Life Drawing Early 2018

Holy crap, it's been almost a year since I posted any art here. That cannot stand, so here are some pieces I've done at my weekly figure drawing sessions. The piece at the top of this post is a watercolor on Canson sketchbook paper. Turned out surprisingly well, all things considered. The rest is mostly work in graphite pencil.

This last one is a five minute drawing of another artist while the model was on break.

I'll try not to be gone so long next time.

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July Art Dump,

Here's some more art. A pretty random selection, with some more notes on process.

The piece at the head of this post is a watercolor painting I made of my friends, Katie Zall and Katherine Cross. Mostly just for fun, but I wanted to get the stick out of the ass of my figure drawing, so I didn't really care if it was anatomically accurate (it mostly is, oddly enough). I also wanted to transfer some of my obsession with textures in my ink drawings to watercolor, to see if it was compatible. It is. I also wanted to do something nice for Katie, who has been a pretty good friend, even if we've never actually met in meatspace.  Here's the drawing I did over lunch a few weeks ago. There are some differences.

This next piece was done for an inking exchange on Facebook. The original drawing is by Maggie Thurston. I chose to do my finishing work in watercolor, because I'm trying to get back into working with watercolor. Here are the original and finished versions:

This piece was done for the Misspent Youth project, now funding on Kickstarter if you're interested. This is a character who is part of a forced labor population in an asteroid mine. He's been experimented on and the cybernetic ports are still all over his body. Here are the sketches I sent to the client and the finished piece.

Here's a drawing I did this week at my weekly life drawing session. I'm really pleased with her toes.

Here's a drawing I did at a life drawing session a couple of years ago. I don't think I ever posted it before, but I was going through my old notebooks this morning and ran across it. It's a terrific drawing, I think, so I thought I'd share it. It's red col-erase Prismacolor.

Anyway, I should have more art later this month. Enjoy for now.

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More Life Drawing, Spring 2017

The last few drawings I've made at my weekly life drawing sessions have been pretty good. Likenesses are a bugaboo for me, so the fact that all of these models have distinct faces that actually look like them in my newest drawings pleases me no end. I realize that verisimilitude is not the aim of art (if it was, the king of the artists would the photographer), and I realize that any drawing made from life is necessarily a composite image because even the most disciplined of models will move during the session, and the artist themselves will move, too, but a good likeness is always a goal for me. I'm a representational artist by temperament, so it's a matter of pride. Anyway, these are all drawn with a graphite pencil (a number 2 pencil, as it so happens, rather than a snooty art pencil). The above drawing is especially satisfying for me because it's the first time I've drawn this model and I got her in one, awkwardly posed feet and all.

This drawing and the one at the head of this post are very similar. I was in the same spot for both of them and the prop set-up hadn't changed much.

I'm particularly happy with this one. I mostly got everything right, even within my method of creative scribbling. I'm really happy with her face. I've just been feeling it lately, I guess.

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This blog is supported on Patreon by wonderful subscribers. If you like what I do, please consider pledging your own support. It means the world to me.

Various Life Drawings Spring 2017

Here are some more life drawings. I haven't been attending as often as I'd like this spring, owing to a persistent respiratory infection. I'm slowly easing back into it, but it always feels like I've forgotten how to draw when I've been away for any amount of time. Anyway, these are all pencil drawings.  The drawing above has a nice sense of geometry to it. Not quite cubist, but architectural none the less.

More Late Winter Life Drawings

Here are some more life drawings from my weekly sessions this winter. I'm getting pretty familiar with drawing our regular models, so my likenesses are getting pretty accurate.

 

More Life Drawing, Winter 2016

Here are some more drawings from my weekly figure drawing session. The above drawing is another in a long series of awkward poses. I'm an absolute champion at finding difficult foreshortening poses. This, more than a lot of my drawings, is an example of my technique with a pencil, which is basically creative scribbling.

Fall Figure Drawings

Here are some of the drawings I've made at the weekly figure drawing sessions I attend every Thursday. The drawing at the head of this post is conte crayon on 96lb Canson drawing paper. The others, below, are all graphite on the same paper

This last drawing was done a bit larger than the others on 80lb Blick drawing paper.

All of these drawings are available for sale at my Etsy store.

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This blog is supported on Patreon by wonderful subscribers. If you like what I do, please consider pledging your own support. It means the world to me.

Some Drawings of Women

Here are some of my recent drawings.

Another Male Nude

Here are a couple of drawings from my last life drawing session. These are red col-erase Prismacolor pencils on crappy Canson sketchbook paper. I need to invest in better sketchbook paper because these drawings are pretty good but for the paper they're drawn on. As one of my old drawing teachers says: You never know when you're going to make a good drawing so make sure you always use materials that are up to it. Also: I did no construction drawing in either of these, preferring to trust my eyes rather than my idea of how figures are made. This works pretty well when drawing from life. The second drawing, below, was a ten minute drawing.

 

 

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I'm trying out Patreon as a means of funding my blogs. They don't have a widget yet, so this link will just have to do. If you like my writing and art and if you'd like to support Krell Laboratories and Christianne's Art and Comics, please come on over and pledge. Thanks.

St. Valentine's Art Dump

Here's some art I've made since last we spoke. I apologize if you've seen some of this before on my social networks.

The above piece is the first live figure drawing I've done since December. It's conte crayon, which I haven't used in forever. I used to love conte crayon, but somewhere along the way I fell out of the habit of using it. It has a rich, velvety darkness of tone that I love, even though I didn't take full advantage of it here. There's a certain creeping monumentalism in my figure drawing lately, which is even more prominent in the second drawing I did at this session from the same pose. This is a more technically correct drawing in graphite. I like it better.

Next up, we have a quick sketch of Oliver Cromwell I did in prep for a comics project I have on the back burner (part of my crippling idea debt). The brush I used for this was dying, but it still had some use left in it.

Next, a couple of fun drawings I inked over other people as part of the monthly "Ink Exchange" run by the Madames des Comiques group from St. Louis. The first was inked over Christina Steenz Stewart, the second over Tara Coble. These were fun to do. I like collaboration.

This was my contribution to this month's event:

Which is a character I'm using in a comic I'm currently drawing. Here's the first panel of the first page of that comic. It came out quite nice:

Finally, there's this, which is something I started for a warm up and got caught up in drawing the snakes. Medusa and her sisters--I think this is actually Eurayale rather than Medusa, but it doesn't really matter--are subjects I keep returning to. This is for sale in my Etsy store.

Enjoy.

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I'm trying out Patreon as a means of funding my blogs. They don't have a widget yet, so this link will just have to do. If you like my writing and art and if you'd like to support Krell Laboratories and Christianne's Art and Comics, please come on over and pledge. Thanks.

Male Nude (back on the drawing horse)

I finally got back to a life drawing session yesterday. I was late so my pose opportunities were limited. In truth, I'm kind of happy with this angle, as in your face as it is. Pencil on Canson sketchbook paper.

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I'm trying out Patreon as a means of funding my blogs. They don't have a widget yet, so this link will just have to do. If you like my writing and art and if you'd like to support Krell Laboratories and Christianne's Art and Comics, please come on over and pledge. Thanks.

Late August Art Dump

I've been making a lot of art this month, but a lot of it is stuff I can't show. That hasn't stopped me from going to my regular figure drawing sessions, though, and here are a bunch drawings from those sessions I attended this month. The drawing at the head of this post is pencil and almost dry Copic markers on sketchbook paper. Dry copics have their uses, but I think I need to refill mine.

More Recent Life Drawings...

Star, graphite pencil on watercolor paper

I've been posting a lot of life drawings lately. The reason for this is twofold: first, the stuff I would ordinarily be posting--stuff for my current illustration clients--is under a non-disclosure agreement until publication. Second, I'm really digging my life drawing sessions. Anyway, here are some recent ones.

Still More Life Drawings

Some more drawings from my weekly life drawing sessions. Col-erase Prismacolor on Blick sketchbook paper and pencil on Blick scetchbook paper. Pretty scribbly. I tend to be an impatient artist.