California Sketches

This week I returned home from a 4 1/2 week vacation in California. I hadn't been away for such a long time in more than 10 years! It was also my first time in the US. We had a great time, I've seen so many wonderful things, visited amazing places and met the greatest people.

Normally I do quite a bit of sketching when I'm on vacation but this time there was so mcuh to do that I hardly had the time to sit down and draw.

And some sketches from the awesome San Diego Zoo:

Portugal: Summer Vacation 2013

Last Friday I returned from two wonderful weeks in Portugal. It was good to take a break from things but it always feels good to get back home to. I took a couple of sketchbooks and a lot of pens, pencils and markers but I didn't do as much sketching as I'd normally do.

Im not sure why. During the first week I hardly drew anything at all, only after we got to Lisbon did I begin to do some sketches. I still had a great time and took a lot of photos. These are all the sketches I did.So only one post this year. Hope you had a great summer too, I promise to do more sketching on my next trip!

Marker and ink in a Moleskin Kraft cahier sketchbook. 

Random Scribbles

This week I've been cleaning up my workplace. Earlier this year I moved in to a studio I share with some other guys. I have got my workplace all set up but it is covered in stacks of drawings and sketches, that I still had to find the right place for.

The other day I was watching a documentary about some Dutch architect who kept stacks of sketchs neatly organized in folders. I decided to do the same. More than 700 filed sketches later (!) I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel. The only stack that stil remains is made up of sketches on folded up paper. I usually work on regular A4 print paper. But every now and then I'll fold the paper in half. These sketches are too small to fit in to the folders, but, because they're small, for now they can lay on the corner of my drawingboard.

I figured you might like to take a look at these so I've scanned these on for your viewing pleasure. As you can see some are real messy while others are actully quite organized. It's funny to look at back at these things, They were not made to be seen by others but there's a spontaneity to 'em I sort of like. 

Homework - Boarding from Films

Things have been busy, recently. But in a good way! In the spare time that I have, I'm now doing this awesome story exercise introduced by Emma Coats: storyboarding from films. (Yeah, Emma Coats is the same person that inspired me to do those Next 5 exercises. I'm a fan.)

In the past I did storyboard a sequence from a film every now and then but Emma isn't into half work. In her outline of the exercise she recommends to board out an entire feature film (!) drawing one panel for every shot, if there's a camera move you draw one panel for the first, and another panel for the last frame of the shot. 

Emma's advice to choose a film you already know well, preferably one directed by Speilberg. Since I always want to do things in my own stupid way I of course decided not to go for Spieberg. But, to be fair, I did go for someone who is clearly very much influenced by Spielberg: I chose Robert Zemeckis' What Lies Beneath (2000).

A great film that I think doesn't have the status it deserves. During the late '90s /early 00's there was this Hitchcock revival going on. There were remakes of Rear Window, Dial M for Murder (A Perfect Murder) and of course Psycho. What Lies Beneath isn't a remake, it's a film made with the idea that this might be what a modern Hitchcock film might be like. The film is packed with visual effects (no surprise, it's by Zemeckis) but you probably won't be noticing most of 'em, (that's the way I believe visual effects should be used) the camera is constantly moving into impossible places: through walls, the floor etc.

Anyway, I've always felt that this film is terrifyng and extremely well made. It's a great example of filmmaking tradecraft. Zemeckis is a skilled craftsman and he is using all the tricks in the box with this one! I'm aready learning heaps!

Although the first thing I actually noticed was that this film is pretty hard to board using Emma Coats' instructions: so far it's filled with these ridiculous long shots, packed with camera moves. There's a lot of editing going on without there being any cuts at all. (There's an entire sequence of Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer talking at diner than walking into the kitchen while talking through some needed exposition, that is only one shot!)

So I've changed the rules a little and am now drawing every shot within a shot. Makes sense? No, I didn't think so. Well, for example, if the camera moves from a medium shot to a close-up, I'll draw one panel with the medium and one with the c-u, if the camera's then moving back to a total I'll draw another panel for that. The longest shot I did (that exposition sequence in the kitchen) was 10 panels for just one shot. I do expect that the cutting will get faster as the story moves on.

Jeez, look at me blabberin'! You probably don't get half the stuff I'm talking about! So sorry but, hey, I guess it shows the exercise is working. I'm posting the pages I did so far, they're not much to look at but I wanted to show you that I'm not just sitting here playing XBox all day!

Ink on paper (mostly a Pentell Sign and Pocket Brush Pen) I'm at page 6 now (I continued after I did the photos, they stop at page 5) and I'm currently 25 minutes into the movie. I expect that at the end this will be at least 30 pages.

Sketch Dump

A random collection of some of my more recent sketches, done in different sketchbooks. When I'm drawing the human figure I keep noticing how my thinking about poses and gestures has changed since I did that Schoolism gesture course. To a neutral observer there might not be much spectacular about these poses but I see a lot of improvement, my drawings are becoming a lot more dynamic.

The sketches above are done from a magazine. The gentleman on the left was based on a pic of Henry Hill, the real life gangster of Goodfellas fame. The other guy is some actor who actually isn't Andrew Garfield but for some reason this sketch looks a bit like him. (At least that is what I think.) 

Below are two more gesture sketches as well as two drawings I did in the Dutch town Maastricht, when I visited there back in February. As you can see I'm trying to focus a bit more on buildings and props when I'm sketching. That Virgin Mary sketch is based on a 15th Century wooden sculpture I saw in a Museum there. 

All sketches: Ink (Pentell Sign, Pentell Pocket Brush Pen, Staedtler Pigment Liner) on paper.

Red Fox Studies

Recent homework from the Gesture course on Schoolism. Apart from our usual model drawing assignments, this time we also had to research an animal of choice. We are to study the anatomy of one animal so that we are able to draw it without using reference.

As you might have guessed, I chose a Red Fox for this assignment. This is only a selection of the many sketches I did, both on loose sheets and in my sketchbook. One of the many great things about this course it how much it makes me sketch. I have started a new sketchbook early october -one of those thick old-fashioned a4-sized hardbacks-  and it is already filled halfway through! Mostly with gesture sketches and café drawings done for the gesture course. 

All of these are 100% traditional: ink, (Pentell Pocket Brushpen, Pentell Sign, Pitt Brush Pen) and color pencil on paper.

 

Katow-jo

Watched Anchorman the other night, did this sketch of the bear at the end. (That Schoolism course is ruining me, I can't watch a film without pausing it to sketch interesting poses anymore!)

Brown Pitt brushpen on paper, digital tones with Photoshop.

Vacation Sketches - Part 3.

This is the last batch of sketches from my vacation in Italy, last month. All of these were done along the shores of Lake como. We stayed in the lovely town of Menaggio. The last sketch of this post gives you an impression of the view we had from our balcony. 

Ink on paper, digital tones with Photoshop.

Vacation Sketches - Part 2.

Some more sketches from my recent trip to Italy. Just like the previous post all of these were done on the same day. After a week at Lake Garda we moved to Lake Como for the second week of our vacation. We took a train to Milano, and from there another train to Como. (We had to go first class since second class was sold out. At Como this posh, old American couple asked us if we were busted for not having first class tickets! (I guess they were surprised by our big backpacks; they must have thought only boring old farts travel first class.)

At Como we took a boat to Menaggio, where we stayed. It was a long trip, almost three hours. I didn't mind, I love Lake Como and I really enjoyed slowly cruising the lake. We found a good, quiet spot by the window so I took out my sketchbook. I was sketching the entire trip. Although the boat was real slow, I still had to draw real fast: the view was constantly changing. These are some of the sketches I did. I quite like the sketch of the man in his rowboat, above. It is actually a very small sketch, only 3 by 2 cm.  

I'll post some more of these sketches soon!

Vacation Sketches - Part 1.

Hey there! Long time no posts. So far this year has been a bit of a struggle. But things are looking up, and I have just returned from a nice vacation in Italy where I did quite a bit of sketching. This is just a first batch of sketches, I'll post some more soon. 

It was funny, I brought three sketchbooks and like a 100 pens, pencils and even waterpaint. I ended up using only the sketchbook with the worst paper and four of my most plain pens. I had fun just sketching away, though. The sketchbook -a normal sized, plain paper moleskine, with a soft cover- fitted perfectly in the side pocket of my shorts together with the pens: so it was easy to take 'em everywhere.

We spend a week at Lake Garda and then another week at Lake Como. These drawings are all from the first week at Lake Garda, I actually believe I did all of them on the same day.

All of these were done with a Copic Multiliner and a Papermate Flair, I threw in some tones with photoshop too.  I'll post more when I get around to scanning the rest of the book. Because the paper is rather thin though, I can't make good scans of all of my sketches. Still there should still be quite a few left that are good enough to post.

 

Skateboard Dude

A sketch I did in my sketchbook. I threw some quick colors on it with photoshop. It was based on a pic from the satorialist. 

When in Rome... - Conclusivo

Today it already a week ago that I returned from my trip to Rome. Although the weather in Amsterdam is pretty good for this time of year I'm afraid that Rome has it beaten. I sure miss walking in the sunshine. Not that I did much walking this week, I had to sit inside because of this stupid cold/flu/coughing combination that I mentioned in my previous post.

Good news is that I seem to be getting over it, although I'm still coughing like a 67 year old, chain smoking miner. If you want to find out how this sounds exactly don't miss tomorrow's workshop! 

People have been asking me if they need to reserve tickets, since it's in the smaller room of the Kriterion  theater I think it might be advisable but I'm not really sure if it's actually possible to book single tickets online. (check the klik site for more information) I hope to see all of you tomorrow, I'm anxious to present my storyboard to you. And of course I am very anxious to hear what Daan Jippes has to say about it!