Category: People

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Art theory Book review Drawing Faces People Sketchbook Pages

Learning to Draw Heads: Practice and Study with Skulls and Loomis Method

Smiley Skull and Smiley Guy study, HB pencil, 4x6"
Smiley Skull and Smiley Guy study, HB pencil, 4x6"

In preparation for my Alla Prima Portrait Painting workshop with Rose Frantzen next month, I wanted to work on my drawing skills so I can keep up in class. Although I draw all the time, I discovered I really had no understanding of head and facial construction.

Skulls and Faces, HB pencil, 11x9"
Skulls and Faces in the Same Positions, HB pencil, 11x9"

I usually draw what I see, compare shapes, angles and plumb lines to try to get some accuracy, but I don’t worry about it too much. That wasn’t cutting it when it came to drawing heads.

So I turned to the great book by Andrew Loomis, recently back in print, Drawing the Head and Hands. His books are also available as PDFs here on the web. There is an excellent explanation with clear examples of the Loomis approach here on Stan Propopenko’s blog so I won’t go into it here. All of my drawings in this post started with the Loomis ball divided in thirds with the jaw then added on.

Skulls and Muscles from Loomis book, 11x9"
Skulls and Muscles from Loomis book, 11x9"

I worked through the Loomis book and when I came to his skull and muscle drawings in the book I tried copying them (above). I also tried some other books’ methods of constructing heads (using an egg shape, a block, double ovals, etc.) but none worked as well as the Loomis approach.

I wanted to do more than copying sketches so I started drawing skulls and people I found on a Google image search, drawing the people in about the same position as the skulls (the two pics at top of post and the one below).

Continue reading “Learning to Draw Heads: Practice and Study with Skulls and Loomis Method”
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Faces Ink and watercolor wash People Self Portrait Sketchbook Pages

Cringe-Worthy End-of-Journal Self-Portraits

End of Journal Self-Portrait #1, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
End of Journal Self-Portrait #1, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

I finished my Sock Monkey Journal on New Years Eve by doing my usual end of journal self-portraits, drawing directly in ink. I did several, trying again and again to get a likeness. Each of them had bits of me, either in feeling or appearance, but none got a real likeness. This was my favorite, above.

Trying a profile (again and again), 7x5", ink
Trying a profile (again and again), 7x5", ink

Since I only had a few pages left in the book I did all the starts above on one page. It’s tricky drawing a profile view in a mirror. You look, then draw, then look, then draw. It’s also rather painful looking so closely and seeing the effects of another year of gravity. But better than the alternative!

Worst one, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Worst one, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

I think the one above is the worst of the bunch. At this point I realized that I needed some serious studying and practice at drawing heads which I began doing the next day.

Self portrait with ponytail
Self portrait with ponytail

Had I not added all the stupid ink to try to make shadows before painting it, this one might have been OK. Instead of using a mirror for this one, I took a photo with my iPad propped on the window sill while looking away from it and then worked from the photo.

Since I did these, I’ve already learned a lot about drawing heads from the Loomis book, “Drawing the Head and Hands.” I’ll be posting my practice from that book soon.

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Drawing Life in general People Subway drawings

Subway Sketches and Exploding Head Decisions

Subway heads 1, ink in Small Moleskine sketchbook
Subway heads on way to work, ink in Small Moleskine sketchbook

It’s appropriate to be posting sketches of heads since mine feels like it might explode if I have to make one more decision! There is so much going on in my little life right now, and so many important and non-important choices to make that my brain wants to go on strike.

Some of the decisions have to do with traveling with oil paints for the first time to the Rose Frantzen 5-day workshop in Arizona in early February (ship supplies by UPS or USPS? risk checking paints in my suitcase? how to get wet paintings home? live-in or drop-by cat sitter while I’m gone? plus all the travel worries a homebody like me can drum up).

Subway heads 2, ink in small Moleskine sketchbook
Subway heads on way to San Francisco, ink in small Moleskine sketchbook

The guy on the left above was actually standing right above me on the subway and interested in what I had been drawing, posed for me. He was nice enough to say he liked it. I wanted to tell him I’d fallen in love with his chin, but figured that would be stupid.

Subway 3, Waiting
Subway people waiting, drawing slowly

Other decisions I’m dealing with have to do with some remodeling of my duplex to prepare the back unit (currently my studio) as a rental unit, replacing both kitchen/pantry/laundry room floors, moving my studio out to the new former-garage studio (easier now thanks to space planning help from my sister the amazing interior designer), and lots of sorting and getting rid of stuff to prepare for the moves.

And all the above lead to leaving my half-time day job and getting to paint full-time. But of course there are decisions related to that too, like when to take the leap, currently planned for about a year from now.

I’m grateful these decisions are all about happy, exciting, positive changes. But even happy things can be stressful. There’s even a word for that: eustress.

eustress: noun.  Stress that is deemed healthful or giving one the feeling of fulfillment. From Greek: eu ‘well, good’ + stress, modeled on distress

The trick for me is to just make each decision once and not rethink it. Decide. Done. Next. I’m getting there.

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Berkeley Drawing Ink and watercolor wash People Sketchbook Pages Urban Sketchers

Sketchy Holiday Wishes

Brennan's Bar Decked Out for Xmas, ink & watercolor
Brennan's Bar Decked Out for the Holidays, ink & watercolor, 5x7"

I hope your holidays are full of love and joy (and some sketching too!) The picture above is from Brennan’s Hoffbrau and Sports Bar, one of my favorite indoor places to sketch (and to eat—they have roasted turkey legs all year long!). Although our Tuesday night drawing group spread out to sketch at different tables in the cavernous space (a former train station) we all ended up drawing these same guys at the bar. Micaela did an amazing panorama of the whole joint including me sketching (seen here on our Urban Sketchers blog).

Big Guy and Photo of Prize Steers, ink, 5x7"
Big Guy and Photo of Prize Steers, ink, 5x7"

The “decor” at Brennan’s includes many old framed photos on the walls of men in suits showing off their prize-winning steers. This guy was as big as a steer and when he got up and left before I could finish drawing him at the table I added the steer photo to complete the picture.

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Drawing Ink and watercolor wash People Sketchbook Pages

Santa’s Name is James

Icky Shrimp Taco and Signed by Santa James
(left) Cactus Taqueria Diners with Xmas decor; (right) Santa Sketch Signed by Santa James

Cathy had the brave idea to sketch at the San Francisco Centre mall. I say “brave” because for some of us, entering an upscale glitzy mall during the holidays requires much girding of the loins. It was fun sketching on BART on the way there, but when I entered the mall I felt like I’d walked into a science fiction movie.

Noise! Shiny stuff! Expensive stuff! Way too much stuff! Escalators winding around and around, floor after floor, up to a huge domed ceiling where Santa and my sketch group were supposed to be. But it turned out there are two domes and I was on the wrong side of the mall.

Finally I made it to the correct dome where movies were projected on the dome ceiling, music was playing and Santa was sitting on a throne in front of a backdrop that said “The Picture Perfect Holiday Made Possible by Microsoft.” When they took your picture with Santa they cropped out the Microsoft bit.

Santa James and I
Santa James and I

After I sketched Santa I went up to get my free photo with him. Isn’t he the most perfect looking Santa? I asked him to sign my sketch and he did, “Santa James.” He maintained that cherubic smile all evening through dozens of crabby children and silly adults getting their picture taken with him. One group of 4 teen girls all talked on their cellphones while their picture was taken.

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Berkeley Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Painting People Sketchbook Pages

Is Your Style a Mistake? How to Find Your Style as an Artist

Caffe Trieste before the band, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Caffe Trieste (she's saving seats with her backpack) before the band (then six people crowded around those 2 tiny tables, sitting on laps), ink & watercolor, 7x5"

Caffe Trieste was crammed with people when we went to sketch  and listen to the wonderful Randy Craig Trio—probably double the little café’s legal limit. The title of the post: “Your Style is a Mistake…” comes from a  Robert Genn quote that I noted in my journal below:

People at Trieste and Genn note
People at Trieste and Genn note

How to Find Your Style as an Artist

In an interview, Robert Genn was asked, “How does an artist find their own style?” His answer was brilliant. He said (paraphrased here) that typically what makes your style yours, what makes it unique, is the thing you do “wrong;” it is the way you break the rules intentionally or just don’t do something “correctly” that defines your style.

In other words (mine), quit hating and start embracing those wonky lines that won’t behave, that paint applied differently than those artists you aspire to emulate or the hard edges or soft focus or pale washes… Keep studying and learning and practicing, but appreciate what you can do now and cherish those quirks. (Talking to myself here!)

Randy Craig Trio guitarist, ink & watercolor
Randy Craig Trio guitarist, ink & watercolor

You don’t have to be perfect to be wonderful and neither does your art. As a matter of fact, “perfect” art (in my opinion) is boring art.

When you make mistakes, think about how you’ll do it differently next time, but also look for the bit that worked even if it’s just a small passage. For example in the sketch above, the music stand didn’t work at all, nor did the singer I cropped off on the right, but I did a much better job with the guitar this time than I did last time I sketched at Trieste.

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Ink and watercolor wash People Sketchbook Pages

Sketching at Saul’s Deli

Waiting for my dinner, ink & watercolor, 5x7"
Waiting for my dinner, ink & watercolor, 5x7"

When we sketch at Saul’s Deli, a favorite during the dark winter Tuesday nights, I often feel overwhelmed by the complicated architecture with diamond patterned floors and maybe 70 booths and tables. So I started with something easier: what was on the table. Immediately I screwed up the ellipse of the glass but am learning to say, “that’s OK” and just move on.

Saul's people, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Saul's people, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

After I ate I started drawing people. The place was packed since it was Thanksgiving week and there were many guests in town. I asked the waiter if it was a problem we were hogging three tables and he said we were doing him a favor by lightening his load.

Guys with hidden people
Guys with hidden people

These guys were having a good time and I enjoyed drawing them. Then for some reason I drew some other people on the same page but tried to hide them when I painted it since they didn’t belong there.

More people eating and talking
More people eating and talking

I messed up her lips and tried to fix it and made it worse. I’ve noticed my sketching has suffered a bit lately from neglect as I’ve been working on some 16×20 oil portraits and all my drawing efforts have been on the paintings. It’s amazing how quickly I lose sketching fluency without daily practice…so I’m back to it now.

Categories
Drawing Faces People People at Work Portrait Series Sketchbook Pages

Working People Pre-Portrait Portraits in Blue

County Fair Taco Seller, ink, acrylic, watercolor, 7x5"
County Fair Taco Seller, ink, acrylic, watercolor, 7x5"

I finally started working on a series of 16×20″ oil portraits, mostly of people who work in my neighborhood shops. It took a long time to figure out how I wanted to approach the paintings and in the meantime I made several preliminary sketches in my journal.

This blue series began as a way to cover a really ugly page in my journal. To cover the mess, I mixed some Golden Absorbent Ground (gesso-like, but designed to prepare surfaces for watercolor painting) and some ultramarine blue watercolor. I didn’t mix it very well, as you can see from the streaks, but I actually like it this way. Drawing with a pen worked well on it too. When taco girl (above) dried, I painted in her very red hair.

Kim the Barista, ink & acrylic & watercolor
Kim the Barista, ink & acrylic & watercolor

I covered two more pages in my journal with the remaining blue Absorbent Ground. Something went a little wrong with my drawing of Kim’s eyes (above) which don’t quite match in size or location. Oops. I sketched Kim before (see pics here) when I was taken by the scene’s resemblance to Manet’s “Bar at Folies Bergère.”

Elliot, Meat Manager, ink and acrylic
Elliot, Meat Manager, ink and acrylic

I felt a little embarrassed to ask Elliot to let me take a photo of him behind the meat counter but I had to. There is something old-fashioned about him that always makes me picture him in a Norman Rockwell painting. I had a little problem with one of his eyes too, but his oil painting is coming along nicely.

Taco Girl and Kitchen on Fire Spread in Journal
Taco Girl and Kitchen on Fire Spread in Journal

This is the spread in my journal where this series started. The Taco Girl oil portrait is half done. It will be a while before I finish and post the oil paintings but I am enjoying working on several at once, so that while a layer of one dries another is ready to work on.

And I’m so happy to have figured out how I want to paint them: I’m painting how I paint! More about that in another post.

Categories
Bookbinding Drawing People Sketchbook Pages Subway drawings

Quick Sketches in Stonehenge Kraft Brown Potato Chip Journal

Last Page Spread, Chip Journal, 6x7.5"
Last Page Spread, Chip Journal, 6x7.5"

I breezed through this little pamphlet-bound potato chip box journal in a few weeks. Since Roz Stendahl just posted about her problems binding this paper, I thought I’d share my results with binding and sketching on this paper.

Since my sketchbook was small, pamphlet-bound (stitched down the middle only) with just 3 holes, I didn’t have trouble with the pages cracking like she did in her case-bound journal. I found the paper too rough for drawing with a fine point or fountain pen and settled on a Faber-Castell Pitt Medium pen. I also experimented unsuccessfully on one sketch with a white gel pen.

I do like the paper for quick sketching and I’m going to continue experimenting with it. Roz says it’s good for gouache. I’d like to try it using black line and wash with white gouache for highlights. I used it for oil pastel and wasn’t happy with the results.

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Drawing Ink and watercolor wash Kensington People Sketchbook Pages

Kensington Harvest Parade

Boy Scouts Waiting to Parade, ink & watercolor 5x7"
Boy Scouts Waiting to Parade, ink & watercolor 5x7"

I was supposed to go to a plein air paint-out but woke up in an ornery mood with a headache and decided to stay closer to home. Kensington, a nearby community of hills, big houses and trees was having their annual Harvest Parade so I drove the mile or so up there and perched on a low wall outside the combination drugstore/post office. These boy scouts above were fooling around on the bench beside me, waiting for the call to line up. They were constantly moving but I somehow managed to draw them as if they were holding still.

Lining up to begin the parade, ink & watercolor, 7x5"
Ready to march, ink & watercolor, 7x5"

Across the street in front of the Sugar Cone Cafe in the hardware store parking lot staging-area, people started lining up. The El Cerrito High School Gaucho’s marching band practiced their flute and drum routines, cub scouts hug-wrestled, and a girl in a fairy costume twirled.

Once the parade started moving I followed along the six blocks to the library/community center destination. It was a charming, small-town event that had everyone smiling.