –oh, that’s pretty elegant, I should share that."

So basically I just wanted to post to say "hey, check out this for loop." :)

(and go read Tom Carden’s blog! :)

Appreciating the little things,
~Danny

Here’s something fun to try: Pick up one or two "mark making" instruments and start making a library of marks. Start with some simple obvious marks. Maybe do some simple hatching (like in the bottom right of the image). Then start experimenting to see what various marks look like.

Make every mark you can think of. Then trying grouping them or overlaying them in different ways. Do everything you can think of and then KEEP GOING. Once you’ve exhausted all the obvious things, THAT is when you’ll start getting creative and discovering new things.

If just experimenting is too vague a goal for you, set some limitations on yourself! ;) Have fun! Trying to do a page full of only one variation of a mark or try to take whatever marks you’re already making and attempt to turn them into a gradient.

There’s no need to rush through every item in your media collection. Take your time. Make a page using a pencil and then another page with a pen. Or a page that explores how two mark making instruments interact with each other.

You don’t have to do every mark making instrument in your collection. Make a library for one pencil today and another pencil some other day. Do it often and just see what you get.

Some advice, take notes. Note what you were making marks with and then how you were making the marks. For example, if you’re holding your 4B pencil from the far end in the wrong hand and trying to make circles, make a note of that. After all, we’re making a library, so make sure you tell yourself how to reproduce these marks when you rediscover this page again 2 years from now ;)

Some ideas to try:

• Make marks with your palm on the page, then make them again with your palm not touching the page.
• Isolate parts of your body. Make marks using only your wrist, or only your fingers, or by only moving your elbow and shoulder
• hold the pen or pencil in odd ways. hold it "wrong" if you have to.
• play with your distance from the page. trying being far away and holding the pen/pencil from the far end so you have to reach
• try on difference surfaces and positions. Put the paper flat on table or tapped to a wall. You can stand, sit, lay, lean, or move while trying to make the mark.
• make the same marks or motions using very different media
• layer media
• use the wrong hand or try using both hands.
• turn your paper then try to reproduce some of the marks you’ve already made from this new angle.
• Close your eyes and make random marks, then open your eyes and see if you can reproduce them.
• Don’t forget your tools that take away marks. Throw down a pattern and then start experimenting with your eraser, whiteout, etc

Example 1: Micron 005

My sketch at the top of this post is pretty straight forward and "obvious" stuff **after the page is full.** Now I can look at the page and get ideas for patterns and gradients using a Micron 005 without having to take time out of the project I might be in the middle of when I realize I want to use the Micron 005.

Example 2: Skipping My Charcoal Pencil

Below are some more experimental attempts. In this first image, I discovered that if I held my charcoal pencil at the right angle, it would skip across the page making a dotted line. After a bunch of experimenting I was able to consistently do it.

All of these dots are downward lines made with a skipping charcoal pencil (and really took no time at all to make once I figured out how to do it)

Next I started stacking the marks on top of themselves and got something that looked like a commit. Then I tried going out in different directions to make that explosion of dots. Again, these didn’t take very long because I was drawing "lines" not making dots.

Example 3: Eraser Marks

Another experiment. I took a brand new eraser and rubbed it on a patch of charcoal, then stamped it on the page 3 times from top to bottom. What’s interesting is the 1st strike is solid (like you’d expect), but the 3rd strike is an outline.

What are you waiting for!? Start your library of marks today!

Bonus Example: Art Cars

UPDATE added 9/26/2009.  We just happen to walk by an art show with art cars.  Check out the way this artist made "marks" on these cars.

Give it a try and feel free to share your work with everyone by post some links to your marks as a comment.

I’ve been trying to come up with ways to get myself drawing new things and be a little more serious about my drawings.  Basically, I’m trying to find a rhythm for sitting down and drawing something in a way that will be productive and help my skills improve.  I say this because I often give things one shot and then move on.  For example, my last post with the sketch inside safeway:  I just sat down and started drawing.  If it ends up being good then so be it, and if that same drawing had ended up being bad, well so what.  Either way I would have closed the book, stood up and wandered off.

So I question, how much do I learn by just drawing something once and then shrugging and moving on?

I’ve noticed that Marc tends to draw things over and over again.  It’s actually pretty amazing to watch.  He will draw a pose that may look good or bad, then continue to draw that same pose 3 more times.  After that, he looks at them all and tries to home in on what he likes and dislikes about them.  Then he just uses those rough sketches as reference for another attempt, then another attempt.  When he’s done, he’s drawn the same thing about 5 times (at least) and he smiles and tears up all but the last drawing.

This persistance to get where he’s going is really admerable.  So I experimented with drawing the same thing over and over today.  Not as allaberate as Marc, but with the intent of drawing something new and walking away feeling like I’d gained something.

So here’s what I did.  I looked for an odd object that was already on my desk and just started drawing.  No waiting to be "inspired" to draw or searching for the "perfect" object to draw.  I just looked at the first thing in site that looked challenging yet doable, cleared some space for it and started drawing.

Warm Up

Rather than do my normal "just make an attempt", I decided to try some warm ups from some drawing classes I took a while back.  I started with a 5 minute blind contour drawing. 

If you’re not familiar with this I really recommend giving it a try.  Basically, you put your sketchbook on your lap, *under* the table and then start drawing without looking at all.  You focus on only the outline of the object.  I’ve heard it described as imagining an ant very slowly crawling around the outline of the object and you’re watching it.  You tried to notice every little detail that ant would encounter on it’s epic journey around the object border.  Basically, you go really slow and you look for tiny details on the object’s outline.

While you’re doing this with your eyes, you have your pencil on the page and you’re very slowly drawing what you’re seeing.  When you’re done, the drawing will look like nothing (if it does look like something, you probably cheated and looked).  But what you’re doing is training your eyes to looks for new details and letting your hand feel what it feels like to be drawing just those details. It goes back to that saying, "you can’t draw what you don’t notice."

It’s great because you can’t mess it up.  When you’re done you have a drawing that looks like nothing, but it’s the experience in your head that’s valueble.

So I did that and I took 5 mintues or so to slowly going around my object, the old beat up headphones, twice –my pen died out a little on the second time around, but who cares?  In all honesty, you could do it with a pen that doesn’t  work and still gain the experience of training your eye and your hand on the details of the object.

Next I made another contour drawing, only this time I put the book on the table so I could see what I was doing.  I ended up also outlining the shadow and blocking it in with some highlighters that happened to be on the table already.

And that was my 15-20 minute warm up.

Focused Attempt

Next I made an attempt to draw the object with as much detail as I could.  And I commited myself to take as much time as I needed to feel like it was done (as in, adding more lines would take away value instead of add value to the drawing).

One thing to note is that I’m still using the pen a lot these days.  I find that starting with the pen really makes me take my time and think about every line before I draw it.  I’m not saying you should use a pen, I’m just saying I like my own state of mind when I use it.

I also decided to make an attempt with those highlighters again (which is a tool I’m still trying to get the hang of). 

After that, I did something I rarely do, I made a pass at cleaning up the drawing a little with the use of a whiteout pen.  Like I said, I normally make an attempt, shrug and move on.  But I’m really trying to get all I can out of this for a change.  I’m really trying to focus.

All this took about 35 minutes.

Put it to the test

Finally, I covered the object so I couldn’t see it and I tried to draw it again from memory.

Again, I commited myself to taking as much time as I’d need to finish it.  I also started with a pencil this time and tried to keep myself thinking about every line before I drew it.  I ended up drawing as you would expect to draw with a pencil, I "constructed" the object by making a lite, rough layout of the shapes and slowly homing in on what the final lines should be.

I inked it and shaded with a pencil this time around.  Then I did some cleanup with and eraser.  I was trying to take my time, but I think I went a little too fast because I was done in about 20 minutes.

After that I compared what I had just drawn to the drawing I had done earlier and then I compared against the actual object that was on the desk.  Right away I noticed I’d shifted the orientation of the head phone on the right (which is just "interesting", not "right" or "wrong" or anything), but for the most part, I drew something with no reference that I wouldn’t have been able to draw at all about an hour ago.

I was pretty exhausted afterwords (mentally), but I do feel like drawing something a few times in this order really helped me walk away with a lot more then a shrug.

Maybe tomorrow, I’ll try to draw it again from memory, just to see what happens.

Give it a shot, I think I’m going to be taking this approach more often (and I’ll be trying more than just one viewpoint of the object),
~Danny

PS: you may have spotted the "fill in the blanks" I wrote on the page in my very first photo.  Basically, I’m at the end of a sketch book and I’m trying to go back and fill in all the blank (or mostly blank) pages I skipped for some reason or another.  I figure it’s paper and I shouldn’t waste it :)

After working in grays and black for so long, color feels like a breath of fresh air.

After much searching on amazon, I found the set we use in class:

Our instructor showed us the powered color that her master used to use. They are brilliant, vivid colors. Half are from rocks that have been grounded into dust and half are organic –but almost all of them are poisonous. Which makes sense, all the brightest colors in nature usually warn predators of poison.

Because half the colors are minerals and half are organic, if you see ancient paintings, half the colors will still be bright and vivid (the minerals) and half the colors will be fading away (the organic colors).

Another interesting not about these powdered colors is that since they are nothing but dust, they need to be mixed with a type of glue to get them to hold together and actually be usable to paint.

(more…)

I use this technique a lot. For example, the self-portrait in the first post on this blog:

“Remember, there are no rules, just tools.” ~Glen Vilppu

If you’re anything like me, you don’t have a lot of time to begin with, so the little time you have to sketch or make art is very valuable. At the same time making art is all about spending as much time as you need to “finish” the piece. A buzz word in game development right now is “iteration time.” The more times you iterate on something, the better it can be in the end. If it takes 10 to 20 iterations before something is just the way you like it, wouldn’t you want to iterate as fast and clean as possible? Wouldn’t you want to safely experiment for a few iterations without ruining all the work you’ve do so far (like destroying your original)?

Enter this technique, which I’m calling “Virtual Tracing Paper.” Traditionally, one of the first things you learn is to sketch very very VERY lightly with a lighter pencil. Then you make iterations by very slowly moving to a darker pencil and finally to ink. I’m bad at this, I’m too heavy handed (and I do still practice this BTW, so I am getting better). That leads us to the next traditional technique of tracing paper and/or light-boxes. If you make all your iterations on a new sheet of paper, then a world of possibilities open up for the direction you can take the piece you’re working on.

Virtual Tracing Paper is the idea of leveraging the computer as if it were a light-box. It requires a scanner and a printer. Basically scan in the image you’re working on, lighten it up, and print it back out. Continue to work on the printout.

Advantages:

• you can re-size/rotate things.
  for example: take a small doodle and grow it to be the size of the page for the next iteration, or grow one detail to the size of the page so you can work on all the little hard to reach areas. If you have a sketch that’s to tall or two wide, you can squash or stretch it. If you draw at an angle, you can tilt it to be more upright.

• you can move things.
  think “proportions.” it’s always easy to look at a drawing and say “crap, that’s too long,” or too short or too far apart, etc. But it’s a pain in the but to do something about it. In many cases it’s faster to just start over than to try to “save” the sketch. However if you scan it in and print it out you can move or re-size parts of the sketch to achieve the proportions you wanted. It will look bad because parts won’t line up, but as soon as you lighten the sketch and print it back out, you can use everything as guides to draw new, better lines.
• flip it!
  it’s a common trick to hold a piece of paper up to the light and look at it through the back side. You see everything in reverse so it helps your brain spot problem areas. Now you can just mirror the sketch and print it out and keep working.
• experiments and shading.
  print out 5 copies of your line-work, shade each one differently. Suddenly you can experiment without worrying about messing up the original.

The Next Level

If you want to bring the technique to a 2.0, get a tablet. If you have a tablet you can skip the printing out part and just alpha out your current layer, create a new layer, and go to town on it. Iterations become extremely easy.

A word of caution.

This can be a fun and fast way to work and experiment, however it can also be one hell of a crutch. As soon as you can move, rotate, re-size, and stretch your sketch, you start making a habit of not getting your proportions right the first time. So don’t stop drawing on paper and don’t stop trying to make traditional pieces the traditional way. Remember, you’ll learn more if you start a piece over from scratch to fix and proportions than if you just use the computer to fix the proportions. If you want to get better, you’ve got to bite the bullet and do the practice work involved with getting better. In the end, use your best judgment for what your personal goals are.

I don’t want this blog to turn into nothing but off-site links, but this was too good to pass up. It’s not easy to find good photoshop tutorials. Searches usually turn up lots of 1st-day-beginner stuff and photo touch-ups), but the lines and color blog just posted a link to this:

100 Photoshop Tutorials for creating beautiful art.

This is my second self-portrait for ArtistDojo.com’s self-portrait challenge. The style of the challenge was basically as realistic as you can get it.

The jacket just didn’t work out well… it was supposed to be leather, but looks like denim. So on the down side, I’ll have to practice my leather, on the upside, I have an accidental denim technique. I basically did it with small scribbles stacked on top of each other.

above: all layers turned off.

above: if you look to the bottom right, you can see my scribbly pattern. I also did some partial erasing for the shiny areas.

above: this is the second scribbly layer. I basically just duplicated the first scribble layer (before I made the shiny spots) and offset it… so you ‘ll see in the following image, since it’s offset, it darkens in more of the texture.

above: here are both of the scribbly layers on at the same time.

above: and finally, this is the layer under the scribbles that gives it all the shadows.

Edit History:

• (02/01/2008): Fixed bird’s belly and added photos of split brush

Split Brush
I said be gentle on your brush when dabbing, and this is no exception. After you rinse the brush, hold it vertically with the tip facing down and touch it to your dabbing cloth. Put a little bit of pressure on the brush so the bristles bend a little, then twist the brush in between your fingers.

The tip will split into many smaller tips.

Touch the brush to the dabbing cloth horizontally to narrow the tip. You should end up with a cylindrical shape that’s spiky on the tip.

Load the brush with ink like normal and go for it.

Make A Bird
Step 1: use a detail brush to make the beak and the eye.
Step 2: use a hard bristle brush, using split brush technique, to make those nice scratchy strokes for the top of the bird’s head and then the top of the body. Notice how we make another stroke in the middle of the body for a little definition in the wing.
Step 3: use a hard bristle brush, NO LONGER with the split brush tip, to add in a line for each wing-tip and then a couple lines for the tail.
Step 4: make a light gray stroke under the head and another under the body. Let them be a little wet, so it’s fuzzy looking on the bird’s underside.
Step 5: use a detail brush to make the legs and talons.
Step 6: make it up! These are the techniques I used for that specific bird in that specific pose, but now that you know the techniques, just go get some reference of some birds and have fun! Just remember, we made the beak and eye first so we could control where we ended up using or not using our wet on wet techniques.

Dirty Water
Take a really good look at the belly of my bird.

The original bird was a lot fatter and cuter. I thought I was being sly by using a brush directly from the dirty rinsing water because I wanted a very light gray belly. Well, when it dried, my strokes completely disappeared (because it was just water!)

Let me tell you, that fat little bird was sooo cute… until I got home. After the ink dried, the fat belly disappeared! And now my bird just has a big head! :)

Lesson: Dirty water is still water! It’s NOT a substitute for your light gray pallet.

Edit: I fixed the bird last time I had the inks out: