For rapid sketching, I decided to use art supplies as my still life since the glass mug and the brushes created an interesting silhouette in contrast to the simple white box, and since the brushes and paint tubes could easily be moved around to create a new composition. I used ink and a brush because it is a quick way to cover a larger surface area. The exercise might have been even more difficult if I had used a pen or pencil, so I tried to give myself a leg up.

I generally do not find still lives challenging, but I must have been having a bad day because I found it difficult to manage my time, whether it was the tree, two or one minute time span. But then again, I have less practice drawing still lives under time pressure than figure drawing under time pressure

I must have loosened up, because despite the fact that the exercise was technically harder, things went a bit smoother for this second part. Though I am not sure one can tell by the drawings or not. The brushed technique from the previous sketches make them look a little more “finished” than the supremely fast pen drawings I drew next.

For the movement drawings, I challenged myself to draw dancers, so I pulled up two YouTube videos, one with a single modern dancer and one with a ballet class. Though it was very tempting to pause and draw the poses that way, I did not. I could not have paused the dancers if I had been present, so I refrained from doing so when drawing. I drew as much as I could from previous public drawing experiences, and did my best to capture as many poses as possible. In this regard, the ballet class was easier to follow, both because the camera was still and because they tended to repeat the same movements a few times.

The last part of the exercise was the more interesting and one I would definitely be repeating, hopefully to more fluid results, since despite the fact that the figures were drawn from a moving picture, they still look very stiff in my representation.

The subject I chose for this exercise was perhaps a little complex, but since the silhouette is so recognizable, I thought it would balance out its elaborate design. The angel Christmas tree ornament with the nativity scene on the robe seemed ideal for an exercise in simplifying shapes.

Before I started simplifying, I drew the angel in more detail in order to get a relatively good grasp of what the original looks like.

Because I knew I would have quite a few small drawings, all very similar, I decided to craft a zine where I could sketch them.

After sketching my first attempt with and unlimited number of lines, I started to cut the number down. First to thirty, then to twenty-five, to twenty, fifteen, ten, nine, eight, and so on, until I created a design with just a single line.

After sketching my first attempt with and unlimited number of lines, I started to cut the number down. First to thirty, then to twenty-five, to twenty, fifteen, ten, nine, eight, and so on, until I created a design with just a single line. The final sketch is of a single line drawn without lifting the pen. It is at this point in the exercise that I realized that the literal number of lines drawn without lifting the pen is not the point. The point of the endeavor it to see how much information is needed to understand the meaning of an image. This could mean a higher number of shorter lines instead of  a single continuous line.

So I created another booklet to sketch in. This time I wanted to try binding it instead of making a zine. Surprisingly, I did not put that much more effort in making it that I did making the zine, and the results were much more satisfying. I believe this is the method I will be using from now on when introducing smaller series of sketches into my sketchbook.

Choosing and cutting paper into quarters.

After making sure the booklet was dry, I started sketching out the object, this time focusing on putting down as little information as possible, rather than lines. My zine was helpful, though, because I used the last few drawings as reference for where to start putting those lines. I started out with a drawing very closely resembling my previous sketches, then departed more and more by eliminating lines entirely, by shortening them to dashes and dots, and by putting less information on one side than the other if the drawing is mirrored (as far as I am aware, the eye tends to assume symmetry). Instead of drawing both wings, I drew one and then suggested the other. Instead of drawing both the head and hair, I just drew the contour of the hair and connected it to the contour of the wing. The characters of the nativity scene became more and more like simple swirls or question marks. I slowly eliminated parts of the sleeves and arms of the angel until there was only a triangle left of the praying hands. Eventually, the angel became something resembling a star rather than anything else.

Because the silhouette of an angel is so distinctive, and the nativity scene so frequently used in Christmas decorations in various forms, including very stylized ones, the drawing stays almost entirely comprehensible until about the end, when there is nothing left of if other than dots.

I asked for a second opinion regarding the images by showing another person the sketches backwards, starting with the dots and ending with the drawing.  They said that the image becomes comprehensible about halfway through, when the angel’s wings are a little more defined. Creating effective, minimal designs that do not have much information but still communicate their idea is something I struggle with. I am  very used to being able to render in a image in order to make it easy to understand. And I know it is something of a crutch. The problem translates into composition and into character design, meaning that my drawings tend to not have very clear silhouettes or easy to read shapes. This exercise was very helpful for learning to ask myself what is truly necessary for a design to be understood.

Despite the fact that I used to paint with acrylics often a few years ago, I never really sat down to experiment with them, so I chose to start doing that for this investigation. I decided to explore four different techniques: using acrylics in a similar way to using watercolor, using a palette knife, using a paintbrush (the technique I usually employ with acrylics), and lastly using paper towels.

I started with simple watercolor washes in my sketchbook. I applied a multitude of different colors and tested the way they blended together on the wet page, and after that the way they layered  when dry. I tried different textures by pressing on the colors with a textured cloth while they were still wet. The results were not too bad, but working with the color that way felt strange. I do not know if it was the quality of the paint or simply its nature, but it felt strange and a little gelatinous when it was mixing on the page.

Next, I chose to experiment on a different sort of paper. I pulled out some scrap watercolor pages and started playing around with those. I created a similarly abstract sort of painting, but this time I used the paint with a thicker consistency, which resulted in having much more vibrant colors than previously. I also used some white over the colors I already painted, something I do not do when I usually use watercolor, since I usually only use the white of the paper. The third painting I wanted to make a little closer in style to what I would regularly create for an illustration, in order to have a better idea of how I would actually use the technique I was experimenting with. I drew a little girl sitting on grass in pencil and then painted her over with acrylics.

I like the results of all of these paintings and I think I could easily use acrylics as watercolors in a pinch. However, I think I will stick to my regular watercolors whenever I can since the largest benefit of using acrylics as watercolors is being able to layer thicker color over light washes of. But this can be achieved by simply using acrylics over watercolors.

After the paintings dried, I stuck them on a colored page and put it in my sketchbook next to the first painting.

This one was rather straightforward, since I used the regular paintbrush-and-paint technique everyone uses with acrylics. Not using too much water and not too dry a brush, and not using much of anything else for textures. I simply created layers of color first for the background, then for the trees and character, playing around with the shades while it was still wet, and then layering more after it dried.

I do not often use acrylics in my sketchbooks, even though I have often painted with them on larger pieces of paper and on canvases, and after this drawing dried I remembered why. I like having  more colorful paintings in my sketchbook, but I do not like the fact that the gummier nature of the paint tends to stick to the opposite page even long after it has dried, and so requires extra paper in between the painting and the other side in order not to ruin the sketchbook.

Using the palette knife was interesting, even though the paint I had was just a little to runny for it. Instead of painting on the paper, I used a type of un-stretched canvas which I cut up in several smaller pieces that I could stick inside my sketchbook.

First, I tried using some lighter colors on the larger sheet, layering with blues and whites. It turns out that painting on canvas which has not been stretched or stuck to a surface is even worse than trying to use watercolors on printer paper. The canvas doesn’t wrinkle, it somehow curls up and around itself, so I had to stick it to the table as well as I could when it was still wet.

After it dried, I taped it to my sketchbook and painted over the artist’s tape with similar colors in order to help it blend in a little better.

For the next two, I made sure to tape them down before I applied moisture to them. I also decided I liked working with the palette knife better when I was using brighter colors. Which is interesting, because I usually prefer the paler colors like in the first painting.

With the green painting, I tried using tape to mask some of the surface before applying paint, in order to have some sharp edges and negative space to play with. After the first layer dried, I took off the tape and softened some of the edges and filled in some gaps to better suit the composition.

Once everything was dry, I arranged the sheets of canvas in my sketchbook and taped them down.

Lastly, I used paper towels instead of brushes or palette knives. I chose paper towels because they seemed very versatile and could easily be discarded. Instead of using one page, I used a two page spread because I felt the technique would require more space. And I was right, since I made a bit of a mess.  Abstract painting is nor really my strong suit, but I can’t deny that it was fun to get in there with the paper towels (and my fingers, of course, might as well go all out). Despite the brightness of the colors, and the fact that I should have been choosing them a little more wisely, the medium layered pretty well. The paper held up despite the fact that it is technically drawing paper, albeit a thicker one.

I started with a wet base, by dipping the towel in watered down paint and spreading it all over in a thin wash. Then I started swiping color in places as strategically as I could, though much has been lost to the layers. I tried creating a variety of different textures by making stamps with mostly-dry scrunched up towels, and by molding them into thin points to create dots and lines.

Sadly, the sticking situation is even worse with these two pages that to the previous ones, since there are thick layers of paint on both sides. Nothing that can’t be fixed with a sheet of paper between them, but still.

This was  a revelatory experience. At first, I thought it was a bit of a useless exercise, but then I realized just how little time I actually spend observing my subject when I draw from life.

For reference, I  used a website called quickposes.com in order to have images that would simply rotate by themselves so that I could fully focus on drawing instead of needing to find new reference around me or on the internet. I chose the image guidelines and then set a timer. For the first couple of pages I was semi-blind and for the last few I drew them completely blindly.

I had honestly expected much worse results (though some are pretty bad), and I realized that despite the fact that I nearly did not look at my page at all, some of the gestures are just as good or better that ones I have done when creating regular quick studies. Which means that, though this exercise is a bit extreme because I was only looking at my page about 5% of the time, it proves that I don’t need to look at my drawing as much as I do when I usually draw, and spend more time observing. I had thought that I was already doing that, observing while drawing, but this has showed me that I absolutely do not do it enough. The ratio of observation of the reference to looking at my drawing should be much more unbalanced in favor of observation than I originally thought. Closer to 90% to 10% rather than 50% to 50%.

The drawing materials I initially chose for this exercise were: tea, soy sauce and candle wax.

I started out with the soy sauce, since that was the one I felt had most potential, and to some extent that was true. It has a lovely color, and looks nice when layered, it’s easy to work with because it’s basically colored ink with an odd smell. I applied to the paper with a paintbrush. The problem with the soy sauce was the fact that it took far too long to dry, and again the smell.

Next up, the tea. I did not use a paintbrush for this one, since I could use the bag. The color is very pretty once it’s dry, and the layers of color are very delicate, which is has its pros and cons. The pale color is wonderful for backgrounds, but it cannot be used as a material for a full illustration. It took marginally less time to dry than the soy sauce did.

Candle wax was a bit… problematic, but the effect did come out nicely. I lit up the candle and dripped the wax on the page, smearing when I could in order to cover more of the surface. After the wax had dried, I tested out some scratches with the other end of my paintbrush, giving the wax even more texture. Similar to the tea, this could serve as a nice embellishment to an illustration, but it would be quite difficult to achieve an image just using it alone.

After experimenting with the candle, I thought of using not a candle, but matches. This was much closer to success than the others. Drawing with matches was not quite like using charcoal, even though that is technically what they are. It’s true that they were a bit finnicky, but matches are able to create a surprising variety of effects. The most charred end of the match was black and could not be used to draw with, but it was wonderful for crushing into powder and creating a background. After the darkest part of the match had been used, the match could be used as a pencil, though with a more brown tint.

Working with matches was a bit messy, but not nearly as much as the candle wax had been.

After I was satisfied with my tests, I pulled out some paper to draw on. At first, I thought that it would be interesting to draw on brown paper, but it turned out that the charcoal refused to stick to it because it was too smooth and what did stick could barely be seen, so I changed to a whiter, more textured paper.

 I chose to draw a portrait, since it is something I could easily simplify into lights and shadows. And after finishing the portrait, I stuck it back inside the sketchbook.

My far off journey for this exercise was not really all that far off. I chose to explore the outside view from my new front yard. I have recently moved house, and while I had drawn many parts of my previous home, I have not yet made time for this one. There is a mundane, but pleasant view of the street when the sun shines just right. There is some sort of shrubbery within the confines of the yard which has grown wildly tall. I am not sure what sort of plant it is. Initially, I had thought it was a rose bush, since the flowers look a lot like roses and the plant is full of thorns, but it has some strange fruit the size of marbles growing on it, so I cannot be sure. I picked a few of the already-dry plants to have a variety to choose from, though I could not use the fruit, my sketchbook could not have closed up if I did.

I knew from the beginning that the view outside would look wonderful in watercolor, so after choosing my angle and photographing the sunset as to not lose the light and color for the later stage, I started sketching it out on a piece of watercolor paper. After I was satisfied with my sketch, I laid down my first wash, emphasizing the light on the central house. When it was dry I defined the blobs of color with some accents, and in the last stage I drew over the drawing with a thin-tipped pen.

Lastly, I taped the drawing inside my sketchbook and placed one of the “roses” at the bottom, where the bush that it came from is depicted. And using decoupage glue, because it is clear when it dries, I stuck some extra petals from the other flowers around the drawing in order to make everything look more cohesive.

I don’t think anyone can say that they haven’t played this game before, at least to some extent, but I haven’t created characters quite like this before, at least not recently. It was an excellent way to push my creative boundaries and make characters that do not fit in my usual library.

Keith Larsen and Justin Sutcliffe both use Pareidolia in their work, but while Keith Larsen illustrated a new cartooned image based on the object found, Sutcliffe, as a photographer, arranges the objects to resemble faces deliberately, then captures them. I tried my best to find and to create faces out of simple household objects such as the stove or a fruit bowl. Though I am no photographer. It is a skill I have not really acquired yet. After taking the photos, I edited them in Photoshop to make them at least a little more presentable.

New Pincocchio

Flower Headed

Can’t Forget a Classic

Horned Cosmonaut

The Undefinable Expression

Larsen’s technique, I was a little more comfortable with. After taking the photographs of the things I had observed, I imported the images into Photoshop and drew over them with simple, black lines. Leaving the photograph beneath.

The Friendly Sea Snail

Queen Squared

Mechanical Monkey

The 1.5-Eyed Lady