Sketch Diary: How many gestures can fit on a page??

Gestures are so wild, to me. I like to set a timer (started using Quickpose and it's THE BEST) for 60 seconds or so and just see what happens. It helps loosen up the hand, helps you see things for what they are as a whole and not get lost in the details, and sometimes helps you feel super accomplished cuz hey! you just drew 10 things! That's 10 things that helped you learn. 10 things that moved you forward. And usually, I find I get at least one jem out of it that I then use in a more finished drawing later.

You can watch me draw!

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with love - M

Sketch Diary: Black Sails - Charles Vane (plus video!)

--Click here to check out what I've been up to on youtube--

Who doesn't love a good pirate portrait?! This one was more challenging than the Captain Flint drawing I did. Maybe I'll just do everyone in the series. Well... everyone but Eleanor. She doesn't get anything. Yeah I'm bitter.

Black Sails - Charles Vane

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with love - M

Sketch Diary: Ink of Hey Boi

--Click here to check out what I've been up to on youtube--

It's usually relaxing for me to ink, since it tends to require less thought than sketching. But I was really tense when I inked this so I ended up needing to go back over some lines a second time. Gotta keep it loose! Clean but loose.


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with love - M

Sketch Diary: Colored ink of Raleigh

--Click here to check out what I've been up to on youtube--

I wanted to play with using my brush pens to ink something instead of straight black. Joel liked the original sketch of this drawing. I think I agree? Not sure. I like color. I definitely smeared his poor eye though, you can catch that goof on video below.

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with love - M

Sketch Diary: Captain Flint portrait

This was a ton of fun to draw. I don't draw from life or from reference much. Trying to change that. And this particular drawing I did in honor of  my fav dude's birthday. Hope you like it at least 10% as much as he did hehe.

Black Sails - Captain Flint

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Rainbow ink Pearl fan art

AH! I love Pearl. And all of Steven Universe, really. But I really like how cute this looks in rainbow ink. I used brush pens here. BUT... I also inked this while standing with my big easel. It was very interesting since this drawing is in my mini sketchbook. I had to straddle the easel a little so I could get close enough to the sketchbook. That's why some of the lines are super wiggly. Good learning experience. Will definitely try both the rainbow inking technique as well as the stand-up easel again.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Punk lounging in the grass

A quick ink practice in my mini sketchbook. I love the high on the hip straps with low waisted jeans look.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Big ears don't care

Sometimes you just gotta draw weird ears. I was playing with the pose and I'm sad to say it didn't survive my goofs. But still a fun drawing.

with love - M

New drawing video! Ink of a sassy lady

--Click here to check out what I've been up to on youtube--

This was in my smaller sketchbook that I keep at my desk. I was kind of tense when I recorded the inking, not sure why. But I ended up not detailing as much. Looking at it now, I wish I'd just taken it a bit further. Good learning tool, though.

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with love - M

New drawing video up! Floofy hair portrait

--Click here to check out what I've been up to on youtube--

Don't ask me how but I managed to make time to sit down and do another one of these. I must really like doing it. The act of recording makes me get out of my head a bit more and look at my drawing with a bigger lens instead of getting stuck on little details and neglecting the rest of the page. The video editing part is fun, too, because I'm learning new things and playing with a new medium.

The one tough part is lighting and getting the webcam setup properly. But I think I have a system in place now that works for me. It takes less time to set up each time I do it. Trying to get good lighting for a pencil sketch is tough though. I tried setting my light to full brightness and I end up getting blinded by the white of the page and my eyes ache afterwards.

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with love - M