Life Drawing

Last night I went along to a Life Drawing class, something I've been meaning to do for a while now. The last time I did any Life Drawing was back during my A-Level Art class, and I was glad I made it along.

We drew various poses, ranging in time from 10 minutes to 5 minutes, 3 minutes and 1 minute, as well as experimenting drawing with a continuous line, not taking your pencil off the paper. I felt a little rusty at the beginning but was pleased with some of the drawings I produced, and definitely plan to attend another class soon.

Here are a bunch of my drawings from last night...

Star Wars Day

It's that day again...

Process: Optional Exercise #1 (Casablanca Comic)

I started going along to Process, a monthly comics workshop/discussion group set up by Steven Walsh and based at Gosh! Comics. It takes place on the first Wednesday of every month and prior to this month's meeting Steve posted an Optional Exercise online for people to have a go at: to adapt the following scene from Casablanca into a comic.



I wanted to give this a go, although because I didn't have much time to work on this before this month's meeting, I decided to focus on part of the scene (from 1.44 in the video). Because Process is partly about "How" people make comics, I thought that I would also include my step-by-step process here.

So after watching the scene and deciding that I wanted to do it as a one page comic, I found the script online and drew a rough thumbnail sketch...



Because that part is filmed from a fixed camera angle, I wanted to replicate this, with only changes in facial expression and some minor changes in the characters movement. So I drew a sketch of the panel and then copy and pasted it on the computer to set up the page before printing it out and drawing in the additional panels and writing in the dialogue...



I then drew over this on a lightbox and then scanned and coloured the final page in Photoshop, colouring in full colour and then converting the file to greyscale. And this is the final page:

Drawing in a coffee shop...

I went and got a coffee the other day and did a quick bit of sketching while I drank my latte...

Come back soon Ayano and Ikuno!

My friends Ayano and Ikuno are both moving back to Japan at the end of this week, and I drew them each a card...




And because they have been in London together and are leaving at the same time, I also made it so the cards join together to make a single image...



Hope I'll see you both again soon, either in Japan or London! :)

Drawing on a train (Here Comes The Sun)

With the recent change of weather (which will probably change again before I've finished typing this sentence!), I can sketch people without having to keep on drawing scarves and hats! I spotted this guy today on the train from London Bridge to New Cross...

Happy Birthday Saul!

Last night I went out for drinks for my friend Saul's birthday. And I made him a card...

Happy Birthday Shirlene!

It was my friend Shirlene's birthday last week. Here's a drawing I did for her, based on one of her modelling photos...

George Bellows

This afternoon I went to the exhibition George Bellows (1882-1925): Modern American Life at the Royal Academy. I was already familiar with the artist after I worked on a book about Bellows a few years ago when I was working as a designer at a book publishers, so it was interesting to see his work in person.

Bellows painted images of New York's urban life and landscapes and some of his most visceral pieces "record the clandestine, often brutal fights that were organised by private clubs in New York to circumvent a state ban on public boxing". I was really drawn to these paintings, with their expressive brushstrokes and dramatic lighting, and drew a sketch of "Stag at Sharkey's" (1909) - depicting a fight taking place at the Sharkey Athletic Club opposite Bellow's studio...

Under The Sea...

I've been working all day on a new illustration to use as a promotional image. And just as I was finishing it up, I saw a tweet about Disney-Pixar announcing a sequel to 'Finding Nemo'. It's odd how things work out sometimes...