Sunday, May 2, 2010

Sunday Sketch and a page from my Sketchbook


I can't believe I haven't blogged anything since last Sunday! Time sure got away from me.  Here is my Sunday Sketch,  which I did last night in bed. It's a bit rough, but I was working out a face I will be putting on canvas soon.  The other two are just folk art girls that showed up to fill the page, lol! 
If you would like to see more Sunday Sketches by other participating artists, check out Sophia's blog
Blue Chair Diary.  It's nice to see this weekly group growing.


A Page from my Sketchbook

Time for my weekly peek into my sketchbook. Except this time, it's not in my sketchbook but on a loose sheet of graph paper. I have a little secret...my favorite way of sketching is to use pen on graph paper. I'm obsessed with it. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I had several hundred loose sheets lying around with sketches, and handwritten ideas on them.  Folders are filled with these loose sheets, and I keep weeding through them, trying to get the freshest ideas at the front, but they are soon buried with dozens more pages. I swear I am out of control!
One benefit to using graph paper is that you can easily line up eyes, and other features quickly. If you are a beginner to drawing faces, I would highly recommend you buy yourself some graph paper, and draw out your lines for your face. It's easy to see when you have mistakes, and easy to correct (use pencil for this).
Once you get a perfect sketch that you are happy with, take some carbon paper, and trace it onto a good sheet of drawing paper.  It sure beats measuring with a ruler, and trying to get things lined up.
 The page you see above shows some of my folk art ideas for mother's day. The one on the left with the boy and girl is one I am painting right now.  It's also one of the sketches I showed last week,  with a bit more detail.  Hopefully it will be done by tonight and I will show it here. There is nothing glamorous about these pages, it's simply a matter of getting ideas out of your head and onto paper, where you can have a permanent record.

Thanks for reading!

20 comments:

Sueann said...

Lovely sketches!! And using graph paper is a great idea. I never thought about that!!??!!
Hugs
SueAnn

Poetic Artist said...

Love the sketches..Graph paper I have never used. Makes me think.
Thanks.

Crafty Green Poet said...

lovely sketches! Great idea about graph paper,

Linda E. Pruitt said...

Great tips! I'm not too accomplished drawing people, so I will try the graph paper trick. Thanks!

Susan said...

Hi Pink! Love your lady and folk art people - great idea about the graph paper too, I think I'll try it!

Anonymous said...

I like her face and her friends below. Maybe that is who she was thinking about at the time. I would love to see the face soon to be painted too - i am greedy I know. And we too will try working faces on graph paper in the future. Thanks for that tip too.

Nicola said...

what a great idea to use graph paper!! I'm looking forward to seeing your new paintings from these sketches! Love your sketches!

lissa said...

I like your process, I think drawing everything out before making the actual work is much better than just go straight to it & graph paper is quite useful

thanks for your visit

Alexandra MacVean said...

I'm with you on how the weeks seem to fly by anymore! Whooweee!

I love your sketches this week. I've not ever used graph paper either. A lot of times, anymore, I use tracing paper so I can lay other pieces of my sketch on top in layers to see what it looks like before finalizing things.

Happy SS! :)

Lisa said...

Love these - and LOVE the idea about the graph paper! I have just been getting into sketching and far too lazy to pull out a ruler each time to measure faces. The result? Skewed faces that might only look right after a few drinks.

But I also wasn't sure about drawing lines, as I knew they'd still be visible in the final drawing. Tracing paper - duh!

I can't wait to pull out the graph paper and try this - thanks!!

Pam of Always Artistic said...

Beautiful sketches!

Tammie Lee said...

I love seeing your sketches! I am learning from you. Thank you for sharing about the graph paper and tracing onto a nice page. Such great ideas. It will be fun to see your lady as a painting.

Kathy L said...

Gosh why didn't i think of that. What a geat idea...graph paper will make things go quicker for sure...

Julia Christie said...

Hi Betty. Love these sketches. I really enjoy that you share your process with us too. Your end results are amazing and it's nice to follow the steps you take to get there.

Smiles

RG said...

Glad you liked Zoey and the other bunns at the House of Rabbits. They are a handful!

Šolanje na domu-Waldorf said...

Love these mother's day ideas. Hope you transform some of them on canvas.

apinkdreamer said...

great sketches and great ideas!!!

Marlene said...

Hi Pink, your new sketch is going to make a wonderful painting and as always I love your folk art girls.

readingsully2 said...

Your sketches are very interesting to me. Great work.

Rebecca said...

Hi there Pink! I just found your blog from Nancye's blog and am so happy to have found you. I do sketchs too, but have never had the courage to share them with others (until now). I think next sunday I will post one of mine on my blog.
with happiness, rebecca