sketchbook Tag

It's been a while so I thought I'd post some noodles and doodles from my sketchbook. I don't have a scanner with me at the moment so I thought I'd try snapping pics of the sketches with my spanky new iPhone 3GS. The results aren't as good as a scanner would have done but after adjusting the levels in Photoshop...

(Artwork copyright © Joe Bluhm. All rights reserved.) Joe Bluhm is a terrific illustrator and caricaturist. I recently discovered his work and have been following him with interest. Joe is self-publishing a sketchbook called Sketch Infectus. It's jam-packed with great eye candy. Joe claims that "you probably won't find a sketchbook with more drawings packed per-page between the covers". The book will...

I never know when I might have a few spare moments and be inspired to sketch, so I carry a small hardcover sketchbook in the pocket of my winter coat. For the next few months wherever I go I'll be ready when the sketching bug bites. Here's a few of the newest faces from its pages: ...

Lately I've been blessed with gobs of freelance work, but one of the downsides is that I'm so busy cranking out work for clients that my sketchbook has been gathering dust. Not a good thing. A sketchbook is an important part of any artist's development, no matter how busy or successful he/she gets. The sketchbook is the one place where you can...

The human form is one of the hardest things for an artist to master. It is incredibly complex—the hundreds of bones and muscles in the body can twist and pull into an infinite combination of expressive poses. In addition, people come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. It's important for an artist to study different body types so he can convincingly illustrate characters with variety and personality The best way to master the human form is simply to draw it...again and again and again. To keep my skills from getting dull I regularly attend drawing co-ops in my city (a co-op is simply a group of artists getting together to draw real live models). Although I'm a cartoonist, I consider life drawing to be one of the most important and helpful exercises I can do. The more I understand the human form, the easier it is for me to simplify and exaggerate it with cartooning. It's hard to understate the value of drawing from life. Photographs can be helpful, and there are some good reference books out there for artists. But because photos are 2D they tend to flatten the form. Also, because a photograph is permanently frozen it can suck some of the life out of a pose. For the serious artist, nothing beats the freshness and energy of drawing from a live model. Drawing from a photo is like eating reheated leftovers rather than fresh food hot off the stove. However, as much as I believe in it there's one part of the life drawing tradition I've never understood.

Here's a few recent doodles from my sketchbook, including an attempt at caricaturing Norm Peterson from Cheers. (Caricature is not my strong suit.)...