a blog of illustration, photography, design and anything creative
URBAN Sketchers is a great and very inspiring site. It features the work of numerous artists from all over the world.
Urban Sketchers is exactly what it says on the tin. People who sketch in the urban environment. The main rules are that the drawing should be urban, made at the location, no drawing form photos and no compuer generated images.
So have a look and then get yourself a sketchbook and get drawing.
It’s inspired me to get out there, when I get chance I will be doing just that.
WELL It’s been a while since I posted about my intention to do a drawing a day for a year. Inspired by Chris Ayers I started on my graphite journey. I started with great enthusiasm, loads of ideas, a month or so down the line, it’s getting harder, I find trying to think of what to draw to be the hardest thing, reminds me of when I was a child and I would shout ‘Mum, what should I draw?’Also hard to get time to draw every day, but then I realised that not every drawing had to be a masterpiece, as long as I draw.
Things however have got easier, after a comment from Mr Ayers on this very blog, I am now extremely motivated to complete this task. So, on the drawing goes.
Above is a very small selection of drawings, more will follow. Oh, and if anyone has any suggestions of things to draw, please let me know.
YESTERDAY I bought and read a book by a remarkable artist. Chris Ayers is a concept designer working in Hollywood, his film credits include, The Incredible Hulk, Alien vs. Predator, Fantastic Four and X-Men: The Last Stand. In 2005 he was diagnosed with leukemia, he subsequently received treatment and on his path to recovery, started a project, his project would be to draw an animal a day for a year. The results of which can be seen in his book The Daily Zoo a fantastic collection of drawings depicting a wide range of animals from bears to bison, each page beautifully illustrated.
After sitting down and reading the whole book last night, I was inspired, actually excited about the thought of starting a similar project myself, I don’t expect to reach the high standard that Mr Ayers kept up, but I’m going to have a damn good go at it, here is the start of my project, drawing number one… 364 to go. Gulp. I will be drawing anything and everything (not very good at animals, but I’ll certainly try to draw some) Wish me luck!
PAISLEY is a nightmare to draw. There, I’ve said it, feel better getting that off my chest.This one was done for a company in London who specialise in concrete wallpaper of all things. Apparently the design is transferred to vinyl and then cast in concrete, to be displayed, I presume, in someone’s home. Paisley is a nightmare as I’ve said, but this job was actually quite fun, a nice change. Just goes to show not all jobs are straight forward illustration, this one especially!
STEF’S Sketches is a fantastic blog created by Stéphane Kardos, an Art Director at Disney. The looseness in his sketches are fantastic, and something I am trying to do myself, loosen up, there is so much life in his drawings, and don’t even get me started on the iPhone paintings, brilliant. So if you need some inspiration, look no further than Stef’s Sketches, great blog with great artwork. Now, where’s my sketchbook…
ALWAYS have a problem drawing people in profile, just something about it has always alluded me. Sometimes though, it just clicks, I have that all the time, I try and try, and never get it right, then one day, I start drawing, and BAM! I can do it. That’s not to say I always get it right, I’m still learning, probably always will be, and that makes my work more interesting to do, always a challenge. One of the best books I ever bought was How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, this book is so helpful, it’s an old book, still in print, and for good reason I suspect. I’ve bought many ‘how to’ books over the years, all quite helpful, but the Marvel one changed my way of drawing, I loosened up and most importantly, I learnt how to draw profiles.
THIS week’s dose of inspiration comes from an illustrator I greatly admire, Brandon Ragnar. With a very retro style Ragnar creates images that leap from the page, his use of white space is just perfect, often leaving gaps in the illustration where clothes should be, instead they are formed with the use of white space.
He has several books available, and I urge anyone with an interest in good illustration to buy them, they are Chromaphile, Vernaculis and Symptomatica, he also published two children’s books called Izzy’s Very Important Job and Got Your Nose, both beautifully illustrated.
THIS was a fun job to do, created for the cover of The Journal newspaper’s School Awards supplement. This part is of a teacher and two of his students, he used rap to teach the kids, great idea! We had photographs of all the award winners and the idea was to have a montage on the cover with the title piece. I’m not a fan of montages so I suggested an illustration. So I created an illustration made up of the winners, this is just a section, will post full illustration when I locate it. It went down quite well, wish I had time to spend this long on every cover, I think it illustrates quite well illustration can work better than photography.
COLOUR, a constant worry, and a constant challenge, I have only recently noticed that I have a set colour pallet. When I put a large body of my work together, there is a definite similarity in the colours, I think maybe that is my style. Rather than have a set way my drawing looks, I think I have a set way my colour looks, and that has become my style. I’ve just finished a job which consisted of around 20 illustrations for a book, flicking through them, they all have the same colours! All this time wondering If I had a style, and there it is under my nose, well, under the layers pallet.
THESE were unused, sometimes you have to create several images to know what you don’t want, these were for a fashion chain, but were deemed a bit old fashioned in style, I quite like the look of these, almost remind me of old sixties pattern packaging. I never discard the unused work, you never know when you might need it, even if it’s just a reminder of a certain style, what’s not right for one job maybe perfect for another, now I just have to wait for that perfect job to come along.
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