Summer break (of sorts)

I've been slacking it since the second half of July. I kinda blame it on the heat, but the truth is I just haven't been motivated enough to draw much lately. I kept doing a few sketches on the metro up to a point, but I was dissatisfied with them; hardly worth the hassle of scanning them. Then I picked up some unread books that were gathering dust on the shelf (Oryx anf Crake by M.Atwood filled my transit time until the start of my summer leave last Monday), and I got hold of Civilization V (that one created a huge time sink), and well, you get the idea. :p

These are from early July:

The yard (second image) is from life, the rest is from imagination. The wrapped critter is supposed to be a tarsier. The fluffheap tree is intended for either a mural or a huge print for a friend's wall.

And these are from just this evening. Photo reference from a video by Paris Kain (upper row) and Suresh Natarayan (second row). I realised that all this time I've been drawing with a B pencil, which is great when I'm making sketches during transit as it doesn't smudge, but on the other hand it makes them a bit dull as I can't get much contrast out of it. I used a 2B for the faces, and it was almost a revelation! (I did spend a lot of time cleaning them up, though.)

I also tried a different technique for these, thinking about planes first, then use crosshatching to build up volume, instead of my usual pussyfooting around shadows.

Week 20-25 sketches

I think the reason why I haven't been scanning my sketches lately (and I'm halfway through my newest sketchbook already!) is that I had a pile of books and, as of more recently, clothes, sitting on my scanner.

So I moved the pile of books and clothes to my bed. This was a strategic move: since I couldn't go to bed before putting them back onto the scanner, I stayed up scanning some twenty+ pages from my sketchbook. :p
 
These are all from mid-May until today. I put them in two bundles. One, sketches from the metro/bus/tram. Some are finished from memory/imagination, as people have the tendency to move away or get off at stations at inconvenient (to me) times. :)

The rest are all from imagination.

And a bonus: fluffheaps!

Glenys - & Week 18/19

Even fewer sketches lately - in the sketchbook, at least. I've been doing some anatomy studies as well, but they're on A3 sheets, too cumbersome to scan (and the studies are ugly! :p). The rest of the time is taken by a couple commissions.

I'm quite pleased with this small sketch of my friend Glenys (who is also a wonderful person - and a very good writer!)-

And some random from my (new!) sketchbook's pages.

First three are from the metro/bus. Then two attempts of a more cartoon-like style. The woman on the bottom right is Neri Oxman (whose work I found very insteresting). The others are from imagination.

Week 16 sketches

It was again a slow week (I came back on Good Monday, and left again on Friday for the Easter break), but something is better than nothing, I guess!

Two character sketches; the second is from a crazy dream I had, about a girl who, after being slandered and in danger of being murdered, went off to Palestine where she came to lead her own Bedouin tribe (?!).


And one pen sketch from life:

Week 15 sketches

I was away on a (long!) roadtrip, so there wasn't very much time for sketching (and none for painting). These were mostly done on the ferry to and from Ancona.

Ithaka, sketches

Back from Italy!

Painted this on the ferry on the way back to Patra. The view is of the Ionian sea, or a collage thereof, since the clouds and light kept changing. :)

 

Also, some sketches: 

(My dad ended up looking like Lenin in the top left one. :p He also handed me a new sketchbook, identical to my old one, which was probably the handiest sketchbook I've had!)