Another drawing from Dr. Sketchies the other night. Cleaned it up in the cafe at Wonderland today, and also at the coffee shop after work. I like drawing full bodies and cleaning them up. I just rarely have five minutes to complete one.... I either need to get faster or remember more.... or maybe just both.

Love,



Ed

Today was rather interesting for me. I did my usual Monday routine, except I stopped by Curries to pick up some color sticks for Wonderland. And it was gorgeous out so I stopped by the nearby coffee shop and grabbed a coffee and a BLT and did the schedule for two weeks from Today starting Saturday. And I doodled in my book. But this recent sketchbook has been fighting me a bit... it's been asking me to draw the same old thing time and time again and I'm really rather frustrated with it considering how wonderfully creative the conversation I had with the previous book was... so I was tempted to pick up a brown paper sketchbook at the Curries but decided against it. And after that I went to AboveGround and picked up some clips and went along my merry way to school where I... didn't do much of anything. I ended up sitting outside in the sun and listening to my music for an hour... then getting a burrito and sitting outside in the sun for another half an hour before deciding that I really wasn't in the mood to draw slow drawings in a half lit studio. So I decided it would be for the best to bugger off and not feel guilty for it rather than sitting in the sunshine half guilty for wasting non-work day not working on anything. After which I went to the Java house and grabbed a pint and sketched and then went to Dr. Sketchies where I... sucked. I got three drawings that I liked... one of which I tried to clean up and ended up ruining. And another that I just got bored with after a little while... and I also got this:





So yeah. I think I prefer shitty cheap ass sketchbooks that I can just draw in to snobby sketchbooks that tell me what to do. Thanks to my buddy Fridge for picking this book up, and to Juan and Freddy for chilling out with me for the night and making my guilty work-free day complete.

I really don't want this to become a caricature blog because... as much as I like caricature I find that I'm really not all that good at live caricature. I'm always in a rush to get things done, I never plan out the compositions for my body situations so they're always a horrible mess. I like doing it and I find that it really pushes me to strive for excellence... but I also find that... frankly, I suck at it.


That being said; I love doing it. If it wasn't for the fact that theme parks... suck and the pay isn't much better than minimum wage as an average over the course of a summer... I think I'd be prepared to do live caricature for the rest of my life. In fact, I think I hope to maintain it as a skillset because I think that it really opens your eyes.


Today was a weird one for me.

I started out drawing... really rather badly. But my first sale of the day was a fantastically unique and interesting looking boy that I had a field day drawing. And I did my best to exaggerate the hell out of him while maintaining accuracy. After that I was hit or miss for the remainder of the day.

Some of the drawings were just... bad. But on the other hand, some of my drawings I really rather liked. And the sad and funny part was when I had fans were always during my worst drawings of the day. Sad but true.

But as my colors have improved from abysmal to passable... I think this coming week I am going to push my coloring and go as far as I possibly can because it seems as if I am finally hitting a stride where I can exaggerate and maintain a likeness and still keep a decent amount of speed in the drawing. I still seem to spend a lot of time on my color... but I'm getting better and I can whip out parksketch colors when it gets busy, or I can actually take my time and figure out the coloring... but I find I tend to make the same choices regardless of whether I am analyzing or I am going further in depth... and that simply means that I haven't found many choices in my analysis to work with.

So this week... expect my colors to be... abysmal before they become better.



Oh. I did two drawings I liked today. One was of a girl, just a black and white head drawing... but she was one of the most unique and interesting girls I have ever seen. I wish I had taken a photo of that one. And the other was this one. I just wish the colors were stronger.

I totally promise this won't become some sort of bad habit. I don't want caricatures to overwhelm my blog, honestly. But I like these enough to share.


I'm still working on some things... but the biggest thing I think I need to work on is... personality. I think my drawings are... just drawings. They really have no life of their own. Part of that is the fact that I seem to draw the same neck and angles on a lot of my caricatures...

I also noticed before that I never really exaggerated the external shape of a face... I always simplified it; So now I'm starting to push that a little bit. I'll try to work on more variety in my shapes and relationships... and I think I really need to start learning how to color or at least exploring it a lot more.


There's so much to learn.

I've been trying to make my live caricature's better... I think I'm slowly getting better.

The bottom drawing is one of my favorites in the sketchbook. Unfortunately I also find the actual drawing fairly weak... but the intent was there. And that, in this case, is more important to me.

I saw this guy hunched over on the subway.. and everything about the situation had the most depressing story and immediately my mind was empathizing with his silhouette. I mean, he just looked so sad. I know I didn't catch the emotion that well but it was a situation where I really tried... and failed. And it taught me that I need to shoot for that more often and fail. That is when I really know how to interpret and design and change things. I just find it hard to not be distracted by facial features. But I will continue to try to draw story.

Maybe some day soon I will have a drawing that has story that I can call a success.


Love,



Ed

I rather enjoy this method of drawing, even now. It is both exaggerated but also retains a sense of design and a sense of the completeness of nature. Unfortunately it requires me to look both very accurately and very abstractly which requires an amount of time and precision that I typically don't have. But with practice I will be able to refine the process and draw like this a lot faster and even more accurately and even more exaggerated and hopefully retain even more of the rightness of things.

I also included a drawing from my imagination for shits and giggles.



Love,



Ed

This is probably, in my opinion, the post that I have the most mixed feelings about.
I mean I like the drawings and all... I still am really proud of the top page. It's just.... the drawings are boring to me. That's all.

Sorry about the shitty photos in the coming days. I don't actually own a scanner so I take photos of all of my work rather than scanning it. I've finally figured out a set-up that works pretty well too... after this photo set.

Okay. I'm starting with the drawing that I know that most of you haven't seen. (In fact, I'm pretty certain that only Oli, Doug and Adrienne have seen the drawing.)


So... yeah. I'm not too happy with it, but I like the intent of it. You see, I aspire to inspire. And when I find someone that I get along with well I tend to end up simply trying to push them... to give them some of the momentum I've gotten along the way. And I try to do it on a case by case basis. Some people I know I try to push by being incredibly critical and stopping them and forcing them to think about the choices they are making and if they make sense. Some people I try to push in the opposite direction and I tell them to stop analyzing the situation, stop having a plan and just do. And with some people, the only thing I can actually do to help them is to give them blank pages to work with and tell them they should go out in the sunshine and draw every day.

So, to all of you my wonderful friends;
Draw every day. And if you don't draw; simply find a moment to savor, and draw it all in.

Love,




Ed

Two of my favorite drawings from today.
I swear I'll post more... in fact it is assured because tonight I have nothing to do and can set up automated posting until I run out of the drawings most of you have already seen!

Yay!

I just wanted to share this with you.. and maybe analyze it a little bit. I love horror movies... maybe not as much as some people I've come across, but I still love them.



I love this film by virtue of the fact that it masterfully uses a horror film shot selection... to the point of caricature. I mean, I felt more empathy for the characters in this film than I have for... just about any of the films I've seen recently.

It starts off very cartoony and flat.
Flat shot.
Cut in close. Still flat.
Cut to truck. Still flat, but the tone of the image is darker simply by having 70% of the image as a darker value.
Cut to hand opening door. Heavy perspective, Camera tilted diagonally. Everything is diagonals... There are no horizontal lines... After door opens, 50% of the image is black. 90% of the image is a dark value.
Cut to 1 point. Almost symmetrical composition. Downshot on characters. Characters almost being trapped by the shape of the houses.
Cut in to show handhold.
Stuff
Stuff
Stuff
In this sequence the important thing to note is the fact that every time the camera cuts it gets closer. Even the time each shot takes has decreased significantly.
And the first shot to break this rhythm is the shot establishing the nervousness of the girl..... Freaking awesome.
And then back to fast paced cuts.

Simply masterful... and that's just the opening 36 seconds.