As promised, here is the entirety of the sketches done as part of my first sketchbook project. As a reminder, I started out intending to participate in Inktober for 2021 but due to some misunderstanding on my part I decided to do Drawtober 2021. That changed again at the end of the month when I decided to just keep going and finish out the book.
If you are counting, yes there are 49 pictures here. I had one page that I accidently left blank. I considered putting the blank page in just to be silly but decided against it. Enjoy the pictures, and seeing the progress.
Day 1
Day 2 – Project name revised
Day 3
Day 4
Day 4 again
Day 5
Day 5 again – more interesting
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17
Day 18
Day 19
Day 20
Day 21
Day 22
Day 23 – Quokka!
Day 24
Day 25 – Almost Hallowe’en
Day 26
Day 27
Day 28
Day 29
Day 30
Day 31
Day 32 – November now
Day 33
Day 34 – Cassowary!
Day 35
Day 36
Day 37
Day 38
Day 39
Day 40
Day 41
Day 42 – It’s a turtle
Day 43
Day 44
Day 45 – Platypus
Day 46 – that face
Day 47 – Preview of the next project
Sketchbook Project 1 – Originally to be Inktober 2021 and then Drawtober 2021
It has been a bit exciting around here this fall. I have been tackling projects and making so much art I am excited and stunned. No really. I don’t remember when I have done so many pieces of art, either full pieces or sketches in such a short amount of time and even so much in one day. I would credit both the daily sketch projects and the experimentation and use of a couple of new media.
Quick side note because someone will ask. And I just looked it up. If you are wondering why sometimes you hear or read media and mediums used regarding art and are confused here’s the explanation I just found. Medium(s) is the materials used to create art, such as oil paint, pastels, pencil etc. Media is the plural of medium, so they mean the same when it comes to art. I found the explanation here.
Now, on with my story.
I have been wanting to do more digital art, along the lines of drawing or painting, not just the 3D digital art I do. I’ve tried a couple of different programs, but I haven’t put a lot of time into really learning how to use them. As an effort to start to get comfortable in at least one of the digital art programs I took one afternoon and opened up Adobe Fresco and decided to make a cartoon like mushroom, or maybe a storybook type of mushroom. It came out pretty good. From there I tried taking a sketch I had made and set about recreating it digitally. Things were looking good, and I was thinking I might have found something that I could get comfortable with. So, I decided to take a sketch of a crooked Christmas tree that I did late one night and work it up as a digital painting. That became this year’s Holiday card and t-shirt.
Storybook Mushroom in Fresco
I continue to do pieces in Adobe Fresco. Most, right now, are quick sketch sorts of things since I’m still learning my way around all the brushes and layers and so on. Right now, I’m looking for a good fur brush for a couple of things I want to do. Even though I am looking for a fur brush, at the moment I mostly use the two basic marker brushes. Which leads me to my next new adventure in art-ing.
I’ve started using markers. I got a bug in my brain one night to try them. I think it came from a couple of things. One, was watching an artist drawing a Venom cover while basically being interviewed for Adobe Max this year. The other, probably has something to do either directly with Inktober or watching some artists on Instagram. At first, I thought I would just use the set of Prismacolor markers that I purchased several years ago and haven’t used. I thought that since I already have them, they would be a good place to start. And it turns out they work pretty well.
Christmas Stocking in Fresco
But I confess, what really intrigued me were the Copic markers. I’ve heard about them for a few years, even sort of looked at them one in the art supply store. But, as I was not using marker at the time, and they are not inexpensive, I didn’t bother to pick any up. I also couldn’t figure out what the big deal was about them. So, I did some research.
Here are the cool things about them. They come in three versions that all use the exact same ink. The Sketch version has the largest number of colors. At current count that would be 358. The ink is refillable. The nibs are replaceable. I was excited to see that they have four different colors of grey and each of those come in eleven different tints. Oh yeah. This is cool.
A little more research helped me understand why they are used by artists to create pieces. If you’re like me you use the markers you get at the local box store and try to color with them and you get all these streaks and such when your strokes overlap and if you try to fix it, it just makes it worse. So why use markers. It turns out there are two types, water-based, and alcohol-based. What you get at the local box store are usually water-based. They are less expensive as well. The Prismacolor markers I have and the Copic markers are alcohol-based. They behave differently when the color hits the paper and if you do it just right, they don’t streak like the water-based markers too. Oh, and they layer beautifully. The only downside to markers is that, unlike paints and many inks, they are dyes and not pigments which means they are not light fast. They fade when exposed to light for too long. They are great for creating a piece and then scanning it at high resolution and using the digital copy to create prints and other things from.
Frog created using Copic and Prismacolor markers
I decided I would worth it to pick up a small set of the Copic markers to try them out. And if they worked well, I have my Prismacolor ones that can help to fill in some missing colors until I get them in Copic. The one big difference between the two brands is that though they both come with a chisel tip on one end on the other end the Prismacolor come with a bullet tip, which is short and good for more detailed or more precise lines while the Copic comes with a brush tip for the other end, which is much as it sounds, longer, more flexible, like a round paint brush without the hairs. Because of the difference, and my tendency to really like control over what I’m putting down, I wasn’t sure how I would like the brush tip on the Copic. That changed considerable when I used them. Oh wow.
To start off I ordered as small set of Neutral Grey markers, that happen to come with a multi-liner pen. I thought they would be good to work in with the Prismacolor markers and would be a good base for some shading and such. But of course, I really wanted to give them a good try out. So, I chose a frog that I had done for my sketchbook project. It is mostly shades of grey with some splashes of color. I was able to use the Copics for the greys and the Prismacolor for the splashes. And holy cow. I was so surprised, and stunned even, at how well they handle and how well the piece turned out.
Christmas stocking created using Copic and Prismacolor markers
And now I’m hooked. I turned around and ordered another set of Copics the next day. This time a basic set of colors. I find myself looking for opportunities to use them. And I’m doing a bit more sketching with them, though not as much as I would like, or I hope to. That’s a time issue, and to some extent a limited color palette issue. Though, I do have the Prismacolor markers to compensate for the lack of colors I have in the Copic. I also have a couple of ideas I want to try out with them and another medium that I think could be interesting.
So those are my new adventures in art-ing. I’m really excited about working in these two new to me media and I will have much more to say on working with the markers as time goes on. It feels like they are opening up whole new opportunities for creation and I look forward to seeing what I can do with them.
Snowman created with Copic and Prismacolor markers
I took no time off after completing Sketchbook Project #1. I considered it, taking a short break. That was part way through that project. I was so focused on what I was doing that for a short time I entertained the idea of taking a little time before I started the next project so I could work on some other art during the time I was working on that sketchbook art. I’d done really good by setting aside the time to do those drawings so I thought I could use that time for other art instead. But ultimately, I decided against it. I had started a habit and I didn’t want to break that. I had also, already decided what the next sketchbook was going to be…Facial Expressions.
11/17/2021 – the first day
Many years ago, from early on in my drawing career I drew faces, portraits. I had an art instructor in high school who showed me how to draw eyes and it stuck. It took a couple of years before I really got to drawing portraits. I used to draw different celebrities, some singers, some actors, particularly from Star Trek. I found that I could go to events where the celebrities were and get them to autograph the portrait that I drew of them. It was cool. And fun.
So here I am, so many years later and I’m thinking about what I can do to improve my drawing and sketching. I’m not really in a position to try to take a drawing course, which I have done in the past. Then I remembered that I have some great reference books I picked up a few years ago. One of them is a book of facial expressions. It has several different models of different ages, ethnicities, and gender each making multiple faces or facial expressions. So, I decided that I would take a sketchbook and fill it with these facial expressions. And instead of just filling the sketchbook as quickly as I could, I would approach it like I did the first Sketchbook project. One a day.
The one a day keeps me from rushing through and it keeps me drawing daily which I am finding very important. It’s like practicing music or Taekwondo, too many days off in between and things can get rusty.
11/20/2021 – teeth
I try to choose expressions that will be a bit of a challenge. They have lots of teeth or are at an angle off from looking straight ahead. After I did a few, I realized that part of what does make this extra challenging, besides just the years since I have done portrait type drawing, is that when I was doing that work nearly all the faces I drew were forward facing with a fairly neutral look. Almost nothing in three quarters or profile. And I only remember one where the subject was smiling with teeth showing.
So far this has been a good exercise. It was a little rough getting started. Like I said, I haven’t done faces to any extent in several years. I think I’m starting to get comfortable again. At least it’s not taking quite so long to get all the main pieces in place. I tend to draw more by what I see, and, in the past, I have always started with the eyes. With this exercise I generally start with what seems to be the dominate feature of the expression. It might be the eyes or sometimes the mouth. I think I have done one that the nose was what I started with. Choosing to start with what stands out is making a big difference. It is less constraining. And it might be part of what I took from the last project, and I didn’t realize it.
And that’s the reason for doing these exercises. I adopt new methods and techniques and then carry them on into the next thing I do. Yes, I could learn some of this from a drawing course, or maybe not. Sometimes it really takes doing it to learn it. And it takes doing it to develop the working method that works best for each individual artist.
So that’s the current project. I’m working on a sketchbook full of facial expressions. The rules I’m decided on for this is to try to choose a picture of a different model and different expression for each day. Though I have used the same model twice a couple of times. I also try not to skip. So, the next model in the book is who/what I work from. I do this to keep from being too lazy and only using models or expressions that I think are easy to do.
11/25/2021 – more teeth
As with the last project, it doesn’t keep me from working on other art as well. In fact, I have definitely been doing that. I but to fulfill the requirements for this it has to be a facial expression in the sketchbook I have designated for the project.
As I said, I am working on other art as well. Both digital and non-digital. And I’m very excited about some of that. I can’t wait to share more. Which will likely be in the next post. I am closer to having all the pictures of the last project, or rather, Sketchbook Project #1 ready to post. So, keep a watch for that. For now, I’ve included a few pictures from the Facial Expressions project. Also, if you are interested in the book that I’m using for reference you can find it here on Amazon. I have no affiliation with Amazon and get nothing in return if you purchase from them or not so if you find the book somewhere else that you prefer to patronize, I’m all for it.
Remember that snowball? The one that was not very big rolling down the not very big hill. It picked up a bit of extra stuff as it was rolling. Some grass, a twig or two, and a bit of dirt. That is to say that while I got a lot of things done that I needed to over the last 10 or 12 days, everything took more than I expected. It either took more time or it required additional steps or both.
I did get quite a bit done though. Not only did I get the new holiday design published, and the store cleaned up, I also changed the header for the store. I’m working on a smaller icon to go where that grey store front image is, and it’s almost done. Changing the store header, and the fact that I put the website on the back of the shirts, prompted me to re-write the web page for SusanG Productions. It was on my list. I knew it needed to be done. And then when I remembered I put it on the t-shirts, well, it got done. I took a screenshot of what the site looked like before I changed it and then what it looks like now. I hope you agree that this is much easier on the eyes.
Old site design on the left – New site design on the right
I took care of some backend maintenance on the websites. I found out that a backup solution I had wasn’t doing what I thought it was, so I had to get that all worked out. The good news is that it comes with added security and now the sites say https. The frustrating part was everything that they, and I had to go through to get it set up. It took longer than expected. But it’s set up now and appears to be working as advertised.
I also decided to sign up for or join Buy Me a Coffee. It’s a little like a bare bones Patreon with the flexibility of allowing one-time tips or donations. The initial sign up was quick and easy but to make your creator page active you have to add a pay-out method. I filled that out, but it took longer than anticipated to get approval. Once that part was done the rest was quick and easy. Thankfully because as it turned out, when I went to add it to my blog things got a little wonky.
Stippled Giraffe
It wasn’t the Buy Me a Coffee plugin to WordPress that was a problem, though that’s how I found the problem. It so happens that I have been neglecting my widgets. Somewhere along the way, WordPress has changed how widgets work. Widgets are those bits you see to the right of this post. When I went in to add the widget for Buy Me a Coffee to the side list, I got a mess of errors. One, appeared to be related to the added security that I just got and was fixed with a call into my hosting provider. The other was due to my neglecting my widgets. Just trying to add the one resulted in a couple of hours of clean up and conversion of all the widgets from legacy widgets to blocks.
I dealt with several other things over the last few days that were much like this. I’m glad I was on vacation from the day job so that I was able to take the time I needed to get everything addressed as best I could. There are several things that I still need to look into and change, fix, resolve, adjust and what not. I’ll get to them. I just keep a running list.
At least, over the last few days, I have had an opportunity to also work on some art. I have my Sketchbook Project #2 – Facial Expressions that I have been working on. It’s another daily drawing exercise. I’ve done some experimenting with a different medium. And I created a full piece of artwork.
There is still a bunch of technical stuff that I need to work on. I’m going to skip that and look at some of the fun stuff, or more interesting stuff coming up.
I realized that I need new business cards. As much as I like the ones I have, they are running low, and I think I need something a little different. That involves new artwork. I have an idea to go back to something I’ve used for other things before. I still have to create it and see if it is going to be what I want.
I have my daily sketchbook project.
I still have plans to post the pictures from the Sketchbook Project #1. I know where I’m going to post it, I just need to get a little time to do the work.
I’m experimenting with working with markers as well as pen. I have some Copic markers coming that I want to try out. I have heard great things about them. It will be a new way of creating art for me, and I’m not sure how it will go. A new an adventure in art.
I’ll be posting on my Buy Me a Coffee page as well as here. For those posts, I’m going to try to keep it more art specific instead of the occasional random (hopefully not too rambling) things I sometimes post here.
I know there is more that I can’t think of right now. You’ll have to check back to see what’s next. Cheers!
It’s a surprise to me as well. I didn’t expect to do one this year. Then, this design happened and begged to be made into a card. The style is different than what I usually create, and I think it’s a bit more fun and whimsical.
As I was working on it, I realized that I was really loving the tree even without the decorations. When a family member mentioned they really liked that version as well, I decided it also needed to be made into a card.
