Classes since August 2008

Since August 2008 I've been taking a lot of drawing classes around LA. I want to list them.


Glenn Vilppu (Saturday and Sunday Classes)

1. Sketching Outdoors
2. Rendering
3. Clothed Quick Sketch

Charles Hu (at Gnomon)

4. Anatomical Figure Drawing


Ed Li (Concept Design Academy)

5. Sketching Outdoors


Steve Brown (Animation Union)

6. Perspective
7. Sketching Outdoors


Steve ? (at Otis Evening College)

8. Charaacter Design

Chris Werner (at Otis Evening College)

9. Figure Drawing


Marshall Vandruff

10. Three Day Animal Drawing - Workshop
11. Drapery Workshop
12. Artistic Temperments Workshop
13. Draftsmanship Workshop


14. Concept Design Academy - Stephan Martiniere - Fantasy Drawing/Design Workshp

15. Will Weston - Drawing and Composition (at the Animation Union)

16. Brenda Swan - 2 day watercolor workshop (at VIVA)

17. Tony Couch - 5 day watercolor workshop (through the Valley Watercolor Society)

Holy Shit!!!!!!!! I think that's a lot of classes, time and money. I don't think I really show all that training yet in my work but maybe someday,

Sketching in Long Beach

Sketches around Naples Canal - Long Beach, California.
Sketches - Japanese Garden, Cal State Long Beach.

I was sketching in Long Beach yesterday and today. Working down at the pyramid for "Make It Or Break It" the TV show I work on. On the campus of Cal State Long Beach there is a pretty Japanese Garden - I sketched there twice. Today I went down to the Naples Canals, they were incredibly beautiful. A real California paradise. I did some sketches there. I took some photos, to. I'm going to sketch from some of my photos, later.

Ted Seth Jacobs

I'm trying to learn more about Ted Seth Jacobs. I am thinking about studying with him - but right now it is because I want to go back to France more than I am especially interested in his philosophy. I really don't know too much about him. I bought his book "Drawing with an Open Mind" and I am slowly going through it.

I like these quotes very much:

" . . . drawing is a trace, a track, a trail - like the leak from an oil-line down a highway or the progress of the worm in the woodwork, the print, the fossilized remains of a movement. Even the fish in the ocean, the free bird in the sky, draw an invisible arabesque after themselves. In the sense, drawing is the relic of movement."

" . . . drawing may be the free-standing original impulse that subsequently generates conceptions which then pique to life the sleeping snake of desire."

Organic Perspective

In my Sketching Environments class on Saturday Ed Li started talking about Organic Perspective. I don't think I really heard of that before. He showed us boards from "Spirit" where there was a grid placed on hills and canyons to help with the perspective and three dimensionality.

The strategy he talked about to draw Organics was

1. Sketch out your subject in line
2. Place imaginary grid
3. Foliage acts as shapes and patterns
4. You need to edit out info. Make sure to anchor the architecture even if you don't see the bottom.
5. You need a sense of foreground, middleground, and background.
6. Use the marker to simplify or group.

This is a sketch I need to finish of the Japanese Tea House at Huntington. I may try to finish it. I think my trees are more pattern than 3 dimensional. I need to work on that more.

This is a sketch of a pavilion in the Chinese garden. I tried to save it with the marker but I think I'm getting a little gimmicky with the black foreground trick I learned from Will Weston.

My rock edges were first too jagged and it was reading like a weird shaped bush. Ed had me straighten my lines to contrast the rocks to the bushes and trees.

This is the first thumbnail I did before Ed showed up. It's mainly about architecture. It was hard for me to convey that the doors of the tea house where they have slid open and you could see right through.

Sketches the week of July 6th

Here are some clean ups from last week.

This is some other stuff from last week.

Here are some sketches. The top are from Monday before the Production Meeting of Make It Or Break It at Disney Ranch. The bottom ones are from the corner of Rodeo and La Brea looking at the local eye sores like McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and New Panda Buffet.

I had a hard week at work so I didn't do as much sketching as I would have liked but this is what I did do.

This is a clean up of a sketch at the Grand Central Market

This is a clean up of a sketch from the Bradbury Building.

This is a clean up from a sketch at Angel's Gate.

Drapery Workshop - Brea - Marshall Vandruff

Went to Brea this week to study drapery drawing with Marshall Vandruff.

These are my notes:

There are 7 basic folds. (Glenn Vilppu also talks about this).

1. Diaper Fold
- isn't a simple tube like a drop fold. Folding of pipes with overlap. The birds eye view would be a series of zig zags.
- a diaper fold is a fold that starts to twist or fold on itself.
- there is a crunching on the z axis.

2. Zig Zag Fold
- zig zags are everywhere in nature
- happens where the cloth bunches up
- Jack Hamm is a good reference to show eyelets and hooks
- Lorenzo di Credi another reference

3. Pipe Fold
- pipe folds can give a rhythm of verticals
- pipe folds can fork into another pipe fold
- pipe folds can split in 2

4. Spiral Fold
- encircles
- forms helixes
- Bernie Wrightson talks about how clothing must go around

5. Drop Fold
- a pipe fold that drops and goes back up but remains a tube
- it changes direction without getting too complicated

6. Half Lock Fold
- folds fold on to each other but not completely
- something that bends on itself
- can see folds on an acute angle
- bunches up on one side but not the other
- usually one fold overtakes the other

7. Inert Fold (I think Glenn Vilppu calls this the dead fold).
- random placement of folds
- fabric without form underneath

SOME BASIC TIPS

Folds and Wrinkles are not the same! Wrinkles are usually left out when drawing.

You need to consider the amount of cloth. Drawing a leotard is not the same as drawing baggie pants.

You need to consider the weight of the cloth. Drawing silk is not the same as drawing canvas.

You need to consider the forces acting on the cloth.

You need to edit the amount of folds you draw. Too many folds create visual chaos.

Folds are intrepretive. Folds effect the feeling of the drawing. Folds tell us about the figure.


In drapery we are not bound by what we see:

There are 3 Factors

1. Form (the body beneath the drapery)

- cross contours tell us what we are looking at. Look at Bellini as an example of an artist who has awareness around he form. He also mentioned Claire Windling (spelling?). Look at work of Benozzo Gozzoli.

- the body is an accordian - but there are hard parts.

- drapery is like an extra skin.

- consider Economy of Cloth vs. Excess of Cloth.

- Drapery has no form of it's own. It just conforms.

2. The Cloth Itself

- the cut of the cloth
- the amount of cloth
- the weight of the cloth

3. The Forces on the Cloth


There are lines that radiate from small stress points to large on a body. There are places of stress. Armpits and crouches are natural pinch points so are Elbows and Knees. The point to an area. Consider how they radiate. There is a difference between a baseball and a beach ball.

Consider Stretch vs. Squash.

Use metaphors when drawing cloth. Canvas can be likened to cardboard. Burlap can be likened to carpet. Find similes and metaphors find opposites. The main secret is have fun. Think of it as recess not homework!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1



Some References

- Muybridge
- Hogarth "Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery:
- Paret
- Gregory Bateson (philosopher)
- Lorenzo di Credi
- Bernie Wrightson
- Jack Hamm