Tag Archives: drawing

Creating the Taxi Trailer Painting

This post documents the creation of a watercolor painting based on a double trailer I saw wheeling naked Ford Escape taxis through Hoboken. This will be the largest painting to date in my Trucks series. Updates are in reverse chronological order. June 14, 2013 I've got most of the vector art in place, including the taxis.
More

Drawing in Hoboken

The Impala in front of Carlo's Bake Shop I've drawn Carlo's Bakery in Hoboken a couple of times. The "Cake Boss" is right across from City Hall and there are benches facing into the street. Usually my pictures will include the crowd of people waiting to get into the little bake shop, but on this day I found an old Impala much more interesting.

Drawing People in Public

Hoboken Council Meeting
I've been challenging myself to draw faces whenever I have a chance. It's rewarding to find the characteristics that make us look different and see how expression and personality manifest themselves in outward appearance. Above is a recent drawing I made of some of the members of Hoboken City Council. More

The Endlessly Contorting Escher Girls

It seems that when women are depicted in action comics their spines turn to rubber, their breasts inflate and their feet taper to sharp points. Such is the world depicted by Escher Girls, a Tumblr that surfaces the most ridiculous depictions of female anatomy found in the latest comic books. The signature move on the site is the "Boobs & Butt Pose". This awkward maneuver allows the comic artist to render both the spherical breasts and the firm buttocks of his fantasy babe into one dynamic, über-sexy mass of body parts. The end result can look ridiculous to anyone with any familiarity with human anatomy. While the images usually depict the character fighting, the stance is completely unstable and not conducive to good attack or defense.
Some of the funniest posts swap male characters into the female poses and costumes to show just how ridiculous they are. Women in comics are often rendered as submissive tarts, contorted to the demands of a man's eye, while male characters are depicted as throbbing, steroid-pumped hunks of tense muscle. When the roles are switched the results can be hilarious.

Material for Instruction: John Ruskin’s Elements of Drawing

19th century artist and instructor John Ruskin founded a drawing school at Oxford University in 1871. Oxford has now posted his collection of images, notes and instruction into an immense online catalogue. While much of the physical work has been dispersed around the world, the web allows the collection to be seen in its entirety, with information cross-referenced for ease of browsing. Oxford has also added contemporary interpretation of Ruskin's teachings, as well as short drawing instruction videos. From the site:
He intended it not for the training of artists, but of ordinary men and women, who, by following his course, ‘might see greater beauties than they had hitherto seen in nature and in art, and thereby gain more pleasure in life’. His method required the student to master the rudiments of technique – outline, shading, colour – through a carefully directed course of lessons in copying both works of art and natural specimens.
Link: The Elements of Drawing

Draw the Path of Sugar, Sugar


"Sugar Sugar" is a quick, mesmerizing game where you draw the path of a slowly trickling line of sugar. As you ascend the levels the screens demand a bit of planning, as an oddly placed line can keep you from completing your task. The game-play is slow and meditative, like turning an hourglass and reminds me of sand-art pieces they sold at Spencer Gifts in the early 80's. The interplay of the sugar with the text with thrill any typophile. More

US Combat Artists

Marines on Rifle Range by Kristopher Battles

There's a long tradition of artists being deployed into combat zones to document the day-to-day lives of soldiers and civilian populations. Drawing can give a different perspective on war that still photography and video don't. Kristopher Battles is serving in the US Marine Corps as a "Combat Artist". His blog Sketchpad Warrior documents his work in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2006. PBS created a documentary of combat artists during during WWII titled "They Drew Fire". The accompanying website contains resources of major artists and works from the period.