Sketchbook, Drawings and Studies.
Sketches done, (hopefully), daily will be posted here. These may be warmup sketches, studies, or sketchbook pages.
I love sketching, particularly figurative sketching. However, I’ve always struggled with maintaining a sketchbook. A while back, prompted by the COVID pandemic, New Masters Academy started a 100 Day Challenge. Anyone could name any challenge and pursue it, posting their efforts, for 100 days.
For my challenge, I chose working regularly on a sketchbook.
I quickly found that having a place to regularly post my daily efforts was a wonderful motivator to keep me going. One problem I did encounter was that occasionally I would prefer drawing on large sketchpads or doing ink or charcoal studies on larger sheets of paper.
So for this blog I’m going to incorporate both.
New Masters Academy 100 Day Challenge
For several years I’ve been a member of New Masters Academy, (NMA). I pay their very reasonable annual membership fee, and otherwise have no financial or other affiliation with NMA in any way.
I cannot recommend this online art school highly enough. While I graduated from Art Center College of Design may years ago, I find New Masters Academy, (NMA), to have the most comprehensive faculty and curriculum I’ve ever seen.
A while back, prompted by the COVID pandemic, New Masters Academy started a 100 Day Challenge. Anyone could name any art challenge and pursue it, posting their efforts, for 100 days.
Since I’ve struggled all my life to maintain a sketchbook, I chose for my challenge to work every day I chose to work every day in a sketchbook.
I’m going to post many of the sketches I did for that challenge, and then continue posting my daily sketches and studies.
I initially started with a Cachet Daler/Rowney 7” x 10” sketchbook with oat colored paper (70lb). But pretty soon I found that I wanted to start doing gouache studies, so I added a second sketchbook; Strathmore mixed media vellum 300 series. 9” x 12” white paper (90lb).
Quick sketches done with a Namiki fountain pen.
Gouache study. Note the buckling. This is why I started a second sketchbook with thicker paper.
More studies with the Namiki pen.
Namiki pen, brush, white charcoal and gouache.
Gouache studies done from the exercises in the Famous Artist’s School section on gouache rendering.
More ink pen and and white charcoal gestures.
Gouache texture studies.
Pen and ink, brush, white charcoal and white gouache. Again, paper too thin. Note buckling.
More exercises from the Famous Artist’s School, (FAS), course. 1962 edition.
Studies done from photos I took of critters that strolled by my home.
Gouache studies.
Not surprisingly, once I started working in my sketchbook every day, and POSTING the results, (regardless of how good or bad they were), I started really enjoying it. While many of the figure sketches were from the NMA reference library, most of the animal sketches are from animals I’d see wandering around, or through, my yard. It really began opening my eyes as far as things to draw all around me.
Namiki fountain pen, brush and gouache. My cat, Buddy, lower left.
More gouache studies.
Pen and ink and brush studies of Joseph Clement Coll.
Ink, white charcoal and gouache.
Gouache portrait study of Lee Marvin.
Ink fountain pen quick gestures.
Gouache quick study.
Head studies; Cornwell , Daumier, Kley and Sorolla.
I’ve always found it very helpful and inspiring to do studies of artists that I admire. This is particularly true when I’m feeling discouraged, unmotivated or having trouble getting going on a project.
Continuing gouache studies.
Primarily ink and brush gesture studies.
I took the previous days gestures and turned them into gouache studies.
Ink and charcoal study of a George Bellows painting.
Again taking a pen and ink study and working over it in gouache.
Continuing to experiment with pen and ink gestures, then applying gouache.
Studies of Heinrich Kley drawings.
Namiki Fountain Pen sketches done while waiting in a doctor’s office during the pandemic.
Very quick gestures, (top), then going over them and developing the cylinder and block shapes, (bottom).
Then, taking the same image from above, more clearly rendering the cylinders and blocks with blue prismacolor pencils.
Previous day’s sketches taken to gouache. This time working over, primarily, graphite sketches.
Texture and image studies from photos I took at the Chicago Natural History Museum.
Very quick gouache study.
Namiki fountain pen gestures.
Gouache texture study.
More quick gestures.
Ink gestures on left, turned into gouache studies.
Previous days graphite study painted over in gouache.
Critters from our backyard and one from the zoo.
Pen and ink/Wash and ink portrait study.
Gouache study of Walter Baumhofer painting.
Ink studies of vintage illustrations.
Gouache study of Baumhofer illustration.
Studies of Heinrich Kley. Pen and ink, brush and ink.
Pen and ink warmups
Gouache study of a bunny that appeared in our backyard and stayed around for a couple of years.
More pen and ink warmups.