Tom Gately gives us every tuesday at the Gesture drawing Class here at Pixar, some print outs of Walt Stanchfield’s notes. They are true nuggets of drawing knowledge and great food for thought. Here’s an excerpt that seems quite fitting for SketchCrawling. “Your Sketchbook can and should contain both writing and sketching. Memories are often useful in creative work. Present day experiences are worthy of recording, saved and savored. Jot down only the pertinent details. Sketch scenes, expressions– make comments beneath the sketches. Describe people you know and meet … ” – Walt.
Talking about notes on sketchbooks, I did some this morning on a five minutes subway-waiting-sketch. I didn’t have the time to do the dark colouring of the main tunnel you can see on the right side of my mole-skine … thinking about that, the saying of our former minister for foreign affairs (Joschka Fischer) came back to my mind: “It’s not the light at the end of the tunnel you see, it’s the lights of the encountering train coming up to you …”
So sometimes the notes in my books are as big as the sektches – maybe the text should be called ‘illustrations’ of the pictures instead the other way round 😉
http://static.flickr.com/36/97673404_789196df17_o.jpg
That’s what I am trying to do with my journal…though I am still kinda shy to completely show it to others ^_^” By the way, quick sketches made with pencils in the field can be completed later and made more precise with a felt pen or it’s like cheating on something which should be left the way it is?
… well, I did complete the left one in colours back home 😀
Maybe wou might want to wipe out the written lines, you do not want to show – thereby you still might preserve some privacy on your sketches.
Regarding “cheating”: Is there any right or wrong beyond “I like it like this or that?” Or “…it will suit me more or less?” 🙂
Thorsten- very nice man …
aoi and Thorsten- well yeah there is no cheating … unless you’re tracing … 😉 But the difficulty is not overworking something. Your unfinished drawing might be much more interesting than something colored and finished … That can be tricky and certainly subjective …
That said I do take photos of things I can’t watercolor on the spot. But 90% of the times I end up watercoloring something later is not that good … or at least not as good as it would’ve been if I had done it on location.
It’s the same thing as drawing from a photo of something …
E
I know when I have a photo sitting in front of me, either to color from or draw from, it’s a totally different process than when I’m drawing from something that’s actually present. With a photo I get all caught up in the detail, trying to get everything perfect – because the photo isn’t going to move, ever, so I’ve got all the time in the world. It turns into an overworked mess.
I think ‘cheating’ is subjective, because the only time I’d say that going home and inking or coloring or whatever was ‘cheating’ was if you were going to pass the drawing around and say you did the whole thing on the spot. Even then, what does it really matter? You’re the artist, you can do whatever you want to any of your drawings…
Personally I think colerase non-photo blue pencils are ‘cheating’, but that’s just for me – I hate those things. I like my underdrawings.
It’s really great of Tom to pass these on. His drawings are phenomenal and i can imagine his teaching is very much the same. Great stuff starting the sketchcrawl Blog Enrico.
J
Enrico – thanks!
the three of you – YEPP, it’s my over-doing with which I ruin my drawings. Good luck, my girlfriend from time to time looks over my shoulder “screaming” “STOP, please stop it, what are you doing to that picture …” 😉
emma – I am not that familiar with the word “colerase”? Is it anything about ‘colour’ or ‘cole’ or ‘erasers’ … last one would be my favourite, because you might want to erase those pictures discribed 😉
I think your intention matters as to whether you go back over drawings done on the spot. When I look at drawings I’ve done in my sketchbook, the drawings take me back to the exact time and place as I was when I drew them. That’s one of the great things about traveling with a sketchbook. But if I go back and “fix” the drawing or inhance it in some way it seems to dilute that instant recall.
Neither way is the “right way”, it just depends what you want the result to be.
INHO,
C.
Thank you everyone for your thoughts! I also tend to over-do my drawings and I don’t know whether it’s useful for the result. I am sharing some pages of my journal at http://aoisart.blogspot.com/
Critiques and suggestions are welcome! 🙂
I’ve been reading those notes from Animation Meat and they’re quite inspiring.