Everything is starting to bloom
Spring and vitamin D supplements really perk a body up.
Happy April everyone! Welcome back to your little dose of fresh squeezed, handcrafted, pure & unfiltered art/artist musings.
Today I’d like to explain my little scritchy sketchbook goals, and why there are so many little drawings of chickens in there.
I have a fair amount of experience drawing from life - mostly from sessions with a live human model, and a large amount of time spent watching animals on livestreams. I found a livestream of a central-US farm many years ago, and started to try to gesture draw the chickens as they went about their fowl business. This decision was greatly influenced by my previous enjoyment of drawing models from life, my deep interest in movement and animation, and from reading the Robert Bateman biography published in 2015.
I am paraphrasing because I haven’t read it in a few years, but in the first chunk of this book, he talks a lot about his childhood and how he taught himself how to draw from observing animals around him. It was a very enjoyable read, and if you like his work, animals, and conservation, I would reccomend checking it out!
So now I have a few livestreams of different animals at my disposal (sadly I don’t have pets so I can’t David Attenborough them XD). I try to catch any interesting shapes or movements as fast as I can, and I draw directly with my little 0.25mm Slicci pen. (I usually prefer drawing with the Pentel Hybrid Technica 0.3 or 0.4 but the Slicci feels more airy and lively for some reason.) Each of the little drawings you see happen in about 5 to 20 seconds, depending on how cooperative the animal in focus is. Sometimes you have to start drawing a line and stop because a duck has moved so you wait for it to move back into that position by drawing a different duck pose. Some of the bunnies are easier because they can stay still for a whole minute or two! hahahah
That’s pretty much the process I’m doing right now. I am training myself to notice more, to see not only movement but shapes and colors and weight. I’m hoping to draw even more, but right now I am appreciating anything I can get down into the sketchbook :3
Thanks for reading - I hope you enjoy these sketches, and have a lovely weekend! <3
Only 5-20 seconds? WOW! You capture a lot of emotion in the pose for such a short amount of time.
You’re such an inspiration! I find myself gazing at your drawings on my wall in awe.