More Gesture Practice

Applying the theory from the Schoolism gesture course. By first sketching in the shape of the figure it is easier to keep the right volume. (In this case I used a green highlighter because it was there.) These two sketches were based on photos from a magazine.

Gesture Course

I'm currently enrolled in a 12 week gesture drawing course, over on Schoolism. The class is thaught by Alex Woo and Louis Gonzales, who are story artists at Pixar where they also teach in-house gesture classes.

These are some examples from my second asignment. I'm thrilled that after just two lessons I already see some improvement in my poses. These are all 30 seconds poses, ink on paper.  

One More Tony

Just when I accepted that Tony Soprano is impossible to draw I doodled this. One of those happy little accidents I guess...

Woke Up This Morning

If you follow me on Twitter you might have hear me say that I'm currently rewatching The Sopranos. I'm now half way season three, and I'm happy to see Ralphie again: Joe Pantoliano plays the greatest scumbags.

Ever since I started watching the Sopranos for the first time, I have done sketches of Tony. But he is just impossible to draw. Maybe it's because he is so inseparable from James Gandolfini, the actor that portrays him.

Anyway, these are two of my latest attempts, I like 'em as drawings but they are not Tony. In the end I got frustrated and tried Jimmy Altieri, a character from the first season. He's that guy at the bottom. 

Ink on paper, digital colors.

Pardner

The other day I doodled a cowboy. Threw in some color today and pasted him on this pic of Texas to round it up.

Only after I colored him did I recognize that red bandana /blue shirt combination: Dr. Alan Grant!

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.