Torso Study from a Painting- National Gallery Scotland

Did an awful drawing before this, considered quitting for the day but decided not to and look what happens. This is often the case, I'll have a false start then do a good drawing straight after. Half the battle with drawing imo is learning to push through the failures and not give up on a drawing until you get there.

This is Polychromos pencil on cotton writing paper.

New Sketches

I'm mostly updating Twitter these days rather than the blog- can be found here:

https://twitter.com/AlanNolan78

But below are a couple of recent sketches.

Glasgow School of Art Class

More updates soon. Still alive.

Below is a white (on umber ground) under-painting for a class that I'm taking at GSA. Admittedly this has been helped from some auto leveling in photoshop, it doesn't look quite as vibrant as this in real life, though it should. The idea is that you do this one week, let it dry and do colour the next on top. Unfortunately I ballsed up the colour stage this week, so I'm glad I photographed it before.

You gain another level of appreciation for some of the master painters once you try to paint- especially if, like me, you're used to photoshop and multiple undo's. With actual paint there's nowhere to hide, mix a wrong colour or get your values wrong, things head south very quickly and you can struggle to undo your mistakes. But I like this in a way, it helps you become decisive and it makes you really think about colour and form. It is though, very very tough.

There have been some weeks where I've struggled badly and wondered why I do this to myself. But the simple answer is, you don't know what you can achieve the next week or what's around the corner and so this shows. The week before this was painted was a disaster and I considered quitting.

This week opened up some failings in my mixing of colour so the plan is to do some small thumbnail studies. And I also have bigger questions about what I'm going to do with all of this. Eventually I'll want to start producing finished pieces that can be considered good enough and sold. Scary thought.

I think it's in there, just need to keep going...

Portrait Gallery Sketches

No update since February. That's just scary. Locked in some of the worst work overtime known to man and  despite life drawing most weeks, having very little to show for it. I've been drawing all the time though, mostly learning things, as much as I can and sometimes this leaves me with very little to put on the blog.

Trying to learn new things in drawing is interesting, I've found that my skill level takes a big hit as I try to wrestle with some of the new ideas. You think that you would just get better in a nice straight line but I've found I get way worse. I'm not surprised people hold onto bad habits rather than trying to break them.

This week I got a fairly successful life drawing, might put it up, might not but it marks an end of a very long plateau. I switched from drawing on newsprint to drawing on proper paper and because charcoal behaves quite differently on the two surfaces, this hit me for six. I just wasn't feeling comfortable with it but gradually this seems to be getting easier. I find that if you come up against a barrier you have to face it. I could never draw at an easel, so in the end I bought one, didn't let myself draw any other way and now I prefer it to sitting. I also couldn't draw open handed, again.... force yourself to do it and it becomes second nature.

So here's a page of museum sketches, this was done in a rare day off hanging around Edinburgh. Happy (ish)  with these; as you can see I struggled with the brow line on the bottom left but all and all an enjoyable day's drawing.

February Tonal Studies

Well it's been a slightly less successful week, I completely tanked it in life drawing and so here we have some tonal studies instead. I tried these in carbon pencil, some have blending and others don't (I think they're more successful like the top left study). The Velazquez bottom left is rubbish, don't think I was feeling one and doing a 3/4 portrait like that as a small thumbnail proved tricky. Charcoal works better for these, it's easier to move and play around with the tone.

But yes life drawing....what is going on there? I should be so much farther along than I am and I know not to make a lot of the mistakes that I'm making. I think I haven't got to the stage where I've relaxed into it, it's still a struggle and you know how it goes when you think about things too much.... Awkward pose and shifting model last week but I should have been able to handle it. I seem to be like that, I'll either really progress or really tank it and nowhere in between.

Museum Sketch

I meant to get this up on the blog several weeks ago but the weather has been so bad I couldn't take a proper photo. These drawings were done at Christmas, we visited the National Museum in Edinburgh for a day and whilst I did take my sketchbook, in reality I spent most of the time chasing after my son who was having a wail of a time running off everywhere :)

But I ended up going back by myself for two more days and it was bliss. Not that it wasn't without it's difficulties, the first day was tough, lots of people filing past/ blocking the light and I also couldn't figure out what type of drawing I wanted to do. In the end I actually got a decent page of pencil drawings from day one but then I ruined them by trying to go over them in ink and wash afterwards. This is the hard thing about learning, you have to accept that quite often you will balls it up. I'd love to be good with pen and ink but I find it the hardest thing to master.

Which brings me to day two. Less busy and the museum has quite a nice Egyptology section. Looking at the statues really reminded me of the amazing pencil drawings by Disney artist Paul Felix on Emperor' s New Groove. They were drawn in blended graphite and although I decided to try out carbon pencil instead, essentially I was thinking that instead of drawing in line I would be drawing in tone. Similar idea.

And it turns out I really like carbon pencil. It feels like a cross between pencil and charcoal but best of all it blends very nicely but doesn't cause a mess like charcoal. And drawing tonally works very well in an environment like a museum because trying to build your drawing up in line takes way too long.

The drawing on the top right is my least favorite  I think I really lost the idea of concentrating on the simple shapes first, on the other drawings I managed this better and I think it shows.

I've been busy in work for a long time now and the tiredness is affecting my ability to get out and draw. I haven't lost my enthusiasm for it but I am physically done at the weekends. But for those two days at Christmas it was really nice to feel rested, de-stressed and get out there with the sketch pad. I hope that there are more days like that this year. I think about that Neil Gaiman speech a lot and right now that mountain seems mighty far away.....

December Drawing

Semi successful week I think, there's something up with the head proportionally but I can't quite put my finger on it. That's the problem with drawing, you can be off by a fraction and it immediately jumps out. I didn't get much time to refine this to be honest, the time limit is too short for this type of drawing. She's sitting on drapes and I never even got round to those! Wish I had.

I'm starting to move away from newsprint, I really like drawing on it, the charcoal layers up nicely but you can only work it so much until you almost go through the paper. So I got some Strathmore Charcoal paper for next week, it has a slight grain which might take some getting used to but we'll see how it goes. Still need to play around with surfaces, haven't quite found the one I like yet.

I made a decision to get the head in, I always seems to leave it, so I'm pleased I got it drawn, the hair was a nightmare. Short poses are still posing a problem. I think it's because I'm not sure what I'm aiming for with them, I'd like to be doing them in pen but I'm really not good enough yet. I got a book by Karl Gnass, lots of nice quick drawings and it really made me think.

Hmmmm....yes....

Not sure about this one, I did better with getting most of the figure drawn but really those hands should be in there. Again, the time limit is causing a bit of an issue, I might have to rethink the type of drawing I'm doing in 1.5 hours. I'm rushing to get to the tonal stage and I'd like to be taking a little more time over this. The measuring is getting better though, I think here I may be slightly out: it is definitely starting to click though. That cast shadow over the shoulder is still a problem area and this week I tried putting in the shadow lines with compressed charcoal to make them a little bit more permanent. Not sure if I'll do that again as compressed charcoal can be quite severe and you have to be careful that the drawing doesn't go dark too early as it has here.

As much as I appreciate how difficult a life model' s job is, these guys absolutely love bolt upright long poses and I think that's one of the issues I have with this. The pose is just so darn dull and every week it is similar. It's all practice and on a brighter note the upright pose is good for proportions but still, maybe if I was a better artist I could have enhanced it a little with a bit of a twist or something.

I've been looking at a lot of Dean Keller recently, that great line quality he has with charcoal. I really love his drawings. Thinking about  moving away from the rough newsprint, it holds the charcoal nicely but isn't so good when you start into tone- at least not with my haphazard method.

The regular classes are great though, I come away with so many ideas for things to try the next week. So it's all good :)

Birthday Sketch

On my birthday this year I got a rare day off, just to myself and I went sketching around the art galleries in Edinburgh. I get to do this maybe twice a year and as I was sketching I was thinking what a shame we all don't get to do things like this more often rather than spend time behind a desk.

This is a little cast study from my sketchbooks, measuring a few inches across. I did the original drawing in graphite at the museum, then pen and wash at home, finally adding some gouache and watercolor. I recently picked up some gouache as I like using watercolor and the two work well together but I have to admit my handling of it here is very clumsy, I really couldn't work out how to paint with it. Whilst gouache is opaque, it's not totally opaque and it picks up the ink and wash below- I found this very difficult to control. But there's something in this sketch that might have potential. It needs to be looser, outlining the shadows and filling them in doesn't quite work but as an effect, I like the color in it, I think it works in some ways, it's just lacking experience.

Managed more life class this week. Seem to be getting small improvements every week, post coming soon.

Life Drawing

Another Life Drawing this week,it's OK I think but with a few problems. One is speed, I'm just not fast enough to complete a drawing in 1.5 hours and I was aiming to always get the head, hands and feet in. I think this is still down to being a bit slow in the measuring phase of the drawing, I need to figure out a better methodology there. I'm also hoping that my drawing will loosen up a bit as it's a bit too tight at the moment but I'm not too worried about that versus getting an accurate drawing.

I'm getting my butt kicked on the shorter poses and would like to be getting something out of that, so more work to do there. One interesting problem I'm running into is cast shadows over a dark area. Because shadows are transparent in ambient light you can have an area of the body turning into shade but with a cast shadow falling over the top. An example here is the right shoulder which was definitely in shade but was also getting a strong cast shadow from the neck. I have a feeling I should be leaving one of these out, it doesn't really work on this drawing but I'm not sure how to handle it. It's times like this I wish I could ask a tutor their advice but I can't so......

I have some cast sketches I did at the museum last week, will share these soon :)

New Book: The Visual Language of Drawing

I also thought I'd mention that I've been reading the new book from the Art Students League this week: The Visual Language of Drawing. I'm most of the way through and have mixed feelings about it. It's written in such high Academic language that my poor, simple little brain implodes after just reading a few sentences. I will probably have to re-read it at some point. Most of it goes way over my head. I feel that if the idea of the book was to educate the general public on the various principles of drawing then it's a bit of a failure. Or maybe I'm just dumb. Possibly the latter.

There's some interesting ideas in it, for instance: never erasing a mistake before you've corrected it on the page but in general I can't really follow it. Amazing how in depth people look at Art? Maybe I'm not there yet, I doubt I ever will be, I just enjoy learning. When drawing starts getting Academic and teaching gets opinionated to the nth degree, I start to feel uneasy. But I think it's important to read everything you can about it. There are some people in this book that don't like Bridgeman. I do, though the smaller Dover books have terrible printing, he's helped me a lot.

Life Drawing

If I can be pleased with one thing recently, it's that I've manged an entire month of regular life drawing. I had hoped that this would provide a fair amount of material to post on this blog but in reality, despite all of the things I have taught myself and learned over the past 2 years, it has been a real struggle.

I think this goes to show that there is quite a difference between knowing all the theory and actually doing. I think you need a healthy amount of both. Certainly knowing my anatomy well helps me see things and I have a good handle on materials etc but you have to be careful you don't neglect one area in favor of the other.

I've set up some rules. One is that I only use charcoal, I actually take very little with me to class and I think it helps. I have a tendency to reach for other pencils when a drawing doesn't go well and this forces me to focus back on the drawing. The other rule is to measure. I was very strict last week that I really measure properly and that I was really looking at the model. You would be amazed how easy it is to look at the model and not really focus. You skip the hard parts you don't want to draw. I used a bamboo skewer, a piece of card with head lengths measured on it and plum lines on the drawing itself. Most people had an almost finished drawing well before me but I stuck to my plan and most of the shading you see here is actually done in the last 15 minutes of a 1.5 hour pose.

I got caught up in some measuring mistakes and I got bogged down in certain areas. I should really have got more of the head, hands and feet done- I've been trying to get through the whole figure in passes and not skip any bits. I have squashed his crotch for instance and made him too wide, I had tried marking the top of the page, the bottom and then working into the center. I was making a real effort to place to place him well on the page and my measuring isn't quite there yet but it will come with practice.

So this drawing below has a lot of mistakes, it's far from good but I was very happy with it: for the first time I could see things beginning to work and that's a great feeling.

Back From The Dead

Haven't seen one of these in a while have we? Well yes, my bad, lately it seems that getting time for art has been impossible, I've either been shattered from work, parenting or a combination of the two. I've also felt the strain of being pulled in several different directions, on one hand I want to develop my ZBrush and 3D (lack of) skills and on the other there's drawing and the traditional art. There isn't time for all of it unfortunately.

Drawing has it at the moment and I'm glad because I missed it a lot. I'm going to try and get back to regular blog posts. Two things are apparent: I need to get to a life drawing class each week or I won't progress and I need to get out and do some plein air sketching. I've been reading James Gurney's book on colour and also picked up a book of Charles Dana Gibson's ink drawings which has got the creative juices flowing again.

So here we have some more thumbnail tonal sketches, using charcoal and about 5x3 in size- so pretty small.I figure that in a tight week I should at least be able to so a few of these and they're useful to do. I should probably make some colour thumbnails as well to help develop my colour sense.

When at first you loose confidence, go draw in a museum

The way I see it, there have been several barriers to get through, the first was getting back to drawing and getting over my crisis of confidence, then I had to understand some of the processes and principles involved ie. the basics I never knew about, followed by some pretty intensive anatomy study. Now it's the turn of having the guts to go and sketch in a public place.

A recent trip to London was an opportunity to go drawing at the British Museum and that's just what a friend and I did. I just forced myself to do it and guess what? I managed and not only that I enjoyed it, I really enjoyed it.

To me, this is important for so many reasons. One is that while drawing outside the comfort of your own home you are limited. You can't take every bit of equipment you own, you need to travel light. Sometimes by limiting things, you discover what is important. I stuck to pencil and ink, using brush pen for the core shadows, adding the white pen I found was difficult as you can't get different values out of it and you almost immediately over-do it, trying ink and wash on this particular sketch pad was tricky. Also this sketch pad is not a perfect mid tone. So in a very short space of time I had learned a lot of things that don't work and stripped everything right down to basics. In the end I found myself kind of taking notes on the drawing: where is the core shadow, the reflected light, cast shadow, lightest light and darkest dark, then I finished off the drawings later using some of the knowledge I've picked up in the past year.

The middle drawing is a bit of a failure but I've included it anyway, it's important to realise that there will be a lot of bad drawings before there are good ones but in a way that isn't the point. The point is that this particular barrier is down, you can't get better without doing these things.

Selections from a sketchbook

Lately I've been doing a lot of sketchbook work. Most of the time, if I get home from work and only have 30 mins or an hour to draw I will open the anatomy sketchbook and do a bit of study on various things just to keep my brain up to date. This book stayed in a a cupboard for 8 years while I gave up drawing and it's nice to be filling it with something finally.

 I'm happy to say I've found another art class (http://www.whitespace11.com/drop-in-life-drawing.php) and have been going every Thursday evening. 5 mins from work and with a bus that takes me straight home accross the road it couldn't be more ideal. It's been great to get back to it because no matter how much you study in a sketchbook at home, nothing replaces drawing from life.

Not too much to show for my efforts from that just yet but hopefully it won't be long. I've found that my ability to look and see what I'm looking at (muscles, landmarks etc) is a lot better but my ability with materials such as charcoal needs a bit of practice. I think my main issue is hesitation and lack of knowledge, confidence unfortunately plays a big part in good drawing.

The only downside would be that the class is only 2 hours but it's enough and it lets me figure out what areas I need to work on and then I can come back the next week and try again. It is fairly quiet too compared to the Sunday class; I have always been more relaxed in an empty class than a full one- being relaxed is pretty important for drawing imo.

Semi Successful Atmospheric Perspective

Having heard about atmospheric perspective recently, I wanted to give it a go, so I decided to do this study based on a Rubens painting. Atmospheric perspective basically means that where one object is behind another, it will fade into the backround, almost like a mist I guess. It's similar to the principle of lost edges but not quite the same thing. The original painting doesn't have it but it was a good pose to test it out.

In fact, personal study wise, I have changed the way I do things. I warm up by doing a page in my anatomy sketch book and then I do a study based on  a Masterwork. I was worried that I was concentrating too much on anatomy and in reality I think it's probably best to have several things going at once- that way I don't get too complacent in one area. That has been the hard thing this year, I have been essentially setting my own curriculum; everyone says 'Draw, draw, draw' but draw what? In what order? How do you build up your skill from nothing/ very little? So a lot of the time you have to keep yourself in check.

A few things went wrong. For one I labored over it too long but I did take breaks. Also, yet again, the importance of knowing how your materials behave raised it's ugly head. I was drawing with a Chamios leather cloth, rubbing in the gesture and then using that as a guide to do a more accurate drawing. After that, you pick out the lights with a putty rubber and then add your core shadows. But even though I used a good paper it was impossible to rub out the lights back to the white of the paper. So the drawing is mostly shadow and mid value because I couldn't get the highlight tone.

I did another small test on Bristol board and that seemed to rub out better. I considered using white gouache to paint the highlights but I wasn't sure it would look right and I decided to leave it and put it down to experience.

More Tonal Studies

 Some more tonal studies this week, all John Singer Sargent. Some didn't photograph so well as I took them in a bit of a rush, sorry. Some more successfull than others, in general all are still way too overdone, really they are supposed to be simple maps of the tonal values in a picture but I can't quite stop myself making them into finished little drawings.

 And little they are, comming in at A6 in size. I had originally thought that this would keep me from trying to finish them too much but nope...still do. I have to stop myself being so fussy with them. Trying to add too much detail at this size with charcoal is just too difficult, the third drawing was a real problem and took way too long for what it is.

  But I enjoy these, they're very good for learning, my next sketchbook might go up a size to A5 to help but I'll have to be quite diciplined that this doesn't lead to me putting in even more detail. A recent class taken by painters Linda and Barry Atherton suggested breaking the whole picture into three basic tones and that's the way I've tried to start these. I find my darkest dark and block that in fairly early; it means that if you get it wrong your drawing is hosed but I find although you're meant to build a drawing upwards in gentle steps, if you don't commit at some point you never will. I don't however block in the lightest light until the very end, in fact a lot of paintings I've looked at are quite restrained in how they use highlights.

Still here

Just a quick update to let everyone know what I have been up to recently. Apart from digging a lot of snow I'm glad to say that I'm still drawing; I finished my first sketchbook in years last month and have started another. On a recent trip home I found a lot of old sketchbooks from art college that were unused, so I decided to put them to good use (one can be seen in the backround of the picture). I'm trying to move away from just anatomy study and get into painting more and I think some more masterworks studies in charcoal.

Life drawing in Leith kind of fell on it's butt a bit. I knew there was a period in the middle of the term that I wouldn't be able to attend due to other commitments and after that it was difficult to go back. In fairness I had already pretty much decided that class wasn't for me, the time (Saturday afternoon) wasn't good with a 6 month baby to look after and I hated the fact that they didn't have decent equipment. The atmosphere wasn't amazingly friendly when I was there, I prefer Maryhill- just a shame it happens to be in a different city :/ When I went to wasps in the evening last year I liked the time of the class but not the format, anyway that class got cancelled. The search for a figure drawing class continues.

It's also been a hell of a month for books, not only animation but I splashed out and bought a set of John Singer Sargent books. He's my favourite painter by far at the moment, I think I can learn a lot from him. They are beautiful books but it just so happens that some of my favorite things in them are little study sketches and thumnails that aren't very large in size, bit of a shame. Nothing better than putting the feet up with a cuppa and flicking through them for inspiration. There are little nuggets/ hints to his working methods which are really interesting, He seems to use a yellow ochre/raw umber mix for his ground which I like and will be trying out.

Influence Map

Doing the rounds on Deviant Art at the moment is the notion of doing an influence map of the artists that inspire you. I recommend doing one, it's good fun and a nice trip down memory lane. Though, I admit looking through all my Disney reference was kind of depressing as my dream was to work for them...and I didn't get there. Write ups are comming, they take a while- keep checking back :)

1. Bruce Timm- Originator of the Warner Brothers Batman Animated style, Bruce Timm is heavilly influence by the work of Jack Kirby but is a true original. The two things I love the most about him are the fluid quality of his inking line and his marker sketches in colour. Do you know how good you have to be to colour in marker? His skills are off the chart. I hate him.

2.Glen Keane-  Is a supervising animator with Walt Disney studios and when I was at college studying animation was pretty much my all time hero. I love the energy in his drawing, a lot of animation drawing can be quite tight and technical but his is the polar opposite. The Art of Disney's Tarzan is above my desk and I still read it all the time...I don't quite know what to say about him except that his talent is sickening. When I was finding animation difficult I'd look at his drawing and it would remind me to persevere. 

3. Star Wars- Being born in 1978 I am a Star Wars baby. I've specifically shown Empire Strikes back as it was my favorite movie and also one of the first movies I saw in the cinema (I remember my Dad having to read the title sequence because I couldn't read). When I was younger I wanted to build space ships for movies like Star Wars when I grew up. It hasn't been bettered, all the design work in the Star Wars originals is stunning and hasn't dated in 30 years. Empire still looks more impressive than most modern sci fi movies, including the terrible prequels.



4. Disney-


5. Darwyn Cooke-

6. John Singer Sargent-


7. Andrea Del Sarto-


8. Aliens-

9. Paul Felix-


10. John Watkiss-

Don't Stand Directly In Front of the Model

A slightly unsuccessful life drawing session this week, though I think mostly due to feeling ill than the usual artistic reasons. I had a problem this week in that everyone turned up early and booked their spot on the quick pose floor- so no quick poses- darn.

I decided to go for a long pose and set up pretty much directly in front of the model. I had an inkling this was a bad idea but it got worse once the model was set up and posed. At home I've been enjoying drawing twisting torsos and dynamic poses but today....completely flat pose and it kicked my butt back to 800 BC. Of course if I had the abiltity I could twist the drawing a bit to make it more interesting but I'm still focused on getting a fairly accurate drawing on the canvas so I'm not there yet. Pelvis and torso where straight as an arrow and at my particular angle quite a few of the landmarks where hidden by cloth. Eventually I will make these up out of my head when I can't see them but at the moment that really threw me.

Oh yes and I got my leg muscles mixed up, I thought I was looking at tensor when I was looking at the Satorius; that's odd I thought, how it doesn't connect to the trocanter...em that would be because it's not remotely the right bloody muscle you dimwit.

The drawing below is from the week before. It's not the best drawing in the world but it does have something that I'm trying to get into my work. In true me style it was done in the last 15 minutes of the 4 hour day after struggling quite a bit. I figured out I wasn't enjoying how pastel handled on my cartridge pad so I switched to newsprint and...there it was. I do seem to get quite badly affected by the materials I use, sometimes it just doesn't feel right and it all goes downhill. My thought process is a lot better now though, I constantly think about what I'm doing, I know what I'm looking for, I don't always get it right but it's in there and it's getting easier gradually. In the beginning I just drew without knowing what I was doing.