Crowds - I tried

Sketches from the zoo.
Sketches from the zoo and the farmer's market.

Sketches from the farmer's market.

Previously drawn crowds put into a previously drawn environment.

Crowds - Mucha

Ed suggested we look at some Mucha painting for crowds. These are the ones that interest me.

Ed's notes on crowds

- Treat crowds as abstract shapes

- Pick up T-Shirt silhouette or pants

- Block in architectural shapes

- use dark and light in shadow shapes (this can be done with prismacolor pencils over markers)

- play with shapes and tones

- lead the eye by breaking up the space w/ groupings of people

- observe first and try to create a nice pattern with crows groupings

- go back later and support it

- it is more important to get outside shapes pretty well

- the further back we go the flatter the elipses get

- go back into sketches and make it better by memory

- make sure you know where the group plane is

Ed Li's - 4 Different Types of Space

According to Ed there are 4 Different Types of Spaces

1. Deep Space (i.e. and Establishing Shot - has a sense of depth)
2. Flat Space (2 Characters Simple - no converging lines in perspective)
3. Limited Space (Transition Between Flat Space and Deep Space - Generally a waist up shot - you don't get the sense of the vanishing point in your frame)
4. Abstract Space (super close or really faraway - takes a bit to figure out what you are looking at)

All these shots together give visual variety so you don't get the same shots over and over again.

When you are drawing environments think about
1. SPACE
2. LINE (width and thicknesses)
3. SHAPE
4. TONE
5. COLOR

Ed's words of wisdow

Vanishing points in drawing can be used as pointers - to point to something you want someone to look at.

The more you know about perspective the more you can move away from perspective. The world doesn't always line up on a perspective line which is part of rea world situations. Your design sensibility lets you know if you want to make this perfectly in perspective or imperfect

Glenn Vilppu's Class - Sat 10-31

Glenn is really hot on a new drawing technique - well not new just rediscovered by him when he saw some Rubens drawings this summer in Denmark.

- Start with a 2B/4B pencil the larger the drawing the softer the pencil
(the first pencil lines will disappear after a while) - He also mentioned that Michaelangelo said "Don't measure use the eye).
- Build the form - think in terms of simple volumes (neck fitting into rib cage)
- Go through the drawing several times - each new level of the drawing makes the one underneath disappear)
- Don't overdo the anatomy
- Draw from experience and feeling
- Go across - over and threw
- Use tones around your figure for luminousity
- Lines at first may seem dark but once there is the tonality of the skin it may not seem dark
- Smudge across the whole drawing
- Then put line only where they need to brings things out and work with the kneaded erater
- Go slow - hit accents - sharpen up corners
- Rely on the tone you put down (the more tone the greater degree of contrast)
- At this point the degree of looseness has disappeated
- Draw slower and more darkly (apply darks where the would actually be seen in reality)
- Put a line around the figure to describe the form (tone in the background can do a lot to show lumnousity). The line around the form is not a harsh line.
- Remember core and cast shadow
- Make up a light source
- You can go back over drawing again and again
- Draw with the stump, draw with the kneaded eraser
- Control how dark you let things get
- You can see your own mistakes but turning the drawing upside down or looking at it in a mirror
- Be judiciouos with your darks
- Relook at Mucha and Lautrec
- Push core and cast shadows


GOOD BOOK
- Thomas Sully "American Portrait Painting" talks about how different artists find different features important

Worked on using sanguine polychroma pencil and graphite on these 25 minute drawings.

Organic Environments (i.e. Trees, Rocks, etc. . )

This is this weeks homework for Ed Li's class "Environment Sketching." Each place has three thumbnail drawings and then a 4" x 6" sketch.

Trees around my condo complex, "The Village Green".
Trees around the lake at Kenneth Hahn Recreation Center (up the hill from me).

Rose's at the Exposition Park Rose Garden near USC.

The Meadow at the top of Kenneth Hahn Recreation Center.

Down by the lake at Kenneth Hahn.

Costume Quick Sketch - Wood Nymph/Wood Elf

These were done in Mark McDonnell's Costume Gesture Sketch class at LAAFA. They are conte and pastel on black construction paper. The model was some sort of wood elf/forest nymph/sprite. As the drawing session went on I lengthened her hair, changed her head piece, and played with the costume. Sometimes I added environment cues or props that weren't there. Mark encourages a lot of experimentation.

Descanso Gardens - Sketches

I did these sketches at Descanso Gardens yesterday in the Japanese Garden with Ed Li's Class.