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  1. Sketch-a-Day #15

    January 23, 2011 by Collin

    This one almost didn’t happen:

    Sketch #15

    I bought LEGO Rock Band for Heather that day and we played for a couple of hours before she went to work, then we started up again when she got home. Before I realized it, it was 11:30-ish and I still hadn’t done a sketch. Since rockers and rocking was on my mind, I went with a rocker of sorts. He rocks sorts.

    Something that I’ve noticed about the way I draw, if it has to do with any kind of person or person type thing, is that I generally start with the face/head. I should try to break away from that.

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  2. Sketch-a-Day #14

    January 22, 2011 by Collin

    Once again, plans are a-changin’. I know. I’m a fickle bitch. I decided after that last post that grouping several sketches in one lump kinda takes away the anticipation of the project. But I also can’t get my shit together enough to scan and post every day… what to do?

    I know! (of course, otherwise what would be the point of this nonsense?)

    I’ll set up a queue of posts to drop every day at 6pm that will show the next sketch in the progression. This means I’ll be posting work that was done several days before, so it’s always going to be a bit behind. Rest assured though, I’m keeping true to doing at least one sketch every day. This will also allow there to be a new post every day.

    I think this can work…

    So, here is sketch #14:

    Sketch #14

    I’ll start this off by saying that this wasn’t at all what I’d planned when I started. Actually, that seems to be a common element to any sketch that I draw from my noggin. Very few end up looking like what I had in mind from the start.

    For this one, my daughter and I decided to draw a demon. I was off to a good start with the face, and the horn on page right, but then I drew the horn on the left and f’ed it all up. I mean, look at it. Since I’m not allowing myself to erase I had to move on. I started to sketch out the neck (a shorter version of how it ended up) and then BOOM! It all fell apart. I couldn’t get my earlier mistake out of my mind, so I basically gave up on it. The falling meteors in the background are my desire to destroy it all.

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  3. Sketch-a-Day #13

    January 14, 2011 by Collin

    What is it now?

    Ah. A sumo polar bear. Of course. What else could it have possibly been? If I knew, it probably would have been something else. This just happened to be the first thing I thought of and I was running out of time.

    I switched to using the built in image uploader instead of placing the images from my Smugmug account. It’s faster that way. If you want to see the image larger, just click on it.

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  4. Sketch-a-Day #9 – #12

    January 13, 2011 by Collin

    Instead of messing with the dates of the posts, I’ve decided to post them in bursts. I may change my mind; I may not. We live in an uncertain world.

    Sketch #9

    For some reason I got it into my head to try drawing Mario. Originally I was going to draw it from memory, but remembering the dog faced gorilla from the other day I realized that my memory is at best suspect. So I pulled out my copy of the Wii game “NEW Super Mario Bros.Wii” and drew from the cover.

    Here’s what I drew from:

    And here’s how it turned out:

    I notice that I’ve fallen back into an old drawing habit of mine… drawing stuff narrower/longer than it really is. This mainly happens when I don’t spend enough time looking at what I’m drawing before starting to draw. One of my instructors said that, when drawing from life, you should spend 80-90% of the time spent on the drawing just looking. It really helps. It would have helped here.

    Sketch #10

    Once again I found myself casting around for inspiration. My eyes fell on a pink stuffed animal that Heather bought. She bought this animal because her nephew has one, and it’s his favorite stuffed animal for ever and ever until it’s not any longer. His isn’t pink. He calls it “cweepy monkey”.

    Here’s Pink Cweepy Monkey:

    Again, I didn’t spend enough time looking before starting to draw. Still, it turned out truer to the original than Mario did.

    Sketch #11

    This is just something that was in my brain and had to get out.

    It likes you. I can tell. Welcome it into your brain.

    Sketch #12

    I’d been thinking about doing this for a few days now. I decided to start numbering the sketches using the Julian calendar. It’s just easier to keep things organized when they go numerically all the way to the bitter end.

    That said, here’s a sheep on stilts:

    Lastly, sketch #7 is posted below. Enough time has passed that I’m not as fond of it as I was when I made it. Although I’m still thinking of doing a better version at some point.

    Side note: I put together flash movies of all five of the Totem Game results. You can watch them here.

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  5. Sketch-a-Day #8

    January 8, 2011 by Collin

    Tonight I thought, “How about seeing if I can draw a gorilla from memory.” I should be able to manage that. I’ve seen gorillas.

    It started off well enough, and then I got to the face and made the discovery that apparently I think a gorilla looks like a dog.

    The more lines I added, the worse it got.

    At this point I could have broken out the trusty eraser, however right then I decided that I’m going to do the sketches without erasing. Mistakes happen and it will get me further out of my perfectionist mindset if I allow myself to make those mistakes and try not to worry about them. As long as it doesn’t paralyze me and keep me from starting a drawing altogether, it could be a good thing.

    I’m also going to mark the time that I spend on each sketch from this point on. Unless I forget to check the time before starting.

    I may also switch to a larger sketchbook. I seem to keep running out of room at the bottom of this one. It’s only 6.5″ x 6.5″. Luckily I don’t have a shortage of sketchbooks to choose from. As much as I don’t like to sketch, I sure do have a lot of sketchbooks.

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  6. Sketch-a-Day #7

    January 7, 2011 by Collin

    This one is a sketch that has been worked a bit further into a “quasi-finished” drawing* for a game I take part in at the Very Serious forum. Since it’s part of the game, and I don’t want to spoil my portion of the big reveal at game’s end, I don’t have anything to show you right now. The game is located here (linked to my most recent – at this time – post where I say that I’ve sent my piece to the moderator).

    All I had to work from was the itty bitty thing at the bottom left and the color blue. The itty bitty looked a bit to me like a Fisher Price person. One thought led to another and I made Fisher Price Rapture.

    Once the game is over, I’ll update this post with the picture. I’ll also mention it in the most current post once it’s done so that you aren’t left guessing (unless I haven’t posted again before the reveal, in which case look downward; there should be a picture).

    As a tease, I’ll tell you that the reply from the moderator was, and I quote:

    “*dies laughing*

    That’s amazing!”

    Look at me, giving you something to look forward to.

    —-
    I say “quasi-finished” because, due to the nature of the game and the desire to be speedy with my piece, I spent a fraction of the time that I would normally spend on finishing up a drawing. So it’s still quite rough/raw.

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  7. Sketch-a-Day #6

    January 6, 2011 by Collin

    Almost the same conversation as the one on the 5th happened tonight. Only it happened at bedtime, and I still hadn’t done a sketch. I wasn’t going to, either. But Jordyn showed me her drawing, and the fact that she’s so committed to us doing this project made me decide to hurry up and sketch *something*.

    The theme she chose for herself was “breakfast” and I decided to stick that theme as well. This was done fast, so it’s a bit sloppy, but I think there’s actually a decent idea in there that I may revisit sometime in the future and actually turn into a finished drawing. If I do, I’ll be sure to let you know about it.

    Here it is, the sketch that damned near wasn’t made…

    Sketch 006

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  8. Sketch-a-Day #5

    January 5, 2011 by Collin

    The next night Heather asked, “What did you draw today?”

    “Nothing.”

    “What are you going to draw?”

    “Nothing. I quit. This is stupid.”

    To which Jordyn said, “You can’t quit! Come on! Let’s draw something!” (or words to that effect)

    *sigh* “Fine… Let’s each draw a voodoo doll.” So we did.

    I liked how the head came out, for the most part, but the body really went to shit. The moon was a last minute addition that was better off not added. I just didn’t feel like erasing it.

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  9. Sketch-a-Day #4

    January 4, 2011 by Collin

    Ugh. I don’t know what was wrong with me. Other than, there are just some days that I don’t feel like drawing. This was one of those days.

    Believe it or not, it looked better in my head. I mean, how could it not?

    When I was finished, I looked at it. Looked some more. Decided that I actually don’t know a damned thing about drawing, suck at everything I try, was going to quit this stupid “challenge”, and went to bed.

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  10. Sketch-a-Day #3

    January 3, 2011 by Collin

    Let’s just jump right in, shall we?

    At first it was just the popsicle. But I felt it needed more… So I crammed in an alien bug-like… thing. I blame “A Christmas Story”.

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