More Than a Hundred and Still Going

1/3/23 Prismacolor, Derwent colored pencils (all reference photos by Earthsworld)

When I first started practicing portraiture in late September, I didn’t commit to a certain quantity, frequency or time span (other than the 31 days of InkTober). Initially inspired by France Van Stone’s crosshatching course, I figured I would keep going for as long as I was challenged and engaged and stop when I felt like it. I recently decided to collect all my Earthsworld-inspired portraits into a Flickr album, and I found I had made more than a hundred. (Please check out the album – the grid of faces is visually fun!)

Before I began this self-challenge, I had always been reluctant to take on portraiture because there’s such a natural pressure to capture resemblance when drawing a face. Although resemblance is still hit and miss (I’m trending in the direction of more hits than misses lately), the biggest change I’ve observed is in my ability to capture the essential facial gesture more quickly and without hesitation. In the early part of the hundred, I often hemmed and hawed about how and where to begin and fussed about measuring or not. Somewhere along the way, I began to simply pick an Earthsworld reference photo and draw it – no fussing at all. (If I’m too lazy to choose, I simply go to the Drawing Earthsworld Challenge Facebook group and draw whichever face the moderator has chosen for the day.) If I have any hesitation, it is in choosing the medium (a process which, of course, I relish).

1/4/23 Neocolor I

1/4/23 Neocolor I (same photo reference as above)

I enjoy practicing different approaches – looser and more gestural as well as more precise and detailed. I want to practice in a variety of ways so that the approach will be my choice – not a default setting. 

1/5/23 white charcoal, graphite

1/6/23 Prismacolor, Derwent colored pencils

I would like to eventually practice on more live models, which I still believe is the only way to study portraiture thoroughly. But there’s also much to be said for the vast variety and range of faces I have practiced drawing by using Earthsworld’s photos – a far greater variety than I could ever draw in a life-drawing studio (even a good one like Gage, which is well known for bringing in excellent, varied models). Any book on portraiture will give you the handy guidelines for proportions and placement of features on the average human face. After making more than a hundred of these portraits, I’m here to say that no face is “average”! Humans and their utterly unique faces are fascinating to study and draw, and each must be studied as a unique exercise.

1/11/23 Bic ballpoint 

1/11/23 Neocolor I (two takes on the same photo reference)

An Instagram follower recently commented on one of my portrait posts: “although I find your earthworld [sic] subjects ugly and non-inspiring, your approach as well as the rendering are noteworthy and a great source of inspiration for my own learning.” I was happy to hear that this follower was inspired, but I felt that she had entirely missed the point. If we draw only people we deem attractive and “inspiring,” our screening process will keep us from practicing as much – and the whole point is practicing.

1/11/23 Bic ballpoint

1/13/23 Nero pencil, chalk pencil

As long as I am engaged, challenged and having fun, I’m going to keep practicing. 

1/13/23 Prismacolor

1/14/23 Bic ballpoint

1/15/23 Bic ballpoint

1/15/23 Prismacolors

1/15/23 graphite

1/16/23 colored pencil

Oh, No – Not Another Challenge!

 

5/22/22 These distant houses were sketched from our deck.
I usually feel like I can't really see them well, but
I realized I could see them well enough for value studies.

As you’ve seen in recent posts, I’ve been making lots of compositional studies. They’ve been influenced by Ian Roberts’ videos and especially the 30-day challenge he recently gave his oil painting students. Working alongside them, he made a compositional study daily for 30 consecutive days (shown on Instagram). Much more than thumbnails, they are all lovely graphite drawings. If I had made them, I would have no need to take the next step to oil paintings; the drawings look fresh yet finished.

Still in recovery from my grueling 100-Day Project, I wasn’t sure I was ready to commit to yet another durational challenge, but I wanted to give the process an uncommitted try. The ones I’ve made the past couple of weeks have taken only a few minutes each. Compared to drawing from my head, these are a piece of cake! I love wandering about in the neighborhood with no particular destination in mind, just looking around to see what compositions attract my eye. It’s enjoyable and relaxing, especially on a temperate day. I’m learning to observe composition and values more closely. It’s definitely worth doing.

5/23/22

5/18/22

Masochist that I am, I have decided to try the 30-day challenge during the month of June, when I hope the weather will cooperate. The sketches don’t have to be done from life, so I can use photos if I want to (though you must know by now that I will likely do most of mine from life). He recommends using graphite so that tones can be modulated easily. I will try graphite sometimes, but I also love using a red Field Notes, which can show three values easily (red as the middle value with black and white).

Shown here are more “practice” sketches from the past couple of weeks. I’ll post my official 30-day challenge sketches in batches.

5/23/22

5/23/22

5/23/22

5/24/22 I love alleys... they are often full of trash cans!

5/25/22

What Motivates a Sketch? More Musings

 

10/22/21 This sketch made through a rain-spattered window was motivated by wanting to use two pencils I hadn't used in a long time that I had found while looking for something else. As good a reason as any to make a sketch. The pencils were a Cretacolor Nero pencil and a Derwent tinted charcoal pencil.

As a process-oriented sketcher, I think a lot about what motivates me to continue drawing, day after day. By extension, I also wonder what motivates other sketchers. I’ve talked about the question frequently, most recently earlier this year and last year.

For myself, motivation usually breaks down into three categories: subject matter (like all the colorful trees I’ve been sketching lately); materials (we all know what this is about 😉); and practice. I haven’t talked as much about the third category, practice, because it’s always the central motivator behind the other two. In this latter category, I would put anything like the Inktober challenge, my pandemic hand project, and maybe even sketchwaiting.

I use the term practice with all of its meanings: a regular activity in an effort to improve, like practicing the piano; and also a regular activity not necessarily to improve but to simply keep doing because it is part of one’s larger lifestyle, like yoga.

The one motivator that I don’t talk about much is always there behind the other three: Fun. If it ain’t fun, why do it? Yet this is more complicated than it seems. When I’m working hard to draw complex architecture or think about drawing in a new way, it’s challenging and maybe even frustrating – and yet also fun. Many people would not use “fun” and “frustrating” in the same sentence, and I admit that I didn’t always feel this way. In my early sketching years, I was often frustrated, and it didn’t feel “fun” in the sense of entertainment. Eventually, though, this changed, and maybe that’s because I’ve had enough experience with my own process to know that if I just keep going, it’s always enjoyable overall.

What motivates you to keep sketching?

Sitting on My Hands

 

After all the teeth-gnashing, hair-pulling frustration we went through to find Greg a vaccine appointment a month ago, my process seemed almost anti-climactic: I put myself on every available waiting list on the day I became eligible and then forced myself to sit on my hands. Two days later, I was invited to make an appointment. Dose No. 1 is tomorrow.

Meanwhile, my right hand continues its workout, now with a brush, relieved that it won’t be much longer than three weeks: As soon as I schedule the second dose, this series will have an end date.

April Foot's Day!

Prayers, Anxiety, Relief

 

As it has been for many Americans, the past week has been one of high anxiety for me. Yesterday brought news that allowed me to fully exhale for the first time in what seems like months, maybe years. Usually we would pop a cork on such an occasion, and yet it’s hard to feel celebratory when I consider how many Americans are unhappy about this outcome. It was not an easy victory. How did our country come to this? We have a long road ahead. But for the first time in four years I feel hopeful that we have someone to follow on that road. And that is definitely worth celebrating.

On Election Day, I needed to draw both hands.
My ambidextrous practice paid off.

Nov. 6 was Fountain Pen Day!

Ambidexterity

I filled the last page of this red notebook – 63 consecutive days of sketches made with my right hand. (I think it’s the only sketchbook I’ve ever filled exclusively with one theme!) I thoroughly enjoyed giving my non-dominant hand a solid workout – much more than I thought I would. The first couple weeks were rocky: The drawings took much longer, and it felt so awkward and unnatural even to hold pencils, let alone draw with them. Yet it took much less time than I expected for my right hand to catch up to my left in sketching time and even skill. That’s when I learned that drawing skills are much less dependent on hand strength, agility and coordination than I realized; the brain is doing almost all the heavy lifting.

After those first couple weeks, I began enjoying the daily practice because I could feel my right hand gaining strength and coordination incrementally but reliably. As I’ve been learning to draw these past nine years, I have often been disappointed that developing drawing skills is not a straight trajectory of improvement – I continually backslide, improve, backslide again, improve again. Using my right hand, however, did feel like continual improvement in terms of physical ability. It was satisfying that way. 

As for my concurrent handwriting tests, some samples were better than others (see end of post), but I see almost no significant improvement over the course of two months. If I had been practicing my writing daily alongside drawing, my results would likely be different. Taken about weekly, however, these samples indicate that drawing practice does not necessarily improve skills in all areas of hand use. 

That said, I think I have become generally more ambidextrous. I find myself spontaneously picking up a lid or a utensil from the table with my right hand, which is a task I normally would do with my left automatically. I still need my left hand for full strength, like opening a jar, but both hands can do tasks that don’t require strength. I feel more balanced now. Most important, I know that if I ever injure my left hand, I could still draw! 

It was a fascinating and rewarding experience – and now I’m glad it’s done. It’s good to have my left hand back again. And my right will go back to modeling, which my left has learned is no easy job, either!

Ahh, left hand -- how I've missed you!