Tag: creativity

こんばんは。Tonight’s post if of a digital painting I did, which started out from a pencil sketch. I wanted to practice drawing portraits from a 3/4 view angle, so I watched a few video tutorials and then gave it a go. The first sketch (see bottom photo) was okay, but had my typical “mannequin” style. And I was not thrilled about the hairstyle either, even though my favorite is short hair “bob” cuts.

My second attempt at a 3/4 pose turned out better. I’m still trying to figure out how my process was different, but I guess when I drew the second one, I was a little freer drawing the underlining structure, I drew the features larger and gave the face a little more shape. And I really like the long hairstyle with bangs.

After I did the pencil sketch, I scanned it and did some coloring in Photoshop. I wanted to do it quickly, but got into it and took a few hours. I guess I could work on it more, but I’ll leave it at this.

I’m not so great at drawing smooth curves in Photoshop, but I love using the pen tool and create vector paths to fill and erase. It’s really fun, and I kind of get the look I want. I’m excited to do more of this. In fact, I am going to go even more vector and work in Illustrator to create the shapes for the next one.

To see all the sketches I’ve been working on, you can check out the Flickr album “My Sketching Journey”, or my Instagram account barron.sketches which I created just for posting sketches, watercolors, and stationery items.

I hope you had a great day!

おやすみ

こんばんは。How’s it going? Tonight’s sketch (above) is one I am happy with, and got me back on track! Last night, I sketched a portrait (below) in which I went full mechanical, and measured out each element… but wow, it looks so wrong:

I mean, it looks extremely unnatural, doesn’t it? This is actually how most of my old drawings looked. Vaguely mannequin-like. In fact, I was thinking that my portraits could be rated on how mannequin-like they look. I don’t know… maybe it’s the plastic hair, or the glassy eyes, or the weird eyebrows, or the shape of the face which reminds me of an upside-down onigiri. 🍙

Well, tonight I decided to draw another portrait, but from a slightly different angle. I didn’t measure as much as last night, and I think it turned out pretty good! I used the compass to draw a circle, divided it into quarters, then a couple more horizontal lines so I could keep things level, and voila!

It’s weird, but in drawing these basic portraits, I sometimes revert to my old style (the mannequin) and sometimes sketch with the new style. Happily, the more I practice, the fewer times the mannequins come out to play. 😆

To see all the sketches I’ve been working on, you can check out the Flickr album “My Sketching Journey”, or my Instagram account barron.sketches which I created just for posting sketches, watercolors, and stationery items.

I hope you had a nice Thursday!

おやすみ

こんばんは。How’s it going?

This evening was a busy one for me. I dropped my son and his friend off at a concert downtown, which meant a lot of driving! They had to be at the venue at 6:30 pm for a VIP meet-n-greet, then, of course, the concert lasted until after midnight, so I made a second trip to pick them up. But, the kids got to meet the band, saw the show from right in front of the stage, and had a great time. An hour and a half of chauffeuring is a small price to pay to give them a nice memory that will last a lifetime.

After I dropped them off, I stopped by BookPeople again and bought a few more small notebooks. I am planning on using them for my daily journaling. I started using a larger notebook recently for the journal, but since I decided to switch to the small notebooks, I cut out the two days I wrote in the large one and taped into the small one. It’s not pretty, but who cares?

Back at home, I did some quick sketching using my LAMY Safari broad nib and Noodler’s Bulletproof black ink. It’s fun, although I don’t think I like any of the faces except the two in the bottom-left corner. But at least I did work on some eyebrows, and practice is good, right?

I also did a sketch looking at a reference sketch by @cyarine, who is an amazing artist. I love her work! I think drawing from reference photos is fun and helpful. It’s almost like getting into the mind of someone else… maybe not that much, but something like that. I guess?

To see all the sketches I’ve been working on, you can check out the Flickr album “My Sketching Journey”, or my Instagram account barron.sketches which I created just for posting sketches, watercolors, and stationery items.

I hope you had a nice evening!

おやすみ