Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Sketchbook Pages


Here are some of my latest sketches and doodles. Sometimes meetings and phone calls are great times for me to get some mindless sketching done. It's a very difficult thing to just "sit down and sketch" something. Most times that is when the larger than life blank canvas screams back at you. In a sketchbook, pages should be screaming "mess me up, try something new" or something along those lines, but a lot of times my brain says "do something cool" or "just drawing anything," but anything can be very similar to nothing when nothing is consciously stirring around. Sketching while doing something else is wonderful because you get to access a portion of your subconscious thoughts. I've heard it described as daydreaming on paper and that's a great place to be.

Norman Rockwell had a wonderful approach to beginning a painting when he didn't have a firm direction. He would begin by drawing a lamppost somewhere on the page. It was a simple object that he could always draw and it would serve the purpose of 'jump starting' his brain. From this simple sketch, his paper was no longer CLEAN and he then freed himself to experiment in any direction. He would take this lamppost and draw something next to it and that would spark an idea. This would lead to another idea and so on and so forth, until he reached a solution he was happy to develop and paint. Leaving the simple lamppost far in the dust. Thanks Norman Rockwell, you've opened doors and paved paths that I'm sure we'll never quite see the end of.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Scribble Sketches



I was going through one of my old pocket sketchbooks and found this. Thought I'd share as it's very abstract and unlike most of my sketches. Maybe I should do more of these to 'loosen up'.

These are what I see:
A) The Gardner: quietly admires his flutterfly while listening to his headphones in his garden.
B) Sludge Monsters???
What do you see?

Sunday, April 12, 2009

New Painting


I was walking around a while back and happened across this house that was kind of run down sitting in front of a pond. I liked the isolation of this lonely house and imagined how it might have been a long time ago, before the neighborhood grew up around it. Composition is not quite there yet but it's close. Colors may also be more subdued in the final.

Fantasy Realm




Graphite sketches.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

From my Pocket

These are some recent imaginative sketches from my pocket sketchbook.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Interrupted


Just did this for Sketch Theater.
March '09 - Graphite
"El Chupacabra"

Who's there?



Sketch done for Sketch Theatre contest.
April '08 - Graphite
"Occupied"

Concept Sketches



And now for something completely different.

Marker sketches.


Some miscellaneous ink sketches.













Marina Jacks


"Seven Palms" - 11 x 8.5 - watercolor

"Together Forever" - 11 x 8.5 - gouache


A couple of quick studies I did at Marina Jacks in Sarasota a little while back.

Friday, April 3, 2009

New Sketches






These are some quick paintings I've done from my window.
"Riverbank" - Gouache
"Rooftops" - Gouache

Getting started

Well, this is my first attempt at this, so please bear with me. The purpose of this blog is to document my artistic endeavors and random thoughts. Thanks for checking it out and I hope you follow along and enjoy!
Thanks.