User:Tripletsdrew

I like to draw
Fashion meets Function Friday May 29, 2009 One of the 'other lifetime' careers I might have had (other than astronaut, architect or palaeo-linguist) is industrial designer. It frustrates me that everyday objects are often so very ugly and poorly designed - often you can't even say 'function over form' because sometimes their functionality is questionable, too! So you can imagine my astonishment when I came across an Issey Miyake vacuum cleaner in a store yesterday. It was apparently created as part of a 'collaboration' between Dyson and Miyake. The process is documented on a section of Dyson's website devoted to the project, and includes some concept sketches by Miyake's creative director Dai Fujiwara. They're oddly functional drawings, with little artsiness about them. There are no fashion sketches displayed; rather a series of calico garment prototypes, so I wonder if the designers are working directly with fabric, sketching three-dimensionally as it were, or if they've just chosen not to show their sketches. To be quite honest I'm not sure that fashion and function were particularly well served by this strange union, but at least it's a change from designer perfumes and racing-car computers. I wonder if Beatrix Ong would make me a nice blue wheelbarrow? Comments (0)Permalink Watch Your Grip Thursday May 28, 2009 How do you hold your pencil? Do you sketch with the side of the pencil, oh-so-lightly, or do you have a steely grip that drives the point through the paper? Or perhaps a left-handed hook that leaves a trail of graphite smudged across your paper? Hopefully you've found some happy medium between these extremes. While there's no point in change for change's sake - if your pencil grip is working for you, leave it alone - but if you've got any sort of problem with your drawing technique, it can be helpful to take a look at varying your grip. Depending on your artistic aims, a different grip might help you to be more controlled and precise, or to loosen up. Different grips allow you to minimize or maximise the the effect of paper tooth or grain. Don't experiment when you're halfway through a drawing, but use some scrap paper or a sketchbook page to explore mark-making in its own right, try different effects, and see what you can get out of a small range of pencils. Try drawing a simple subject holding a pencil in various ways: close and relaxed tripod grips, inverted tripod grip using the side of the pencil, and even using your 'wrong hand'. Look at some typical grips in the article on how to hold a pencil. Comments (1)Permalink Do Some Gestural Drawing Tuesday May 26, 2009 I was just about ready to head-butt the computer thisafternoon. I'm updating my horse-drawing tutorials, and found that constructing a horse with neat little circles and squares just doesn't work. "I just DON'T work like that!" was the thought bouncing around my brain. On reflection, the fact is, we DON'T work like that. Especially when we are talking about a living, breathing, organic being - despite the fascinating constructions of Renaissance artists, we are mostly made of vague curves, not straight lines and circumferences. Sometimes simplifying is useful, for sure. It can help to find those clean, essential shapes that go together to make a structure. But this isn't the only way to draw. When we are sketching and observing from life, our eyes often explore the form almost randomly. Our gaze moves energetically around and across the subject, and our hand follows. We selectively apply pressure so that not all the lines traced by our eye and hand actually appear on the page. This to me is a more natural way to draw, and it's how I usually approach drawing myself. Communicating this in a way that makes sense in a step-by-step online is another matter, of course. If you're struggling with drawing something realistic, and find your drawings always look stiff and harsh, try doing some gestural drawing, have a bit of a scribble. Explore with your eyes and let your hand follow. Let the drawing emerge organically, rather than bolt it together mechanically.

Gesture Drawing Lessons: Gestural Drawing Quick Poses in Figure Drawing Blind Contour Drawing Pure Contour Drawing

Comments (2)Permalink How to Draw Hair Sunday May 24, 2009 Drawing realistic-looking hair is surprisingly easy, though it can be time-consuming if you're going for fine detail. The trick is think of the hair in sections or ribbons, and to observe the way the light falls across the suface of these sections. Don't fall into the trap of drawing every single strand as a line. This tutorial shows you How to Draw Short and Long Hair. Give it a go - just draw a rough skull and focus on working on the hair, as an exercise, rather than adding it to a complete portrait. You can post your efforts for feedback on the Drawing Forum