solo mini sketchcrawl

After listening about Sketchcrawling on friday I really wanted to do one, so, yesterday I wake up at about noon, and I'm not really in the mood for a sketch marathon, but I had some movies to return to blockbuster and having a broken bike and no car, I thought I might as well go by sketchbook and feet.

So..

random aggies: and another one of my fav. trees:
if beautiful women were trees this would be one:



First I went to the SCC to scan the last's post's drawings,
while I was there I sketched, and debated about where
to eat lunch:



I decided on Taco Cabana, which is sort of on the way to blockbuster...


(click on the maps to go there on google maps)

So I walk through this field and decide to sketch plants,
but my "financial aid" pens that I picked up the day before
really do suck as the lady told me, so, I goto office max and buy
some blue 12/1$ pens (on sale), then I go to Barnes and Noble and
sketch people there:



After B&N I eat at Taco C. while reading a good book on aesthetics

Then move on... sketch myself in a store window...



Return my movies....


Head towards the neighboring parking lot




And sketch a telephone pole and street light in the parking lot,
wander south, sketching trees and plants



About now I pick up this strange looking thing I'll call a brain-fruit, which I sketch, and take a pic of with my cell phone(along with an interesting flower):



Let me know if you know what they are called.

So, I end up here...



....and draw the backs of these stores, which was fun,
and perhaps the best sketch of the day:



during all this I'm listening to Ennio Morricone, Moulin Rouge, and (to complete a natural list) some Douglas Wilson sermons.



So I head over to Sweet Eugene's Coffee shop to sketch people,
and on the way I sketch a car and a tree, and see the Sunset:






While sketching people, I get 'noticed' and pointed at by a group of people, who proceed to randomly stare at me at take my picture with a flash. Keep in mind, this is College Station, Tx, where any art has shock value.

As I grow tired of sketching, I run into "a geek with reasonably good social skills" and have some good philosophy/theology conversation.

The End.

trees

These were done Friday morning around 2am, by streetlights.


"The patterns of the scribbled multitude of twigs and the matching gaps of designated light in sequence to the movement of the limbs were as much a song as mine. This was the earth, its trees in their multitude of beauty, twigs to branches to trunks, brimming with voices about to break into speech. I was in a grip greater than my mother's hand, and tears of laughter leaped out like the presences I expected to see.

One presence was here, I knew, as I turned with my face raised, in the trees and sky, and in the earth that held me as I turned. The presence had put all this in place to instruct me about myself and the complications of the love I felt for Him."

-Larry Woiwode as quoted in Ariel's blog post.

A Tree

Sketching people has been frustrating lately. But today I passed this tree standing perfectly still, with a sunset lit building behind it.


After scanning it I painted the building and sky behind it in photoshop (with a bloody mouse, as I didn't have my tablet with me)

Drawn and painted while listening to Medieval Songs of Love and Death by John Fleagle, you can listen to them for free at that link.

Also, an interesting observation on trees I heard yesterday in this interview with Darren Aronofsky:

He points out that trees are fountains moving very slowly, as they pull water and other things up from the ground and shoot them out in the form of branches and beautiful leaves that then fall down and decay at the base of the tree.

Susanna and some oak trees

the last tree

Dystopian novel cover, anyone?

Painted in photoshop, drawn w/ ball-point pen:



I still find it difficult to draw the left side of trees. I remember Oliver Sacks writing about people with brain damage who couldn't eat the left side of a plate of food, but I think my problem is just that my hand is over the trunk when I draw the left side.

zombies

These are some Zombie illustrations I did recently for an online novel. Not having the drawing skills to draw a zombie outright, I mined my sketchbooks for people family members and friends I could modify into zombies. I then imported these as planes into bryce and made dystopian environments. I also used trees and cars form my sketchbook and pulled the telephone poles from a previous project. I was pretty happy with the above, as it was all made from scratch. I have also found Picassa great for certain kinds of post work. The bottom two use photos I took + the zombies.

first tree of the new semester

Drawing trees is like figure drawing, you have to remember that the tree is alive and that this is indeed a dynamic pose where limbs are thrust out and trunks twisting with the stress. Some limbs must be tired, some flexed. In the life of a tree there is a lot of motion. They are fountains after all.

Unfortunately, I've never taken a figure drawing class. The trunk seems wrong on this one. I think I need to do gestural drawings of the tree first.

It got dark as I drew the left side and started to rain as I finished, so the left side looks a little hurried.



"The wonder is that we can see these trees and not wonder more."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

the treehouse tree #2

I gave this to my sister Bethanie for her birthday. There is another drawing of it here.
These are some thoughts I wrote after drawing it:

Once again I realize that I must draw as a person and not as a machine, that choosing a point of view from which to draw the tree is important, and that I can draw this tree much better then other trees because I know it, and I know it because I love it. (I grew up in, under and around it). Or perhaps I love it because I know it. Can you know truly with out also loving?

the tree john deng helped me climb

I drew this at night, (it has a light right under it.)

I remember standing at the base of this tree after unsuccessfully trying to climb up the trunk. Just then my friend John Deng walked by and gave me a boost. It was a Saturday morning a year and a half ago.

I think Moby is my second favorite music to draw trees to, just under Philip Glass and above Beethoven.

Here's some quick mouse photoshoppery.

Susanna and Michael on the way home from church....
...bowl of grapefuit and palm trees while getting gas...

... Dad about to pray...

...window of David's Bridal waiting for my sisters to pick up bride's maid dresses...

a tree and drawing instruction online

This is one of the beautiful live oak trees I grew up with, in, under and around. (for scale, it's probably about 35ft tall)
Check out Rebecca Kimmel's paintovers and tutorials. Also check out her Artistic Anatomy and Figurative Art forum at Cgtalk.com

The Structure of Man

Hours of video instruction on drawing the human form from memory. Over 100 short lessons on youtube.

two trees

I'm not happy with the composition, but it was fun.

last week's tree painted

(click for hi-rez)
Painted in photoshop with a wacom graphire tablet.
And this time I did leaves too. Painting trees is fun.

Oct 12 and 13

Oct 12 (that's one of my fav. trees)

Yesterday in class, I borrowed a pen from some one, but it was a much nicer pen then I am used too, so it was hard to get used too. I prefer cheap ball-points.

and then at the Aerospace engineering picnic which I happened to walk by:

It was fun, even though they didn't turn out great. I didn't have a pen though, so I ran into the nearest building and search the floors for a pen until I found one.

I sketched the picnic while listening to this Iconic interview with Enrico Casarosa, founder of SketchCrawl.com (a sketchcrawl is a drawing marathon, something I am looking forward to doing soon)

Edit: I forgot this:

Art should be didactic as the sky and stars are didactic.
Paintings should be exactly as preachy as trees.