More penmanship

A chance mention in a Facebook posting led me to the website and blog written by artist Suhita Shirodkar (link). Suhita is another artist who has developed a short course on Craftsy this one named "Figure Sketching made Simple". Figuring (pardon) that another course in figure drawing couldn't hurt, I signed up.




Basic "Action Line" sketches

Suhita introduced me to another concept in action figure drawing: (the Line of Action). In order to capture the essential motion of a figure, she sketches the main motion of the figure immediately without regard for detail. Once the motion or action line is established, she can then bring in the rest of the figure. It all seems a little contrived at first glance, but the concept is seeming to work for me. The above are a few of the few tentative drawings.

Suhita is a frequent blogger and I can recommend you read her postings.




From a photo of a French port (after John Lovett)

My grasshopper mind leads me from style to style in my sketching adventure. I admire the work of John Lovett, yet another fine Australian watercolorist. He avoids perspective by painting streetscapes straight-on, which rather appealed to me. He also uses intense colour which is something I have always strived for. In John's case, he adds the pen work after the paint is dried, having used a charcoal pencil for the original construction. I find this is a method which works well for plein air sketching, although the pencil marks need to be protected as the charcoal smudges easily and also tends to bleed when wet paint is applied, but if applied lightly can be made to disappear in the final work. The added ink lines can then be used to strengthen the sketch.


John's website contains a series of free workshop videos as well as numerous articles.