s k e t c h b o o k

So hopefully this will be the last long-necked, bare-chested figure  plus avian companion that I’ll draw for a while.  He seems to accompany the kingbird drawing pretty well.

In my defense, the assignment was: “Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come.” – Chinese proverb

I think the image is pretty complete as both a b/w line drawing as well as full color w/ a range of values.

No, the image isn’t stretched. He does have a really, really long neck. I wanted his body to run off both ends of the page, so I took some anatomical liberties.  I thought that not being able to see his face brought more attention to his chest, where the tree is taking root. The main three curves in the image also reinforce this area as a focal point.

and home before dark. So before January ends I figure I  should post. Good idea, right? More on these images soon. Yes, soon.

Slowly but surely

they come at night

to snatch away your good dreams

and fill you with fright.

My introduction to e.e. cummings began in AP English when Mrs. Wilkins read she being Brand out loud to the class.

Oh boy.

I came across the kingbird poem a few years later during my senior year of college. I didn’t do any thumbnails like one should, but rather was just keen on getting the image out of my head and onto the page.

the original below, a quick pencil sketch blocked in with acrylic, ink, and colored pencil

Quite a while of time went by before I revisited the image. I decided to start with obtaining some reference for the figure. While no photo reference helped with stylization and simplicity in the original, I did want a little more character in the face.

new sketch relying on the reference, perhaps a bit too heavily…

While I didn’t really like where this was going, I had the urge to try a more traditional approach, working a bit larger on illustration board, rendering with charcoal and acrylic. More of an exercise to warm up the ol’ hand skills, I guess.

Pretty soon, though, I ended up wanting to get back to some of the stylization and shapes of the original.

I was pretty satisfied with this combination of rendered form and flat areas of shape. The next step was to color digitally, a process that I have been doing more and more of recently – with mixed results.

Does it really convey what the poem is all about? Perhaps not as much as it could. However, I am happy with the progress of the image and the final result. Always fun to see how things develop and change.

With the aid and gentle shove of a good friend, I’ve started this blog.

Here’s the game plan. This is a replacement for the website that I have not changed in over two years. Hopefully it will serve a few purposes:

1. to catalog and organize my images, old and new, along with useful resources, both visual and text-based

2. to aid in the development of my image making, both technically and conceptually

3. to have a track-able means of the frequency, intensity and time I’m putting into drawing.

We’ll see how it goes, folks.

Dickey Bird : 1, Maid : 0