The Big Draw

The Big Draw 2010 is in full progress. It started as a national campaign to encourage everyone to draw. Now it’s expanded to an international event throughout October.

I’ve always felt it was a worthy endeavour. The benefits of regular drawing go beyond the acquisition of skill and have a recognisable psychological benefit! It’s more than a co-incidence that Art is used as a therapy.

Which is why last week saw me at an event in the Old Gaol in Buckingham. Sitting around drawing views in the gaol itself and helping visitors with drawing issues.

The options were mostly building interiors, but I was keen to draw some people! Trouble is those available were all moving! For a while I drew the mannequins, before heading for the coffee shop. Several failed sketches later I gave up and went to talk to the artist painting out front. She was painting the gaol using a heavy impasto technique in oils.

She was just finishing and offered to pose. This was the result of the 10-15 minute pose. It’s in charcoal so has the inherent properties of medium i.e. tends to smudge!!!!! Aaaargh! Looking back at it, it has a charm but needed more time.  I still feel self conscious drawing with the subject present. It’s an issue I must overcome, as I tend to rush and “finish” not because I’m worried about drawing, just self conscious about the subject. She has a gypsy look about her, what with the hair band and loop earrings!

Painting has been a bit limited this week. I’ve been completing submission forms. Rowan’s gallery, Beaconsfield art fair, Mooch Gallery in Manchester and Bafa “Inspired by a poem” exhibition. Just delivered my first consignment to Rowan’s gallery, I’ll let you know how it goes!

Next week I’m going to finish a Graham Norton Pose, might be a caricature, or I might do both! You’ll have to wait and see…

Finding time to draw - Portrait of a sleeping baby

Ever wonder where the time goes?
Me Too! I’ve had a week dominated by art promotion and IT development, and even then I’m not happy with the results. So creating art time has been at a premium. Fortunately evening classes mean I usually get something painted each week. I also get to try out new ideas and techniques I might not automatically choose!
Last week it was, my shiny baby in charcoal and chalk.

Sometimes you need to go back to basics and studies help.
With caricatures that means you go back to faces. You need to be able to recreate a face accurately, before you can really play around and make a caricature. Sometimes you need to eliminate colour and focus on shapes and tone. So a return to monochromatic images, seemed in order. Or, in this case, a small bust of a sleeping baby! Or a very shiny baby in this case.
Children and young people are notoriously difficult to get right. Lines age the image, smooth blending and accurate placement are the key!
I love my art classes. I know that whatever happens. At least I’ll be creating something new in the evening!
My other motivator is my sketchbook, and I’ve just signed up for the Sketchbook Project 2011, more details next week.
So, what do you do to motivate you to create art?

Portraits and their value to the caricature artist

Although I’m a caricature artist, I’m an artist first and foremost.

Sometimes I think Caricatures are seen as cartoons and there is a general snobbery about cartoons not being “proper art”. I think the barriers are dissolving but anyone who’s ever tried to do a caricature will realise there is more to a caricature. Cartoons simplify, they are based on reality but one which has been distorted to a humorous extent. The more the distortion the greater the comedic value. But the item must be recognisable to allow the humour to work. e.g. a flying telephone wouldn’t be funny if it look like an aeroplane!

The best cartoonists know that the real skill is paring down the drawing process so that every line counts, none is superfluous. I use the example of Peanuts here – Snoopy the dog is the epitome of minimal lines of good  quality.  Another good example is Simon’s Cat

So it is with caricatures. It helps to be able to draw people and achieve a likeness, before the distortion. There is always a trade off between recognition and comic element with a caricature. I’ve always preferred to achieve a good likeness, that’s my style.

Which is why I did a portrait drawing class yesterday. So glad I did. It helps hone skills and experiment with new ideas.

Normally with drawing classes I attend we do warm up exercises to help loosen up styles and get over the initial fear of drawing in front of other people.

We started off with conventional quick sketches like this…

Then we tried a novel exercise of drawing looking at the model…but not the page. Here is the better of my attempts. There’s a bit of a Picasso Feel about the whole thing!

 

What really impressed me about this one was how there is a likeness, even though so many lines are “Wrong”

Next we did tonal drawings in charcoal and chalk. Like so!

Fairly straightforward, reassuring almost.

Finally we did colour mixing in tonal areas – concentrating on shading but not detail. The plan being to complete the details in the afternoon. However, I only did the morning – curses.

My final attempt looks a bit like The Bird’s eye man spent too long on a sunbed before applying mahogany woodstain! I might post him, when he’s finished…

BTW -The model might look familiar as he’s been an extra in quite a few T.V series and films. He mentioned Lewis and The Duchess… amongst many! Not that he was name dropping! But he was very charming.