Well, this may be helpful. I worked with videographer Hiromi Sogo to give y’all some sense of how I manage, or try, to sketch people who are not posing but rather engaged in some activity. This I do and have done, as those who follow me know, for more than four decades. This practice has helped me in many ways, but greatly in one in particular. When I had the chance to draw in court, I was already up-to-speed with capturing people in motion.
Here are close ups of the drawing used in the video: just a note, when transferring the video to this platform, some of the soundtrack drops out; a glit I look to correct and avoid in future videos. Learning curve stuff, my bad.
As mentioned in the video, I number the drawings in the order they were begun. To my eyes, there was a lot of “meat on the bone”, I.e. an interesting looking dude holding great poses about concentration, wearing a shiny, puffy jacket made more dramatic by the raking light that accentuated surface features with the cast shadows of near and mid distant structures. Drawing multiple perspectives or postures on the same page makes the transition from one position to the next easier as the subject moves and/or returns to a similar posture allowing you to add or complete the drawing. Afterwards, it also makes for better side by side comparisons since you’re not flipping back and forth to compare and contrast drawings.
You can see the preliminary or searching sketch for which I used a light Flesh tone. That establishes the general silhouette and will be a place holder if the subject suddenly moves just after I’ve begun drawing. I managed to knock in a good deal of his face and hair but he moved before I could get to his hand. When he returned to this pose about 45 minutes later, my “notes” were in place and I was able to pick immediately where I’d left off.
Evident in these drawings ing s is my use of several tools, one very important amount them are my fingers as you can see the marks left by my fingerprints.
Those fingerprints create hatch marks that are quite distinct from the hatching created with a stylus be it pen or pencil. Varied marks have great appeal to me in that they can enrich the drawing and their combined effect is to increase the descriptive nature of the marks. But another, very crucial reason I draw with an array of different tools is to take advantage of the inherent attributes of a given tool and by doing so save myself time. Most important in drawing a dynamic subject where you’ve no idea when your subject could move or altogether leave, is to draw efficiently. Why overwork a small nib when a big brush affords greater coverage. Fingerprints create multiple hatch marks simultaneously that are also very difficult to emulate with the stroke of a pen. An inky finger will come in handy if you should want a smudged tone. Add to this collective of mark making, a variety of hues and the drawing gains in richness and description. For the combined effect simply examine the close up below of figure #5.
Drawings were done done with a Faber-Castell Basic Black Leather fountain pen filled with DeAtramentis Document Black Ink and F-C Pitt Artist Pens on a Stillman and Birn Gamma Series sketchbook (S&B is now a subsidiary of Clairefontaine) which takes ink and pencil nicely and can handle watercolor, plus has a little pebbly surface that creates nice textures when smudging or scumbling.
Working with various fountain pens filled with DeAtramentis Document Black Ink and Pitt Artist Brush Pens in Stillman and Birn Gamma Series sketchbook. #draw #urbansketching #stillmanandbirn #fountainpen #deatramentis
Went to see the screening and discussion of the film FIRSTHAND: Gun Violence, at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership. On stage we’re two of the five panel members, Dan Protess, producer and director of the film and Reality Allah, outreach worker for READI Chicago. FIRSTHAND is a 15-part digital series that follows the perspectives of five Chicagoans living with firsthand experience of gun violence in Chicago.
The gentleman on the right, Reality Allah, spent 20 years incarcerated and has since his release vowed to dedicate his life to reducing violence. He is now an outreach worker for READI Chicago where he uses 30 years of his experience and knowledge to engage men at high risk of violence with transitional jobs and cognitive behavioral therapy and to connect them with other critical support services. He is featured in the documentary series FIRSTHAND: Gun Violence.
At last night’s panel discussion Reality Allah said that a billboard for the documentary was erected in south Chicago with his face featured. When he saw the billboard, he realized it had been placed five feet from where he was arrested prior to beIng incarcerated for 20 years.
When I’m working in a sketchbook I like and am having fun, I hate wasting paper so, I will work and rework pages that are full of doodles only meant to quickly demonstrate a technique. Occasionally, those pages become real exploratory exercises on imagination and improvisation. This was just such a page. Pitt Artist Pens on Clairefontaine Goldline sketchbook. Below are shots of the page as it developed.
More from the online graphic short story, The Java Knot. “She got on just north of downtown. Black and White save for the bit-lip pout matching that large purse of hers. Now I’m not a fellow that often takes liberties, but I treat myself, now and then. The bag in fact was black. And sure, it’s shiny leather surface was a compliment to the noir sheen on the Prince Valiant hairdo that was busy channeling that iconic doll in those Irving Klaw portfolios. But for me, for the sake of that proud little fleshy porch beneath the sharp punctuation of a nose, the black bag had to go. I slid my hand into my satchel, came out with my marker and let it‘s red ink gush generously over her designer knock off. It was late October and Day of The Dead was upon us, but I’d bet my accrued airline points the Congo line of death heads that traipsed around her hoodie and down her sternum, was a three season parade. Sometimes, a subject’s sixth sense will kick in, and I’ll have eyes rise to meet mine. But neither the wiggling crowd on that jostling train car nor my gaze pulled her bronzed eyelids up and away from the same device that filled four fifths of the focus of the passengers. For the remaining 15 stops that face, which held not a glimmer of last summer’s sun, was slack save a couple times when her nostrils flexed and the corners of her mouth pulled slightly deeper into her cheeks. I hold that we are tribalizing as a society. And, many wear their tribal identities as fashion. So I play this game as to whom will exit at which stops. The Gold Coast, Cottage Grove, Wicker Park, South Side, Logan Square, Wrigley Field, Cermak. Will the guy in blue business attire with tan cap-toe shoes and Tin Tin haircut depart at Bryn Mawr? Will the art nerd jump off at Harrison? The buttoned down duo of Asian post teens discussing Hayek, they’ll leave at Foster. But there’s a region that draws the nondescripts. The stylish young woman with fur collar, knee-high riding boots, large silver Tibetan earrings beneath glamorously highlighted mane gathered in an impromptu knot and sporting a large linen book bag with the beret capped face of Che printed on it. The six foot plus middle-aged black woman wearing copper lipstick, a leopard skin pillbox hat, gloved in fingerless purple velvet, ankle long black lace skirt, John Lenin glasses and reading an Ursula K. Le Guin novel. The broad Hispanic dude with the no nonsense face, meaty hands, neck tattoos, multiple earrings, burnt orange Longhorns baseball cap, maroon leather jacket, Chuck Taylor high tops, and chef’s pants. In the nether region of north Chicago, as the train slows for the Loyola, Morse, and Jarvis stops, they rise. She rose too. Here, the tribal signifiers bleed and blend. Out into the night, leaving the tube lit morgue blue and metal of the train car, her face of white went. The doors closed. The train slid north and I saw her black bangs heading down the platform stairwell. But I never recall seeing her shoes. No recollection. I spent the remainder of that night, and the next afternoon conjuring and drawing, with the help of several large cups of hot cocoa, the possibilities of footwear. How I managed to miss that, escapes me.”
Drawn with Pitt Artist Pens and fountain pen filled with deAtrametis Document Black Ink on a Romeo unlined Ivory journal. The figure was drawn while on the CTA Red Line, the shoes were drawn from online references. Disclaimer, no lab animals participated in this drawing in any way. Further, this was drawn by an artist who is a frequent consumer of tree nuts and legumes.
