Although my practice is primarily oil painting, it's important to me to draw. Drawing, for the representational artist, is fundamental. Without an ability to produce believable images, you can't produce good paintings, or sculptures for that matter. So most days begin for me with a practice drawing or two.
It used to be that I'd drag out a few pencils or charcoal sticks, a fair-sized sketch pad, and scribble down a few lines. But with computers at my disposal, most of my morning drawings are digital these days. I use Sketchpad, a multi-functional digital painting program, and a Wacom pressure-sensitive tablet with a stylus. That way I draw right on the tablet.
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| "Mr. McConnell," 2018 |
Most mornings my subject matter comes from the morning news. Given the political ferment of the past year, many of the heads and faces are political. Once in a while though, pictures of ordinary folks come through too. Sometimes the subjects are famous or wealthy, but sometimes they're just people whose faces happened to show up in the news. Some of the faces have striking features that interested me, as well. And sometimes the images are relatives whose faces have popped up on the Internet.
Here are a few digital doodles from my last few months.
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| "Benny," 2017 |
This is my four-year-old grandson Benny, done from a snapshot. And just below is his baby sister Della, who is two. Benny has a huge mop of black hair. His sister is one of the sweetest toddlers there is. (Woe betide the family that only pays attention to only one sibling!)
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| "Della," 2018 |
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| "Master Ai," 2017 |
Besides family and politicians, a few famous faces have cropped up as well. Here is Ai Weiwei, the Chinese dissident artist. Below Master Ai is another more fully-realized drawing, this time of Andrew Wyeth, one of my heroes in painting. In the case of Mr. Wyeth the drawing is almost all lines except for the piercing blue eyes.
Digital drawing is beginning to take the place of graphite and charcoal in this studio. I often do a preliminary sketch digitally, then print it out or display it on a tablet as a reference for further development. The convenience and speed of digital drawing makes it an enormously useful tool.
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| "Andy," 2017 |
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Previous posts about digital drawing:
Digital Dailies
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