Never Give Up

“Don't ever give up. 
Don't ever give in. 
Don't ever stop trying. 
Don't ever sell out. 
And if you find yourself succumbing 

to one of the above for a brief moment,
pick yourself up, brush yourself off, 

whisper a prayer, and start where you left off.
But never, ever, ever give up.”
~ Richelle E. Goodrich

~~~~~~~

This drawing was done from the photo of a friend with the 

aid of a grid to help me get the proportions correct.

Happy Creating My Friends!

X ♥  O

 

Stepping Up To The Plate

A gesture drawing can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 or 3 minutes. I decided to set a challenge for myself and do these in one minute instead of two. I was surprisingly satisfied with my one minute gestures, drawn from the photos I posted here yesterday. I only wish I had drawn them a little darker so you could see them better. I used a soft 4B pencil held like a wand at various angles to the paper to draw. There is a beautiful, intuitive quality to a good gesture drawing. It has to happen so fast and it becomes so spontaneous that your left brain has no time to get in the way. 

I know I wouldn't have done so well a month ago! It's amazing how much practice everyday changes things, even if it's just for a few minutes! It is such an important skill to keep exercising. Drawing, like music or dance, is something that requires constant effort. "Draw, as much and as often as you can. When drawing lies fallow, the skill diminishes." ~ Gene Black

Susan and Vicki are really stepping up to the plate here this summer. Both girls sent in more sketches since yesterday's post and both are getting closer to the idea of "gesture"! Way to go! Lets keep the ball rolling here, gang.  Ten minutes a day will get you started. I encourage you do do these exercises again. Also do the 1/4 turn exercise with your own objects. There is nothing quite like drawing from life.

I'm going to post more about gesture drawing here all week. When doing it, we want to exaggerate movement, sloping quality, angles and length. When doing gestures in figure drawing class in art school, we would always draw a circle for the head and then draw a line down the page to the supporting foot. Here are some of my two minute gesture drawings from college to illustrate my point. We all (myself included) need to pay more attention to the internal forms and be less concerned with and confined to the outer contour.

More On Gesture Drawing

I got two elephant challenge drawings in already!  I am thrilled that a few of you are now jumping right in with these challenges. Thank you Susan and Vicki! Good job!! I hope you'll both try these again, once you read this post. And also, I would love to see you take it a step further and do a more finished drawing of a pose or two.

There seems to be a little bit of confusion between gesture and contour drawing here. Perhaps that is my fault for a misleading post yesterday where I did a blind contour drawing and posted a gesture challenge. Everything has a gesture, whether alive or inanimate. A contour is seeing the surface where a gesture is feeling the movement or action of a thing. See what Wikipedia has to say about gesture versus contour drawing here.

Today I did these four gesture drawings and I am posting another 1/4 view series of this deer figurine. Please feel free to do this also! These gesture drawings took about a minute and a half each. See how I tried to get the feeling down without being overly concerned with the outside edges. I hope some of you will try these exercises several times. It takes a little while to get used to drawing this way. Once you do however, it is a wonderful tool for warming up and getting the big shapes down quickly. Remember to hold your pencil like a wand as it frees up your whole arm and consequently, your interpretation of it.

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?

Why do the deer have to cross the road? Why do people have to drive so damn fast? Why don't people out here have deer whistles on their vehicles? We had a very sad situation here yesterday with a little yearling buck with two broken (almost severed) hind legs. How did he get all the way from the road into our backyard? Poor little guy. :-(

Deer Sketch

Today's quick sketch is of a deer mount I have in my studio. (FYI - I don't approve of trophy hunting and we did not kill this poor dear.) I think it is a beautiful specimen however.

Awe, Another Baby Deer

Today, here's another sketch from photos I took at the Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge. I also donated a small 5" x 7" oil painting of this little sweetie to the "Wine And Wildlife" event at the refuge last month. You can see the painting I did here.

Repetition

Here's Tuesday's Drawing. I sent it out to my Google Group last night right after I finished it, but I guess I forgot to post it here.

Tonight's sketch is from an oil painting that I donated last month to the Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge. I liked this pose, so I thought I'd try it as a sketch. It never hurts to redo something, because repetition is the key to mastery.

You can see my little 5" x 7" oil painting here.

Doe, A Deer, A Female Deer

I've got lots of pictures to use as reference of my favorite doe, so today's sketch is a portrait of Fuzzy Tail. She's got a little fawn hidden in the woods somewhere around here that we haven't seen yet.

Fuzzy Tail

Today's sketch is of one of the local does that visits our yard on a daily basis. Her name is Fuzzy Tail. We have known her since she was a wee baby. Although we can't get too close to her, she is not afraid of us and feels safe here. She can often be seen eating in the horse pasture or lounging around at the edge of the woods here at the Sandarosa.

His Magical Majesty

Today's sketch is of one of my favorite creatures, Handsome Stranger. I see him daily. He is a definitely a messenger from Spirit. Read the story here.

OK, I see I am inspiring a few people now! Lee Gates sent in two drawings today. She was a little confused but that's OK. She copied my sketch from June 2nd as the first challenge and later sent in her sketch of the current one. THANKS Lee, Good Job!