I Can't Draw a Circle

Fellow patrons at Borders cafe

2011-04-15T23:41:00.002-05:00

Haven't done any 100% digital sketching lately so I had a go with it at the cafe in Borders. Tried something new with toning and I think it came out nice, I'll have to do more digital toning to all my sketches. Autodesk Sketchbook Pro 2011 (worth the upgrade for the blending modes!)

DirtyGirlsRally

2011-04-14T12:44:00.000-05:00

A racer friend (Christy Carlson, right) asked me to draw a picture for a t-shirt. The car and driver on the left (Brianne Corn) is the team I co-drive (navigate) for!

Drink & Draw April 10

2011-04-11T09:55:00.003-05:00

Sketches done last night at the Drink & Draw at Flying Saucer in Dallas. Both done with red Col-Erase in my 8¼"× 5½" Hand Book sketchbook (worlds better than Moleskine!), the second was inked over with a Zebra brush pen (fine point? the gray one)

Last Tree on Mars

2011-04-04T01:58:00.002-05:00

This was one of the last kinds of tree to die out on Mars. The large trunk stored up plenty of water in the increasingly dry conditions.

Ink in sketchbook. Initial sketch done in Col-Erase Carmine Red (and looked much better!) Copic F01 drawing pen, Zebra super fine sign pen, water brushes with mid-tone and black washes.

Copic sepia fountain pen

2011-04-02T10:58:00.004-05:00

Playing around with a Copic sepia fountain pen I got a couple weeks ago. I love it, except the point is a little too fine for this kind of sketching and the ink keeps running nearly dry. It's supposed to be waterproof but it bleeds just enough to make some nice washes with the water brush, perfect for this kind of sketching. The drawings probably look larger than the real versions, the super fine point inspires tiny scratches rather than bold strokes.

Quick sketches at the park (cut short because my almost-4-yr-old was being, well, an almost-4-yr-old)

More sketches later while watching TV. Mostly from imagination but inspired by people I saw.

PS. I have a new son less than 48 hours old. Toby Alexander, 8 lbs. 1 oz., born 9:39 PM March 31, 2011. Welcome to the new kid.

Another year

2011-03-28T11:59:00.006-05:00

Another year come and gone without posting anything. Sigh.

I updated my list of DFW sketch groups to include a new uptown group and link to the Visual Arts Guild of Frisco which hosts figure drawing workshops from time to time.

Here's a couple girls I drew last night at the Drink and Draw DFW. The black thing growing out of the left girl's head is me splotching the ink by accident before it was dry. Pen & ink wash (left), 5"x8"; pencil and watercolor (right) 5"x8".

Cupcake War

2010-03-07T13:55:00.002-06:00

Done at Dr. Sketchy's Dallas, Sat. Mar. 7. Yes, he really did sit there with a cupcake on his face for 5 minutes! Ink and wash, 10"x10".

DFW Sketch and Life Drawing Groups

2010-02-26T21:26:00.022-06:00

If you live in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and are looking to get out and draw or paint with other artists, there's a number of opportunities, but I've found the information is scattered all around and often out-of-date. So, I thought I'd try and consolidate a list of some chances for us artists to just get together and draw.

Some require a fee which I've noted. Since this is about community, I'm pretty selective about the classes listed here; they'll be limited mainly to model sessions with a "show up at the door with your money and sketchpad" admission policy.

Let me know if this list has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate...

Drink & Draw DFW
Hosted by Jose Ramirez; meets bi-weekly, currently Sundays at 6:30pm, at various locations around the Metroplex such as the Flying Saucer (Addison) and Big Racks BBQ (Grapevine.)
Facebook
Blog
Twitter

Uptown Dallas Sketch Group
Meets bi-weekly on Tuesdays at Cafe Express in uptown Dallas with occasional special events.
Meetup

Dallas Sketch Club
Informal, social drawing group. Hosted by Lucas Puryear at Richland College cafeteria, bi-weekly, every other Saturday 2-5pm. (Currently inactive)
Facebook

UTD Little Concept Workshop
Sketch/painting group (roughly weekly, location varies) focused toward drawing for concept and fantasy art. One or more subjects are given for the attendees to focus on, and in the future they hope to add some figure drawing to the mix. Meets usually on Saturdays 7:30pm - 9:30pm.
Facebook

Dallas Artist Networking Group
Hosts a variety of artist meetups including monthly socials, a weekly "Friday Night Creative Circle", gallery shows, and a (roughly) monthly ArtLoveMagic with music, poetry, etc. I haven't been to any myself, but I know some who reguarly like to attend and sketch.
Meetup

Tarrant Artist Networking Group (TANG)
An extention of the Dallas Artist Networking Group (DANG), they organize a (roughly) weekly meetup at Roots coffee house in North Richland Hills, though the date and time seems to move around a bit.
Meetup
Facebook

Figure Drawing:

Cedar's Art Gallery
Traditional life drawing sessions which favor long poses-- often a single pose for two to three weeks-- though they occasionally do shorter poses (e.g. 10-20 min). Thursdays 7-9:30pm and Sundays 1-4pm, $20 session fee. David Terry and Paul Labadie run mailing lists; contact me for their email address.
Web site

Dr. Sketchy's Dallas
Monthly life drawing, usually Sunday 4-7pm, featuring "fringe culture" models such as burlesque dancers, roller derby girls, and the like. $10 session fee.
Web site
Blog
Facebook
MySpace

Dr. Sketchy's Denton
Monthly, usually on Sunday nights at Banter Cafe on W. Oak St. $10 session fee.
Facebook
MySpace

The Society of Figurative Arts (TSOFA)
Michael Mentler teaches life drawing classes in Carrollton from the model every Tuesday and Wednesday, with weekend "crash course" workshops. The web site is (or at least seems to be) eternally out of date, so you may want to contact him to verify class times. $30 normal class ($25/class when purchased in groups of 10), $185 weekend workshops.
Web Site
Michael Mentler's online sketchbook
FACES & FEATURES
Tuesdays 11:00a to 1:30p
FIGURE DRAWING
Wednesdays 11:00a to 1:30p
Wednesdays 7:00p to 9:30p

Visual Arts Guild of Frisco (VAGF)
Occasionally runs weekly series of figure drawing workshops.
Web site (events)

On the Internet and abroad:

Sketchoholic
Featuring "Chiustream" with Bobby Chiu sketching, chatting, and voting on viewer drawings at the end so draw as you watch. Very motivational and addictive! Every Friday 4-5:30pm CST. Also hosts live interviews with professional artists and illustrators (times vary).
Web site
Live stream
@bobbychiu on Twitter (announcements when the live streams start, as well as upcoming interviews and contests)

SketchCrawl
Worldwide, quarterly, grassroots event started by Pixar story artist Enrico Casarosa. A day set aside to walk around and draw! DFW isn't always well-represented, so if you don't see anyone organizing something then feel free to start your own thread on the forums.
Upcoming dates:
SketchCrawl #26 - February 27, 2010
SketchCrawl #27 - May 15, 2010
SketchCrawl #28 - July 31, 2010
SketchCrawl forums

Defunct (groups that died out, but you can keep your eyes on them in case they pop up again):

DFW Sketch Group and DFW Sketch Group Northeast
Informal, social drawing group. Meets bi-weekly, Saturdays at 1pm, with alternating locations: Borders cafe in Lewisville, and Half-Price Books community lounge on Northwest Highway off US-75 in Dallas.
Meetup
Update: As of Aug. 5, 2010, this sketch group has been cancelled. The group's page on Meetup will still be active for a short time.

Greater Fort Worth Sketch Group
Not sure if they host it, but they regularly advertise a weekly Drink and Draw at Mellow Mushroom at the Bluebonnet traffic circle off TCU campus, Mondays at 6pm, as well as other sketch meetups.
Meetup
Mellow Mushroom Fort Worth on Facebook
Mellow Mushroom Fort Worth Happenings
Update: Mellow Mushroom's Drink and Draw has been cancelled until further notice as of March 22.

Dallas Sketch Group
Used to meet on Sundays 11:30am-2:30pm at the Half-Price Books on Northwest Highway off US-75, but died out about a year ago.
Blog
Facebook

Figure Drawing (Meetup.com)
This was hosting open model figure drawing sessions but ended a while back. I used to have a link in case it came back but I think the hosting site dropped it completely.

Plano Figuredrawing and Painting Group
Short-lived figure drawing group in Plano on Meetup.com. Meetings were scheduled for Sunday afternoons/evenings but died out to lack of interest.
Meetup

Drink & Draw Feb. 21

2010-02-22T20:19:00.001-06:00

Great fun last night at the Drink & Draw in Grapevine. Even had time to do a few sketches...

Roussillon

2010-02-15T15:56:00.007-06:00

Roussillon, France. Roussillon is very... red. It's a famous source of ochre pigment. I think there must be a law or something stating every door in Provence must be painted light blue. 22.9x30.5, watercolor on Strathmore paper.

Great Basin National Park

2010-02-04T16:24:00.005-06:00

Ugh... yes, well, I may redo this one since I do at least like the scene, and make it less "busy". From imagination, inspired by a TV show I watched on Great Basin National Park. I've never actually been there though it looks pretty cool. Watercolor on Strathmore 300gsm paper, 22.9x30.5.

Using metric makes it look like I know what I'm doing...

Southside Sunset

2010-01-25T19:23:00.004-06:00

Still trying to get a good grip on this beast called watercolor, should only take me a few more years...

View from my parents-in-law's back yard of H. Neely Henry Lake near Gadsden, AL. 9"x12", watercolor on Arches 140 lb. paper.

Wilson Creek

2010-01-21T16:04:00.003-06:00

Going to commit to trying to do a painting every day. Can't promise I'll post them all though ;) Here's one to start.

Wilson Creek near Towne Lake Park in Mckinney, TX. Watercolor on Strathmore paper, 9"x12".

Watercolor landscape practice

2009-09-14T02:19:00.008-05:00

Did a few watercolor sketches tonight. I've got a long way to go, but they turned out better than I expected. Both are, um, about 4" x 7" I think.

Inspired by a photo I saw, modified a bit.

Looked up some reference photos for the bridge itself, otherwise from imagination. Need to get out and do some real plein air location painting. Um, so yeah, the truck is there to cover up a "slip" of the brush.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Back to it

2009-09-01T13:19:00.008-05:00

Ok, so, I've been doing other things lately but it's time to focus on teh artz again.

I'm sure I've seen something like this before so nothing original. I was going to have her hold a teddy bear in her left hand but I decided it would be too cheesy and cliche so the Thermos instead. Hey, a girl's gotta have her coffee. The gun was originally going to be an M-16 but then I realized it would look too obvious that I did it from memory and screwed it up, so I just sort of made something up. I used my Space Pen, my favorite pen that I lost and just found. I've since lost it again.

I keep calling myself a "painter" but I never get around to it, so there, a watercolor sketch in the Moleskin. Probably should have used some of the proper 140 lbs. paper I had with me considering how much I layered and worked it, but hey whatever.

Some disembodied heads, digital. Haven't sat down with the tablet and sketched while watching TV in a while, should do that again soon.

More disembodied heads, from the sketch group that meets bi-weekly at CiCi's.

So, near as I can tell it, there are two types of "professional" or semi-pro photographers that I've run across. The first are people who think they're artistic but are too lazy to learn to properly draw or paint, so they take a bunch of photos and run some Photoshop filters on them. The second are people who truly understand the strengths of photography vs. other media like painting and choose it because of, not despite, the differences. If you want an example of these guys, try Joe McNally. Since I don't want to be like the former and I don't care enough to put in the incredible time and effort to be like the latter, I think I'll give up on doing "serious" photography as an art itself, and just be content taking above-average snapshots and using it as a tool for other media.

Another sketch dump

2009-06-24T15:09:00.006-05:00

It's been too long— almost two weeks! Here are some of the better recent sketches:

More concepts for my vaporware graphic novel when I was at Coffee N Cream in Allen, TX. The girl on the left is the main protagonist; she is roughly 16 years old and (at the risk of giving too much away or making it sound a little cheesy) is being trained as an assassin by a small group of rebel freedom fighters. This costume needs a ~~little~~ lot more work, though I liked the vest I sketched a while back so I went with it. But her look overall is probably the closest I've gotten yet to where I want to go. The story is set on another world, with two very different cultures, so I have a LONG way to go.

I like the woman on the left— one of the few times I've pictured something in my head and it turned out almost exactly the same way on paper ;) Ignore the little girl, I can't draw children to save my life. Check out the mullet on the guy in the middle, some sort of artsy nerd guy. He was with the 40-ish guy on the right— it must take literally decades of practice to slouch as much as he was, my sketch doesn't even do it justice.

More sketches, some from real people, some made up. The shirt on the girl on the left sort of confused me; it was longer in real life and I drew it (somewhat) properly, but then I made her hips too low below the hem of the shirt, so her torso is too long. Oh well. I covered it in a bunch of shading and tone to hide it.

Both the previous two were done also at Coffee N Cream, but this time at their downtown McKinney branch. They call the Allen one their "flagship" store but I like the one in McKinney better, it's a little more quaint and quirky. Here are a couple photos:

And one last one from Lucas' sketch group at CiCi's last Wednesday:

Playing around with some shapes and design in tiny thumbnails. I like the tall round guy in the middle with the ranger hat, kinda reminds me of Bill Plympton for some reason.

As usual, I need to push myself and do more finished pieces instead of these rough sketches. I got a bunch of new watercolors, maybe I'll get off my duff and do some paintings. I've been amazed recently at the watercolors of Keiko Tanabe, check it out!

"Up" mini-review (and more sketches)

2009-06-13T17:29:00.008-05:00

I finally got around to seeing Disney/Pixar's Up in Disney Digital 3D and enjoyed it thoroughly. I didn't think it was necessarily their best work-- I thought a few others such as The Incredibles and Wall-E were better, and Toy Story 2 still tops my list-- but still a must-see. I was pleased to see that the 3D effect, which was almost painful to watch in the previews, was more subtle and convincing in Pixar's short and the feature. Unlike some naysayers, I believe that whatever is lost in 3D viewing is more than made up for by the sheer "cool" factor, and I don't feel that being in 3D distracted at all from the story. The brilliance of the colors does suffer with the glasses, and during fast movement the image still flickers a lot while your eyes and brain adjust. The story was good; very moving and touching, but still just "good". It's ironic that their most successful characters to date (in my opinion) have been the most unlike their primary audience, namely a robot (Wall-E) and a grumpy old man (Carl).

"Partly Cloudy", the short preceding the movie, was a solid B- for effort. A little too saccharine for my tastes; it lacks the bite of Geri's Game, still in my opinion their best short to date. With a short film format, they have such an opportunity to push the boundaries, but they keep making "safe" little cutesies like this. Still, it had a slightly unexpected ending-- always a plus in my book-- and the cloud effects were pretty amazing from a technical and visual standpoint.

On further thought, only the first half of Wall-E was better than Up. The second half was pretty lame and cliche.

Moar skeches! The first three are from the DFW Sketch Group today at Border's in Lewisville.

Kinda reminds me of Radical Edward. Didn't turn out too bad considering I didn't have a model to draw from. Do you know how hard it is to find a good sketchbook with toned paper? This is not one, by the way. This is kraft paper, which is basically what they make grocery bags out of. It tends to crumble and fall apart when worked or erased too much.

Some sort of cowboy demon hunter fellar. I guess I had some old manga/anime in my head when I was thinking of him.

More half-hearted concept work for my graphic novel idea. I really need to just sit down for a few days and pound these out instead of piecemeal here and there.

Tribal-inspired woman, did this at the Drink & Draw this past Wednesday. The storm chased everyone away, it was just me and Jose R., and then Jose E. showed up a little while later.

More heads while watching TV from earlier in the day before Drink & Draw... I really like the one on the top left.

A Present for Mommy and Daddy

2009-06-10T15:12:00.005-05:00

She just can't wait to show her family what she found!

The little girl didn't turn out quite as young or as stylized as I had hoped but still looks all right, I guess. I think maybe the cranium is too small (or face too big), and the neck is probably too long as well. I was going for a watercolor look but I guess to get that you need, you know, watercolors. The airbrush tool in Sketchbook Pro looks like, surprise, an airbrush.

JP's Drawing "Club"

2009-06-08T16:59:00.005-05:00

Went to Panera Bread (Eldorado @ 75) today from 12 noon until about 2:30-ish and sketched. I'm committing to myself to do this weekly, so even if I keep being lazy or hesitant to draw, I MUST drag myself out then to do it. Panera worked ok today, though I think I may wait around until closer to 1 P.M. to avoid the lunch rush. Actually I'll probably head to the Cafe Brazil next door next Monday, I love bottomless cups of coffee. Figuratively, not literally.

Would love to have some company too when I draw so if that time's not good for you drop me a line and we can get together sometime. I'll probably keep doing the Monday 1 to 3-4-ish thing since it works well for me, but I don't draw enough, so more is good!

Playing around with some character ideas for a graphic novel idea I've had kicking around for years. Decades, really, I was thinking about it in high school. And how much have I done on it in all that time? This page...seriously. Anyway, since I have nothing else inspiring me at the moment, I'm going to actually put my nose to the grindstone and get it done. Obviously from the drawings I have forgotten nearly everything I ever knew about anatomy.

Some stuff I was warming up with. I was trying to get something Michel Gagne-esque. I failed epicly. Is epicly a word? Well, this certainly is failing epicly.

My Animation Reel

2009-06-07T00:49:00.037-05:00

I took down my professional site a few months ago (when I was doing some part-time photography) and I don't have my demo reel publicly available so I thought I'd post it here.

I'm experimenting with a new Flash video player, please give me any comments you have on using it. The display of the videos has been reduced to fit the page but they are streaming at a higher resolution; I recommend clicking the full-screen button in the player.

Full Reel, 1'30", 12.1 MB. Click here to download the movie if the Flash viewer does not work with your browser.

Short Reel, 0'30", 12.1 MB. Click here to download the movie if the Flash viewer does not work with your browser.

Shot lists for each reel and what I did on each:

FULL REEL
a. 0:05” (3D) “Camelidoo”
b. 0:07” (3D) “TAGG the Dog” spot 1 (1)
c. 0:12” (3D) AAFES “Terminator” (1) (3 shots, rigged/animated robot dog)
d. 0:19” (2D) AAFES “Western” (1) (2 shots, rigged/animated cowboy)
e. 0:23” (3D) “TAGG the Dog” spot 2 (1)
f. 0:27” (3D) “Dollar Bill”
g. 0:29” (3D) AAFES “Western” (cont.) (1)
h. 0:30“ (3D) “Camelidoo” (cont.)
i. 0:45” (2D) Walk cycle, polar bear
j. 0:47” (2D) Run cycle, ostrich
k. 0:48” (3D) HD Greetings “Lightning Bug” (animated bug) (1)
l. 0:51” (2D) “Old Growth”, entry in 24-hour “Savanijam 2006” competition
m. 0:58” (2D) “Here’s Mud in Your Eye”, animation with existing characters (2)
n. 1:05” (3D) “Lightning Bug” (cont.) (1)
o. 1:12” (3D) “Dollar Bill” (cont.)
p. 1:17” (3D) “Camelidoo” (cont.)

SHORT REEL
a. 0:02” Excerpts from student film, “Camelidoo”
b. 0:12” AAFES “Terminator” — rigged (custom) and animated robot dog (1)
c. 0:14” AAFES “TAGG the Dog” Christmas spot 1 — rigged (using Setup Machine) and animated dog (1)
d. 0:17” AAFES “Western” — custom rigged and animated cowboy (1)
e. 0:22” HD Greetings “Lightning Bug” — animated main bug (1)
f. 0:24” AAFES “Western” (cont.) — rigged (custom) and animated cowboy (1)
g. 0:25“ “Dollar Bill” — animated with pre-rigged “Lo-Man”

Footnotes
(1) prop. of Corgan Media Lab, LLC
(2) Timon and Pumba characters © Disney

Many thanks to the other talented individuals who also contributed to the parts of the shots I didn't work on (modeling, lighting, rendering, and the like)!

Industry Giants 2009 with Dr. Sketchy

2009-06-06T20:51:00.013-05:00

Yes, I know it's been a while. I won't even bother to "catch up". Always look forward, right?

Lots of life drawing this week at a Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School "mini" drawing session at The Soda Gallery in the Bishop Arts District and then a full session with the same model (burlesque dancer Ginger Valentine) at the Industry Giants 2009 CG developer's conference the next day. Industry Giants also sponsored a drawing class with the Society for Figurative Arts' Michael Mentler which was good since I have been meaning to go to some of his classes for a very long time and this gave me a taste of what I've been missing.

I love drawing with my Sakura Pigma brush pen! My only complaint is that the ink always looks very washed-out. Would also be kinda nice if you could wash the ink like watercolor, but waterproof has its pluses too. The yellow is the natural paper color of the Moleskin sketchbook I'm trying out. That's a circular saw sitting on the table; they were running a contest for "best incorporation of 'hardware'" in our drawings. I loves me some non sequitur!

Playing with a mix of my Lamy Safari fountain pen and watercolor.

Michel Gagne (one of my favorite artists), Jason Manley (Massive Black, ConceptArt.org), and Jay Hawkins (Senior Concept Artist for Gears of War at Epic Games) were there at Industry Giants, as well as several other very talented CG artists. Very inspiring, gotta hit the drawing pads!

DFW Sketch Club Meetup 2009-02-14

2009-02-14T16:47:00.000-06:00

Had fun meeting some other artists at the Borders in Lewisville. Ended up chatting almost as much as drawing, but here are a few I did. Will I ever draw anything again besides disembodied heads? Hmmm...

That red I used looked like ColErase red on my tablet but looks almost DayGlow pink here. Maybe a color calibration is out of date or something, need to look into that.

The Doctor

2009-02-08T19:36:00.000-06:00

Some sketches while I watched a marathon of Doctor Who that's been accumulating on my DVR for weeks...

This guy started as an "experiment" in inking (to say I suck at inking is one of the understatements of the year) and I ended up shading in some too. The beauty (and curse) of tone and color is that it helps cover a multitude of drawing sins...Also, some sketches of my son, and some girl sketches from a couple days ago.

Working on it...

2009-02-05T00:29:00.003-06:00

Yes, I know, nothing for a few days...I've done a few pages of sketches (not enough, certainly, but some) but nothing worth showing. Working on setting aside blocks of time for focus on drawing rather than just squeezing it in whenever I have time and/or "feel like it" (which is rarely, to be honest).

They're not drawings, but I do have some photos of our trip down to meet my parents in Austin and San Antonio. Some turned out nice:

http://flickr.com/photos/jprowland/sets/72157613340815823/

One of the great things about photography is the really extreme ways that the camera sees that the eye doesn't -- I just love wide angle and telephoto shots (you'll see few examples of a "normal" focal length in my photographs). Just so you know, it's a complete myth that you can point a camera at something and capture it the way you saw it ;)

Samurai

2009-01-24T01:23:00.000-06:00

I ran across an amazing collection of vintage photos from Japan and decided to sketch one of them. I think maybe I'll use them as inspiration for some Jedi character designs; who can ever see enough different Jedi? I know I can't...

My samurai has clearly been eating too much sushi and sake and stopped working out since the original photo was taken.

I'm trying to work "al prima" and put down opaque colors directly, particularly as color practice for when I ever get my lazy rear end around to doing some pastels again.

Fish

2009-01-20T20:40:00.000-06:00

Fish...

Coffee Shop Sketches

2009-01-19T19:32:00.000-06:00

Visited a new coffee shop, Coffee N Cream, in Allen. Nice place...

2009-01-18T20:18:00.001-06:00

Random doodles last night while watching TV. Trying to work more with basic designs and reduce things down to simple line and shape.

Starting to kind of get back into the swing of things...kind of...

It's the Progressive Insurance girl!

2009-01-17T16:01:00.000-06:00

Actually I think her real apron is white.

Random creature sketches:

Screwing around in Painter...

Sketch dump 2008

2009-01-17T15:54:00.002-06:00

Hey folks! I'm starting up a blog to hopefully motivate me to draw and sketch more. Sadly, I did precious little in 2008, but here are a few I did in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro 2009 (and maybe a little Photoshop or Corel Painter) soon after I got my TabletPC, a Lenovo X60 (a fantastic little convertible pen-abled laptop).