Playing with shadows here and I probably got too heavy handed, as usual. Marty's elegant french fashion work was the inspiration to scan a sketch I made last week. But I guess I took a more minimalistic approach to haute couture.
"Praise from the praiseworthy is above all rewards." - Sam Gamgee
The original is fairly small(3.5"x5.5") and started out as a watercolor wash looking for a figure. Followed that with some colored pencils and inks. Played with different scanning settings and spent 15 minutes in photoshop.
I was happy with the curtain but still not sure about the figure. So Ellis' comment lets me be done with it!
Very evocative. To my eye it does what the best Cornwells and Wyeths (and Klimts) do, or what they do most notably, and what so few other illustrators can do, which is open up a story visually, but without crowding the reader's imagination. Including the opposite page of the sketchbook really drives home this feeling of "Masters of Illustration," with the big negative space. I feel it's just begging to have a story written around it!
It's interesting, too, because the other work I've seen on this TAG Blog from you does such wonderful stuff with black ink (I imagine it's via nib, tho' I don't want to assume--perhaps it's brush). Being able to move between this softer stuff and the really specific black-line stuff, where so much interest hinges on the way you vary the line-width (which I find is impossible to fake)--well, it "bespeaks a broad talent".
There seems to be two or three different "head-places" when I approach a page or canvas.
Often it's all about line quality like you said, with maybe some flat-ish color. Then I'm just trying to keep up with the pencil (or Rotring ArtPen / water brush).
BTW I once heard a golf instructor remark that the arm muscles can move and react FAR faster than the brain can send messages or instructions. Like when you reach for a certain brush, pen or eraser before you consciously know that the piece needs the resulting addition or subtraction?
Sometimes I just want to work with tone and shape - more often when I have a live model or still life. But I seem to be able to invent much easier with just line.
But… frequently it's alllll about a little something that I like to call... pure panic. And I'll grab out to any solution that seems to offer salvation.
I often wish I could combine my "life drawing" stuff with my "concept stuff" so that I had a completely consistent style. But so far that hasn't happened.
Maybe that panic stuff has to be exorcised first.
What’s it like when you approach the big blank canvas or lump of clay? Do you see what you want right away? Did you go to it knowing what you were after? Ugh those questions seem to sophomoric. Do you like rainbows?
I'm of the opine that I should "push stuff around" until it gets good--for sculpture, that is (and oil paintings). But this is lousy for drawing, (esp. in ink). That's why I'm on this cheap brush pen jag: forces me to think ahead, and then commit. I like this new way of working. After sculpting so much, my drawings began to get really half-tone-y, always looking to build up mass, always looking to edge-in on shape. Most sculptors draw that way, sometimes well, sometimes...unwell. My efforts were looking a little sickly. So I'm changing.
I dig this one Dok. Nice figure and the whole lost and found around the head. very cool
ReplyDeleteLooks like something out of a Klimt sketchbook! Watercolor??? Oils??? Coffee??
ReplyDeleteThe composition is wonderful... I love that sort of dramatic use of negative space!
ReplyDeleteGo Klimt! Yeeeah!
What else is there to say? That's just beautiful Dok. I love the toned paper you're working on.
ReplyDelete"Praise from the praiseworthy is above all rewards."
ReplyDelete- Sam Gamgee
The original is fairly small(3.5"x5.5") and started out as a watercolor wash looking for a figure. Followed that with some colored pencils and inks. Played with different scanning settings and spent 15 minutes in photoshop.
I was happy with the curtain but still not sure about the figure. So Ellis' comment lets me be done with it!
Very evocative. To my eye it does what the best Cornwells and Wyeths (and Klimts) do, or what they do most notably, and what so few other illustrators can do, which is open up a story visually, but without crowding the reader's imagination. Including the opposite page of the sketchbook really drives home this feeling of "Masters of Illustration," with the big negative space. I feel it's just begging to have a story written around it!
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting, too, because the other work I've seen on this TAG Blog from you does such wonderful stuff with black ink (I imagine it's via nib, tho' I don't want to assume--perhaps it's brush). Being able to move between this softer stuff and the really specific black-line stuff, where so much interest hinges on the way you vary the line-width (which I find is impossible to fake)--well, it "bespeaks a broad talent".
WORD.
—AND DON'T THINK WE DIDN'T NOTICE THE CLOWN TIE AROUND HER NECK!
ReplyDeleteThis post has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThank you Marty!
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be two or three different "head-places" when I approach a page or canvas.
Often it's all about line quality like you said, with maybe some flat-ish color. Then I'm just trying to keep up with the pencil (or Rotring ArtPen / water brush).
BTW I once heard a golf instructor remark that the arm muscles can move and react FAR faster than the brain can send messages or instructions. Like when you reach for a certain brush, pen or eraser before you consciously know that the piece needs the resulting addition or subtraction?
Sometimes I just want to work with tone and shape - more often when I have a live model or still life. But I seem to be able to invent much easier with just line.
But… frequently it's alllll about a little something that I like to call... pure panic. And I'll grab out to any solution that seems to offer salvation.
I often wish I could combine my "life drawing" stuff with my "concept stuff" so that I had a completely consistent style. But so far that hasn't happened.
Maybe that panic stuff has to be exorcised first.
What’s it like when you approach the big blank canvas or lump of clay? Do you see what you want right away? Did you go to it knowing what you were after? Ugh those questions seem to sophomoric. Do you like rainbows?
Baby, I'm over the rainbows.
ReplyDeleteI'm of the opine that I should "push stuff around" until it gets good--for sculpture, that is (and oil paintings). But this is lousy for drawing, (esp. in ink). That's why I'm on this cheap brush pen jag: forces me to think ahead, and then commit. I like this new way of working. After sculpting so much, my drawings began to get really half-tone-y, always looking to build up mass, always looking to edge-in on shape. Most sculptors draw that way, sometimes well, sometimes...unwell. My efforts were looking a little sickly. So I'm changing.