Lenten Sketchbook III

[tealin]

It's that time again!

For the third year now, I have resolved to draw at least one page a day in my sketchbook (or at life drawing, on the days when this is available) during the course of Lent. (Some background information can be found in last year's entry.) This year is rather odd for me because it's the first in which I will spend any portion of Lent not in school or at work, and most of my traditional resolutions are directly or indirectly related to being employed in one thing or another. The sketchbook thing arose when I realised I was only drawing work stuff and neglecting my own, and then last year I resumed it because it was a way to keep in practise with using a pencil and paper rather than Cintiq, and was also a way to do 'good' drawings rather than the very rough thumbnails required for work. This year? Well, I suppose it's a way to keep the pencil moving in the structureless environment of unemployment, and to keep me from spending all my time working on my portfolio.

Anyway, without further rambling:

Wednesday was Life Drawing, so that counts without having to be scanned.
Thursday - An attempt at thumbnailing Moist and Adora Belle after the fire (before the WALTZ! which always makes me giddy) ... I'd done a few of these on Tuesday and at life drawing, too. It's a tough one to get right. I think I'll have to play with scale in Photoshop. Then there's a stab at the double-H'd nurse at the Lady Sybil and making up some crazy starched wimple, some people I saw from the bus window, and trying to figure out A.B's pose.
Friday was almost entirely taken up with that recital (and then a late-night Doctor Who marathon with the singer I was accompanying) so I made up for it with two pages on Saturday.
Saturday 1 - I finally got caught up on ONE piece of gift art, having accomplished an adequate caricature of Pippin and deciding to cut Merry out because he was kind of extraneous anyway.
Saturday 2 - More thumnailing burnt-out despondency, but mostly working stuff out for a drawing of A.B. reacting to seeing Reacher Gilt enter La Foie Heureux. Drawing with that particular pencil gives me a funny line quality and seems to render me incapable of making anything 'nice.'

Comments

[sydpad.livejournal.com]

That's a great idea, to have such a specific goal... mind you if I'd made the 'page a day' resolution I would sneakily outsmart myself by buying a smaller sketchbook, maybe one of those 3x5 ones.

I don't know whether to commiserate with you over the layoff thing.. at first it made me sort of hysterical and then I found that the layoff-work-layoff-work pattern was actually really fruitfull. It's like leaving a field fallow for a season. Yeah, totally work on your own stuff-- something I found that was a really cool thing to do is do something sort of but not directly related to drawing. I did some sculpting one year (just messing around with Sculpey), and a course in colour another year. If you can afford it, a course is awesome, because you meet people who aren't in the industry and they'll calm you down, basically by totally not caring about the lastest Disney box office.

[rhianimated.livejournal.com]

Ahh yes, the vicious cycle of sketchbook-neglect resolutions! I myself seem to renew my 'fill a page a day' resolution every few hours at least...

Great sketches! I particularly like Pippin, and I really liked those sketches of Pippin you did in an earlier post.

p.s A little late to comment perhaps, but if you do end up compiling and selling sketches to impoverished student-types, count me in for a copy!

[azvolrien.livejournal.com]

I like the Saturday 2 page. Spike's little mini-storyboard is pretty much how I imagined that bit.

(well, less sketchy, but you know what I mean.)

[ledygrey.livejournal.com]

i'm doing the exact same thing this year! I got the idea from you and i dont hate it ... yet. no pictures tho. tres lazy/busy

[ubiquitouspitt.livejournal.com]

OH! I LOVE drawing Pippin! *hops*

But, it being Lent, don't you... think your.. subject should be of a more, say, holy nature?

*bats eyelashes*

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

A course sounds like a great idea... I wonder if there are any that start at this time of year. I'll have to look around. So far my primary educational plans are to go draw at the anthropoloical museum.

Yeah, this down time is entirely voluntary and welcome ... they tried to get me to move onto boards on one of the other shows in the studio but I put my foot down and said I needed at least a couple weeks. ARGH TV BOARDS. Not fun. So yeah. Let the renewing begin! Thanks for the suggestions!

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Bah! It's about the discipline. My reading material, on the other hand...

[sydpad.livejournal.com]

Heh-- sounds like you learned way faster than I did! I still have a hard time turning down work. The only time I've actually literally quit was after "Open Season", and I had to actually buy my plane ticket and have my husband glaring at me across the Atlantic to make myself do it. I think I was one of the last people to turn off the lights at Warner's... /memory lane

The course I took on painting was at Emily Carr (I was rusticating as they say in Regency novels in Vancouver waiting for a work permit). It was taught by Karen Yurkovich, who's an awesome painter and still a good friend. Night courses and short courses start pretty regularly throughout the year, so I'd be surprised if you can't find something. It's very refreshing to not be thinking, "could this be a portfolio piece?!?" every bleedin' second.

[tannhaeuser.livejournal.com]

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I LIKE that. I shall add it to my [small] collection of Things to Vindicate My Intuition. Thanks! :)

[noodleface38.livejournal.com]

I love the merry and pippen sketches. Have you ever read, "The Scarlet letter"? If you have could you draw what you think hester looks like?(I just finished reading it and I now have that common illness of "book-on-the-brain". Saturday 2's sketch reminded me of it. oh yea and good idea for the goal....staying off cocolate is hard enought for me thanks very much! :)