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July 1, 2009
June 26, 2009
Daily Doodle 6-26-09
The lesson for this doodle was to draw a shape cluster, put a border around the doodle and fill in the background with a solid black.
As you can see I chose turtles. (Maybe they chose me, who knows?)
I either have to start working with a braoder pen or stop being so detailed in my subject matter. My 30 minute doodles are taking longer than 30 minutes!
June 25, 2009
Daily Doodle 6-25-09
The lesson for this doodle was called Noodling ideas: silhouetting.
We were supposed to do a shape cluster and then fill in the shapes for a solid black. I was using a fine point marker, so my solid is a bit scratchy. But, what the hey, I figure it’s a doodle. We’re not aiming for perfection here, just the opposite!
I missed yesterday’s doodle because my kid wanted me to take her to City Museum with her friend, so I worked all day on my coloring page to make sure it got out into the world before I left for Denver.
I’ll be in Denver for the next 4 or 5 days, so there will be a space between posts as I will not have access to a scanner and I am trying to travel light! I hope to come home with a bit more in my luggage. Namely the winning trophy for the children’s book winner from the COVR Banquet. Wish me luck and happy doodling!
June 24, 2009
June 23, 2009
Daily Doodle June 23
Following up on the building blocks of yesterday, today’s doodle lesson was to draw an improbable or impossible object from bricks or stones. I chose bricks AND stones. Both cats decided they needed to help by crawling into my lap and grooming each other and my sketch book. Pushing them away or moving did nothing to discourage this behavior so the sketch is a bit lopsided. Of course, once the timer went off both beasts found something of the utmost importance they needed to attend to elsewhere.
June 22, 2009
Daily Doodle June 22
The lesson for this scribble was called ‘Building Blocks.’ The idea was to create something from dots, stippling or stubble. I think it has a rather Dr. Suess’ quality to it. Especially the strange animal creatures.
June 21, 2009
Daily Doodle 6/21/09
The exercise from the Bert Dodson book for today was tangles and shape clusters.
I got carried away. The lesson stated to do 6 to ten doodles, each slightly different, in the same ‘algorithm’ and then pick the one that was most different.
I ended up attaching all my doodles together instead.
I am taking this lesson as a two part one. After choosing the one which was most different (is that grammatically correct?) we were supposed to draw a new doodle which emphasized and exaggerated the difference. I will work on that for 6-22-09. If I can figure out where one doodle starts and the last one ends, that is.
June 20, 2009
Daily Doodle 6-20-09 Texture/Pattern
Texture and Pattern
I decided to use the lesson plan in ‘Keys to Drawing with Imagination’ by Bert Dodson. I bought this book a number of years ago because I felt my images were ‘ordinary’ and I wanted to make them extra-ordinary. (Always aiming higher) Chapter One in the book is titled Doodling and Noodling. It is a two step process. He tells the reader to draw a shape by ‘taking a line on a walk.’ Basically, the pen has to end up at the same place it started. He has the artist do this 6 times and then the noodling is to fill in the shapes with patterns.
This exercise took me an hour (maybe I need a smaller sketch pad?) so I combined the 19th and 20th into one post.
What do you think?
June 19, 2009
June 17, 2009
Daily Doodles
When I started the blog way back when, I had the intention of posting artwork every day - hence the name Daily Art Food. Well, you know what they say about good intentions.
I think part of my problem was in trying to make a masterpiece every time I sat down with the pad and pencil. It is just too much pressure and if the first few lines aren’t perfect, I often give up in frustration half way through and erase the whole mess. Not good.
This habit of perfectionism has left me with lots of half started and started but erased images, and a lot of blank sketch books. Rather counter productive to a daily art blog.
Yesterday my Spring issue of MO Scribbles (the quarterly newsletter for the local chapter of SCBWI) arrived in the mailbox. I always enjoy the 30 minutes or so it takes me to read through all the articles and new bites, so I sat down after a fruitless and frustrating day fill with software malfunctions and sullen teen-aged attitude. Ah. Me time.
A rare article for the illustrator graced pages 2 & 3. The title is ‘You Won’t Be Sorry’ written by Rich Davis. In it he suggests that an artist take a 30 minute scheduled “play time” and sketch whatever. Just drawing for the sake of drawing. No pressure to perform or creat anything but whatever you might want to draw at the moment. Similar to a writer’s stream of consciousness exercise.
He lists 8 tips for success. All 8 tips make perfect sense to me. When I read them, I shook my head wondering why I hadn’t come up with this on my own sooner. I mean, as a teen and in my early 20s, I scribbled many a nonesense drawing and filled oodles of sketch books with non-masterpiece works of art.
He concludes the article with another list. This one is called 10 benefits I’ve gleaned from this practice. None of the 10 items listed are earth-shattering, but again, they are things I’d like to accomplish in my daily practice as an illustrator.
So I said to myself, “Self, there is no time like the present.”
I grabbed my shiny new art pens. (Multiple sized markers in rich black permanent ink from Office Max no less!) and a neglected sketchbook and got down to business. Not business, but playtime. Let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?
Without further ado, I present to you the daily doodle page for June 17, 2009.
click on the thumbnail to view a larger version.
Rich challenged his readers to stick with it for a month. I plan to accept the challenge. And even if I cannot post my progress everyday because I will be traveling and away from the computer, I will carry the trust sketchbook and marker with me on my travels.
Here’s to 30 minutes of scheduled playtime everyday.
