Currently Browsing: Negative Space
Do You Stop Or Keep Pushing?
One of the things I’m asked most frequently by students is, “When do I know I’m finished with my [painting/sketch]?” I’ve heard many people give the flip response, “When you realize that you’ve gone to far, then you know you should have stopped.” It’s actually more simple and more complex than that. First, yes, if […]
Simple Approaches for Backgrounds—A Five-Part Series: Part 3 Patterns
This is Part Three of a five-part series on simple approaches to backgrounds in the visual journal and paintings. See Part One here. Today I wanted to look at pattern—it’s something that you can use to quickly fill up the background space around a subject. I’ve written about some of my favorite approaches numerous times […]
In Context: A Piecemeal Portrait of a Dog
Sometimes when I don’t like the paper in a journal I’m working in (here a Zeta Smooth, heavyweight journal from Stillman & Birn) I will sketch on Post-it Notes™ Sometimes I save those bits of paper and make a piecemeal portrait. (See the category list for additional piecemeal portraits.) See my four part review on […]
When Do You Stop? When Is A Drawing Finished
I think the number one question I get from students is: “When do I know my drawing is finished?” Most people aren’t going to like the answer. You’ll know after you’ve taken a ton of sketches past the point of no return. Here’s the thing, you’re asking a question that involves choices both stylistic choices […]
Relaxing and Sketching My Favorite TV Dog
Above: A Pentel Brush Pen of Swatch on Project Runway. Background texture—metallic stamp ink and stenciling. 8.25 x 11.75 inch Hahnemühle Nostalgie Sketchbook. Click on the image to view an enlargement—and look closely at the top eye, you can see Swatch looking. After avoiding Dick’s cold germs for about 10 days they caught up with […]
Project Friday—Improving Your Drawing Practice with Repetition, the Right Tool, Being Invested, and Celebration
Above: Practice sketches in a 6 x 8 inch journal using a thick, soft, solid, fiber-tipped black brush pen and Montana Marker (background) as well as a large, fat-leaded Lyra metallic pencil. I’m feeling around to sense the nuance in the pose, the angle of the eyes, the negative space that first attracted me, to […]
Sketching with Twin Cities Urban Sketchers in October 2016
Above: Working in my 8 x 8 inch Seawhite of Brighton Sketchbook I sketched the top of one of the old Brewery buildings in Indanthrone blue watercolor pencil (Faber-Castell) which I left dry. I blocked out the sky with a light blue 15 mm Montana Marker. Last Saturday Twin Cities Urban Sketchers met at the […]
Changing Your Point of View
Left: Brush pen and acrylic marker sketch in a Shinola Sketchbook. See below for additional details. I think it’s important when working in a series to change your point of view frequently. On this day I tried to get a handle on my friend’s features from a lower vantage point. Which makes sense because he’s […]
Making a Mess and Enjoying Every Moment
Left: 6 x 9 inch Canson watercolor board, with quick pen sketch—Platinum Carbon Black Ink Solid Brush Tipped Pen (worn down). There are some brush cleaning marks on this board, made by cleaning my white pen in the negative space, after I had infected it with color doing the next sketch shown below. Since there […]
A Different Angle on Myself
Today a selfie of a different sort. I was putting my shoes on and waiting for Dick to drive me to my massage therapy appointment and I was sitting on a “kids’ stool” left from Dick’s grandma, that sits in the kitchen. I thought it would be fun to sketch my feet. (In the 1990s […]