don’t ask me what it means i just had this picture build itself in my mind the other night and had to draw it.

A fabric cover for my sketchbook
I was going to make it today but my hands aren’t strong enough to deal with the corduroy yet.

 

so my dearest friend linked me to doodlers anonymous the other week, and i happened to be on the lending desk on a very quiet day and was quickly inspired to put pen to paper.

You can see my confidence slowly growing through each of the doodles, and the pressure is taken off by saying “draw something you’ve drawn before”. this is the magic of doodles, scrap paper, biro and old ideas are perfectly acceptable. I’m using the scrap paper we expect students to write call numbers on.

I hadn’t put pen to paper in a long time, so i just went for an old classic – mushroom person.

-|-

Then I drew one of my newer characters, the lolloping-dog-sheep-thing. thinking “put a thick border around it, that always ‘pops’ a drawing”.

-|-

Then seeing a character with his head cut open in my rss feeds, i used another image from my library of things i’ve drawn in the past.

-|-

Then my shift ended.

what’s interesting to me is how quickly my confidence is growing though i’ve not drawn for ages. in the past it would have taken weeks or months to get to ’shading’ or even to think of what to draw next.

Today again i was terribly bored and sick of shelving things one at a time so it would go slowly enough to fill my shift. So again I picked up the pen.

I’ve drawn old men line drawings before, but i’ve never tried for a more realistic character, usually i go abstract. i got this idea from something in my RSS feeds.

-|-

I decided to try for some realism and a student had returned some biographies on Brett Whitely, so i drew (one of) his wives.

-|-

I know this isn’t so interesting to lots of people but the few who’ve been following my attempts over the years may be as interested as me to see the improvement in confidence to the point where i’m having a go at realism. It all makes me feel like picking up the pen this century was definitely worth it, even if i don’t do it all the time, i wont lose these skills.

finaly finished the other train drawing. it’s funny how sometimes a blank sheet of paper can be an invitation to just GO! and then the next day a clean sheet says nothing to me, and the ‘inspiration’ pictures i brought with me, only misdirected me, made me unsure, indecisive, stopped me from listening to my internal voice.

this was an experiment in getting some motion/scenery/moment happening with the mushroom people i’ve been drawing for a while. Shading is fun!

so leaving my iPhone at home turns outto be a good thing because i did two drawings in one day! i finished the second on the way home today.

So i put Sarah’s picture (previously posted) on one side of my journal and just started drawing on the other page. I had the idea that i wanted to learn to draw curly hair. But as soon as i started drawing it was turning out like my old inky vixens only this time instead of filling in the hair with flat black, i had the confidence to try some wavy hair. i’m very happy with this one!

i am completely loving my holidays! i am now an unofficial unemployed librarian!

I’ve been sewing and playing guitar and drawing and generally getting things done – except when it’s hot, when i get nothing done and just watch X-Files.

this was a very quick drawing done randomly on the train. it turned out okay. the hair looks like it was done by an illustrator of one of the picture books i grew up, which is a success!

i’ve been sewing clothes for my dolls, and i’m much improved from last year. i will attempt to overcome my fear of sewing sleeves today.

New drawing, i missaw a character in an Edward Gorey book, swore he had a gas mask on, suddenly felt the need to try drawing one. got lazy with the boy’s suit.

 

 

 

Bought this gorgeous drawing from Sarah McNeil. So that’s the second one i have now, her pencil work is sooooo fine. teensy tiny. i’m in awe.

 

 
sadness.

 

 
this blog was started so i could show my drawings as i learnt and got better. only one person ever really gave me feedback but it was good and kept me going on. gave me a buzz. now she’s gone. noone is interested.

 

 
i know i’m not great. i’m learning.

 
i don’t know what to do. it makes me sad.

so my new sketchbook has finally been christened with its first drawings… i’m sure like last time it will take 3 years to fill 50 pages with drawings. but that’s okay.

The first drawing was a very simple affair in brush pen, with an awful maids uniform… oh well.

This second drawing attempts to get more emotion, look at posture/movement, and develop the linework to be more “me” – unfortunately my fineliners have all dried up, need a new set. still this resembles the rather nice pencil drawing i’d done which is an improvement. Not as effective without the bold lines though.

I have finally filled the last page of my sketchbook. Nothing special just something to distract me between studies.

Drawn very quickly from nothing, I knew to keep at it with the shading until it looked ‘more finished’ and the form, this shape and this face is something i’ve been developing and repeating as a theme to the point now that it is easy for me, and i don’t feel as self conscious about it, or as perplexed about ‘what to draw!’ (even though I have hardly picked up a pen this year).

This image is much cuter small, which is the intention; to learn to draw characters and cute icons/logos, learn to attract the eye. but its nice to see the linework too. I do love fineliners!

my point is, i’ve come a long way since i started!

So Thursday afternoon, a friend happens to mention she’s headed to Bundoora to see Shaun Tan speak at RMIT Library the next day. Just casual like, and “Oh, would you like to come?”

My jaw dropped open.

I have mentioned his beautiful illustrated books in the past, my favourite of which is The Lost Thing, it’s like another world, a hundred years ago, where odd little machine creatures roam the urban landscape picking through gutters for cog and screw snacks.

His talk was very inspiring, and if you go to his site, or listen to his talk on Radio National next Saturday afternoon, he’ll tell you all about how he learnt to draw, how he gained confidence, his setbacks and successes. He really teaches you the process and how you get to be as good as he is at it. He doesn’t mystify the process at all. He talked about how he can’t draw when he’s depressed, how heaps of his ideas never made it past the publishers, how he has days where nothing he draws is any good, and how biro on scrap paper is his favourite format because it’s low pressure, that his doodles are just messy little things, and how office work has prevented him from drawing for the last year! He also talked about how lucky he got, how hard he’s worked… and just a million amazing insights into the world of a successful illustrator.

He signed two of my books i’d brought, and he has a new one on sale called Tales from Outer Suburbia which i quickly snapped up at the local Angus & Robertson’s on my way home, but best of all he drew a little creature for me in my moleskine! (which he says he has one too, but it intimidates him!) So my moleskine has been ordained by one of the foremost illustrators who inspired me a few years ago to have a proper go at learning to draw. I virtually flew home, my feet barely touched the ground!

another spontaneous one… i’m hoping to do some teeshirt designs, so i have to start thinking more about layout and environment, this was my first effort.

i seem to be having trouble scanning these pencil images… might have to switch to inks soon.

OK so i’ve been drawing a bit the past couple of days. and it seems that i’ve compiled quite a bit of stuff since i last posted a drawing here. The problem is that the drawings have been of varying quality and i’ve been scared to post any. Especially lacking in aim lately, i’m desperately trying to move myself towards making some finished art, but i’m confused about what will be successful, what i like, what i want to do, and what others like. SO this is my forum to try things out and see what (if any) response they get.

These are some buttons i’ve been drawing…

so i bring back my visual blog from the dead.

the joys of living close to the city mean that i have a bit more time and energy for artistic pursuits, and i did a little drawing last night, one of those “by-the-seat-of-the-pants” “must-draw-now!” ones. When i was looking at some of orriettacat’s old drawings and found the one i love most, i immediately started drawing something not too dissimilar.

fineliner, about 5cm tall.

pencil and ink, about 15cm tall

it’s really interesting that the smaller messier drawing (on the left) has so much more character than this ink (on the right). Until i compared them i was quite happy with the latter. I’m clearly more confident in fineliner and on a smaller scale. large scale i tend to be a bit more careful, trying not to make mistakes. Anyway it was nice to pick up the ink brushes again! Hoping to work on charicatures in time, I’ve had an idea for a drawing in my head for a week so this is just research really, as is the old painting of cherub_rawk’s two boys kissing

many weeks in the making, it’s finally basically done, my spot of pointilism for the year. i’ve been itching to finish this and show it to you all, i began this long before my sketchbook got pinched and it was the one thing i was really grieving over. meant as a continuation of the mushroom heads (see previous entry here). i dont know what they mean but i kind of like the proportions of these little creatures. And yes i know it looks like sand, it was meant to be a creek.

 

Have been drawing again, there’s a few old ones i need to catch up on that are mediocre, but an improvement on previous directions, i just really like something about each of these faces, though their lack of expression is annoying. May redo some of these in ink, but sometimes you lose what was nice in the original when you go over it in brush.

Am desperately working to finish a drawin that’s taken me months, will hopefully post soon.

fineliner, pencil, moleskine sketchbook

have been drawing up a storm the last couple of days. am SO tired today, on about 3 hours of sleep i went to work and welll… fortunately they let me go home at lunch because i was forgetting to finish conversations on the phone, i’d just get very quiet until i’d hear a voice in my ear “hhello? .. uh… you there?”

i wonder if a consultant has ever fallen asleep mid phone activation before?

have scanned my oil painting from a few weeks ago. And here’s a detail shot, i love the texture!

And i was in Outré for a moment today and Kozy&Dan were there signing stuff… how odd… from the pages of my friends list to a table in melbourne. they didn’t have anything really cool there to sign so i didn’t bother but i got to see a full size print of the image i’ve had on my desktop for a few months. still lining up for an autograph… it’s like worshipping people in their fifteen minutes of fame, too odd for me.

for a while i’ve wanted to design some flyers for bands or album covers. This is for my band of 2004 The Owls.

and moleskines rock! the texta never leaks through at all, i’m loving it!

redesigned the character in my book idea. basically the two female characters i had have become one. I find i’m unable to draw bodies unless i have the exact image i need in front of me, i can copy and redesign that image easily, but starting from scratch is impossible for me. this means drawing a comic in a nice sophisticated style like this would be impossible… or extremely tedious..

SPRING CLEANING AHOY! … in autumn…

in other news i went thru drawers and boxes of junk and misc papers today, it was the first time i’ve been alone at home ALL DAY in a long time and it felt so good to clean away 4 garbage bags of scum. I’m still keeping lots of little scraps… no idea how to store them yet so they’re just in boxes. and i’ve designated categories for the junk that needs to be sorted, it goes something like:

- scrap book
- financial
- music tabs
- uni
- art
- sewing
- electronics
- photos
- misc clothing
- games/goodies
- japanese treasures
- old notebooks

it’s crazy, even when i’m throwing out there’s so much i want to keep. I find i do actually need things that jog my memory, like a book i read in uni, a thing i found in japan, a picture of me with Cobina, that wire that connects my laptop to the record player, the receipt for my guitar repair. I just have to put these things in boxes then find places to hide said boxes…