Bridge Drawing at Central Park New York City

I am now attending the New York Academy of Art. My concentration is painting. I've been busy, excited and motivated!

On weekends, I visit Central Park. I take my lawn chair, a handful of sharp Ebony pencils and 14x17 80lb Strathmore Recycled Drawing Paper. I enjoy drawing at Central Park. The park is big and the weather has been perfect. I go early to avoid the crowds. I sit in the shade and draw the bridges.
This bridge is behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art called Graywacke Arch. I like how the bridges have a really dark shadow underneath, and that small window to the other side. This bridge had a violinist playing underneath, a perfect spot because there was a lot of people traffic.

it's not just the bridge that catches my attention. I have to also include its surroundings: the big tree, the benches, the shrubs, and people. It just wouldn't be a bridge without those elements.

Kitchen Table Fruit & Wine Still Life

Here's a recent still life drawing I created in my kitchen. Often the kitchen table is full of fruit and other kitchen stuff, so I grab my chair and look for a composition that I like and I start drawing. I might move a couple items but not too much because I want that random everyday living or everyday kitchen table feeling.

I have fun creating these drawings, they are challenging because there are so many shapes and the drawing page gets full. Hopefully my drawing can communicate clearly what I see.

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Fresh Fruit Still Life Drawing on Paper

How I love to draw fruit! If you want get better at drawing I believe drawing fruit offers the fundamental shapes for building good sketching skills. Especially if you're drawing bananas, they are the most difficult to draw. They look so simple but tough to draw when trying to capture their likeness.

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New Years Still Life Sketch

Here are two sketches I created at the beginning of the year. I wanted to start with a drawing pencil in my hand. In 2013 I do want to draw and paint more. I get so busy and the days just fly by that everything else just seems to get in the way of what I really enjoy doing most. But no excuse, I have to set my priorities and at least draw and paint a little bit everyday.

I recently applied to grad school for an MFA. I applied to the New York Academy of Art and The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. I submitted my application with portfolio, so now for the wait, hopefully an acceptance letter. I'm a little nervous, fingers crossed, and Insha'Allah.

I don't think I'll ever lose interest in drawing still lifes, the possibilities and drawing challenges are endless especially when drawing bananas! I believe drawing fruits and vegetables are the next best thing to drawing the human figure from life.

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Saturday morning portrait artist: The Al Hyter Group

Last Saturday morning, we had a new model at the Al Hyter portrait group.  Her name is Meti and she's from Ethiopia, Africa. Nice person, I enjoyed drawing her portrait.  Meti has beautiful bold eyes, nose, lips, great for portrait drawing.  We especially liked the way Meti draped a yellow shawl over her head, it adds more depth, visual texture.

I created this slide show so you can see the artists that attend the portrait sessions. They are a great bunch! Notice the intense concentration.  I think this is one of the reasons why we attend, it helps us produce good work.

Figure Drawing

First I want to say that figure drawing to the rock-n-roll band Queen is awesome! I attended Wednesday night figure drawing session in downtown Toledo, it was a great session. We had a good model, a good crowd of artists and Paul Geiger, the coordinator, played some good tunes starting with classical music and ending the evening drawing session with Queen. Looking forward to next Wednesday night's drawing session!

Interesting figure drawing evening for me, I had a lot on my mind and the music was fast paced so my technique felt different. My lines went dark fast and I felt I had less patience for the smaller details, so some personal emotions went into my drawings. It’s amazing how sometimes when I’m drawing I may be perfectly happy and free, or with a weight on my shoulders, or tired, or not motivated, or with some kind of distraction In my mind. And these emotions I know come out or are expressed in my drawings, So in my art/drawing there’s always a whole lot more going on then just good technique and skills.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 14" x 17"

Playful Still life

Hmmmm… how did that Buzz Light Year toy appear in my still life? Haha, I like to think Buzz Light walked onto my still life while I wasn’t looking---how cool would that be? I’ve been watching a lot of Toy Story animation movies by Pixar with my nephew. They are so much fun to watch, very creative and funny. Good inspirational material for an artist and a 4-yr-old.

Lately I’ve been incorporating my nephew’s toys into my still lifes to add just a little more interest to each piece. My nephew knows I do this so the other day when he was going out the door for pre-school, he hands me his Buzz Light Year toy and says, “here uncle, draw my Buzz Light Year!” How can I pass up that request and what a great idea. I placed Buzz on the window counter, liked the compositions, and began sketching.

I’m looking forward to seeing Buzz magically appear in my other drawings.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 14" x 17"

Quick Studies of Nude Model

These are short quick studies from the Wednesday night figure drawing sessions. These poses are 5,10 or 15 minutes long and are great for improving drawing skills. They can be difficult and overwhelming because you have to think fast and draw.

For a 5-minute pose, I look for the general shape of the pose. If model is standing I run a line on my page from top to bottom and quickly put in circles for the general shapes I see: so a circle for the head, chest, hips, thighs, calves, and feet. Then circles for hands, arms, and hair, then I begin to connect circles to create shapes of arms, legs, body, and head, then add tone to understand how light is adding depth to the shapes, then keep drawing simple darker lines to help define the model's pose. And before I know it, my 5 minutes are up and I’m sitting there wishing I had more time. So I turn the page and start on the next 5-minute pose with the same process.

Quick studies have helped me become a better draftsman. The technique I use to quickly draw the model is also applied to my other drawings. Whenever I’m out drawing landscapes, still lifes, portraits, or anything else, as soon as I sit down with my drawing pad and pick my composition, I begin looking for the general shapes and draw them in by using circles. Once I have the general composition and proportions down, I set a pace of adding detail, and tone.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 14" x 17"

Sweeney Todd and Still Life Drawing

Not too long ago, I was hooked on listening to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince while I created my still life drawings. Now while I draw, I’m hooked on listening to the Sweeney Todd movie sound track, The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street. This movie is directed by Tim Burton, with actors Johnny Depp, and Helena Bonham Carter. I’ve seen this movie, it’s intense! But the soundtrack I find pleasant to listen to and has a good tempo for me to create art.

So I listened to Sweeney Todd sound track while I created this piece. The scene is from my mom’s kitchen. Most of the objects were already there, I added a few items and took some things out to simplify it. What caught my attention in this scene was the tile, I like the effect tile gives my drawings, and I also like how these objects are together but don’t relate.

But the main reason I sat down to draw this scene is that it tells a story, there is a lot going on. The toys, tomatoes, cleanser, windowsill, faucet and tile gives us clues and a feeling of what day to day living is like in this environment.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 14" x 17"

Palm Tree Drawing, Redlands California

I’m often thinking about the next pieces I’m going to share on my blog. Usually it’s one I recently created and I have a lot of those, but lately I’ve been looking through my work from the last three years and I came across some summer urban landscape drawings that brought back nostalgic memories of drawing in beautiful warm summer days in southern California.

I remember clearly creating this piece, one of my favorites. I had this one hanging next to my bed, It was the first thing I looked at in the morning, I would lay in bed looking at this piece and think about the next drawing locations for that day. This scene is located in Redlands, California, corner of Fern Ave and Cajon St, a great town with a lot of beautiful historic homes.

I remember having perfect weather for drawing, a good spot for setting my lawn chair and a lot of palm trees. That summer I sketched a lot of urban landscapes; all the drawing had the iconic southern California palm tree. I was on a palm tree kick, but I couldn’t draw a palm tree by itself, it had to have a good environment; so buildings, houses, streets, old cars, next to palm trees were often scenes I found provided a good visual environment to draw.

I sketched this in three sessions, late afternoon on a clear sunny day. I would sketch for about 2-3 hours, around 3pm to get lower light and cast shadows. It was also a little bit cooler at this hour and the summer days are long so I had plenty of light. I sketched in 2-3 hour sessions because the shadows would change as the sun set. I would patiently sketch for a couple hours and come back the next day until completion. This one took three days. I used a big art pad, 17” x 21”.

Looking at this piece really makes me miss California. I’m looking forward to going back someday with my drawing pad, pencils and lawn chair.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 17" x 21"

How I Cheat In My Drawings

I had a great drawing session at last Wednesday night's Paul Geiger Studio figure drawing session. We had a new model. Paul started the session with a few short 5-minute poses for the crowd to warm up. Then a long pose was set up on the high platform. I like the visual effect of when the model is positioned high for drawing. The drawing usually has a grand feeling, as if you’re looking up at a building or mountain.

The model's pose was on a chair. I like the model seated for several reasons: first, the pose fits my drawing page; I can draw the scene bigger. If she was standing, then the pose would take up more of my page and I would have to draw her smaller to fit. Another reason is I liked the chair the model was seated on because I can use it as a tool for getting the proportions to the model correct.

This is when I feel like I’m cheating because the chair makes drawing the model so much easier. I use the negative shapes of the chair (the space between the legs of the model and legs of the chair). These shapes help me determine the proportions of the model easily. Sometimes people will say “Wow, that looks difficult; you're a good artist” and I usually respond “It's easy. I’m not drawing the model, I’m drawing the negative space”. If I draw all the negative shapes correct, then the figure starts to appear and I continue by drawing in positive shapes (the model).

These two drawings are of the same pose but from different angles, 30 minutes each. They were fun and rewarding to create. Plus Paul played good tunes starting with classical music, then some Dave Brubeck, and ending with Elvis Costello.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 14" x 17"

Drawing Still Life with View Finder

Here’s a recent drawing I enjoy looking at. I’m still trying to find interesting ways to draw my nephew’s shoes, and this is a drawing that I think works. It is a busy scene. I like that, and I like how all the simple shapes of the fruit compliment the child’s playful shoe.

Drawing a scene like this can be overwhelming because there is so much I want to fit on the drawing page in a certain way. I wanted to make sure I got the left side of the shoe in, the banana and only part of the fruit bowl. I decided to crop the fruit bowl because if I sketched in the entire bowl, it would have made the shoes and other fruit proportionally small on my page.

So how do I decide how to crop the scene? There are several ways I do this. Lately I’ve been using a viewfinder that is proportional to my drawing page. (See sample picture below). I like this little artist tool; it’s quick and easy. If the scene is overwhelmingly busy and I want to only focus on a certain part of the scene then looking through this tool to determine sections I want to focus on really works. It helps me see the compositions within the page size in mind and helps me see the positive and negative shapes that come to the edge of the pages.

Here’s a picture of how I use it. It’s an easy tool to use. You move it forward and back to see how the composition will look on your page. There are many other ways to do this: sometimes I just visualize the edges then just start drawing and wait for final result. Or I can stretch out my arm, close one eye and visually align my pencil along the top, bottom sides of still life I want to draw, or I’ll us my hands to make a square with my fingers, this sometimes works. Whatever it takes, I just want to pick that composition so I can start drawing.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 14" x 17"

Toy Penguin and Loafers

"Hay! What's this penguin doing inside this shoe?" This is exactly what my 4 year old nephew, JD, said to this drawing. I didn't think much of it when I saw JD looking at this piece. He usually doesn't respond to my drawings, but with this one he got it. All of a sudden, he looked up at me, put his little index finger on my drawing and responded! "Hay! What's this penguin doing inside this shoe?" He made my day, I laughed, I loved his response.

These are JD's loafers, I've been wanting to draw them. They are so cute, and I've been wanting to incorporate some of JD's toys into my drawings. JD has a lot of toys, so I didn't want to think too much about selecting a toy, so I grabbed this penguin. It caught my attention, it's a character from the animated film Madagascar by Dreamworks. So I quickly put this still life together and started drawing.

I liked JD's response because when I begin a drawing I try to make sure it communicates clearly, I don't want to confuse the viewer or have them wonder what it is they are looking at. So seeing a child understanding my drawing on paper was a big compliment.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 11" x 14"

Kitchen Countertop Still Life Drawing

This is one of my favorite still life drawings. I've been wanting to post this one for a while. I like it when I create these types of drawings, they are really busy and fill the page.

Now, I believe there is a very important part to these types of drawings that brings everything together and helps make it successful and that is in drawing the tile pattern.

I discovered the beauty of tiled kitchen countertops when I lived in an old house in El Monte California. That's were I first started drawing kitchen scenes and where, for the first time, I sketched in the tile in my drawing and made an amazing discovery! The tile pattern visually added an amazing feeling to my drawing: it filled the page, it added a better scene of perspective, it placed the still life items on a solid foundation, and most importantly, it added a stronger three dimensional feeling.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 14" x 17"

Drawing Father n Son Nike Air Jordans

Lately I've been been making still life drawings of shoes. This drawing is of the Classic Nike Air Jordan's, the small ones belong to my 4 year old nephew, (he's learning to play basketball at the local YMCA) and the adult size shoes belong to his father (he's the basketball coach).

I struggled with deciding if I should post this drawing. I was concerned that it was just a drawing of shoes: big deal, kinda boring subject. But two reasons I decided to sketch this type of still life convinced me that I need to share this drawing with others.

One reason was simple: I liked the Nike Air Jordan's Basketball high tops, they are so cool! Beautifully designed: the boldness, the shoe strings, the shapes, and most important for me, I saw a challenge that made me want to prop these three items on a stand and try to create a nice bold three dimensional drawing. And trust me, it was tough.

The second reason was sentimental. When I first saw my 4-year-old nephew's basketball high tops at first glance I thought, 'how cute, they're so small". Then one can't help ponder on how innocent and new he is to this world and how father, mother, grandmother, and uncle protect, love and cherish every moment with him. I sketched father and son shoes to possibly represent that bond and I added the fruit to possibly represent god, nurture, teacher, growth and happiness.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 14" x 17"

Figure Drawing with the Right Elements

Wow! Where do I begin: good model, good old blues music, good drawings, and good vibes at last nights Geiger Studios open figure drawing session. I think all these elements helped me produce a lot of nice drawings last night. I had a tough time picking a piece to share on this blog, I was in the zone, it's a great feeling.

Another element that helped me draw with lots of confidence and ease last night is practice. I've been drawing a lot lately, 2-3 hours daily, still lifes during the week, and Saturday morning portrait drawings. And before I went to last night's figure drawing session, I sat down to draw a still life for 2 hours, so I had a good warm up before the evening figure drawing session.

I strongly believe practicing my drawing daily will continue to improve my skill. It takes time to train the brain to translate what it sees to a hand drawing created on paper.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 14" x 17"

Table Top Random Still Life Drawing

Here's a new still life drawing I really enjoyed creating. For me its' a random composition---I didn't put this still life together, it just happened. I purchased some fruit at local market for drawing in a still life. I placed the fruit on the dining room table with the intention to create a still life to draw. Well my mom made lunch and she moved everything on the table to the side and when I came to eat lunch this is what I saw on the table. I liked it, I couldn't have come up with it on my own.

Objects and items I wouldn't normally put together on a still life all of a sudden created a nice composition. After lunch, I sat down to draw this scene. I did take out a few items to simplify it, and I purposely included the large white space on bottom to compliment the busy top section and for the viewer to possibly understand that all these items had been pushed aside.

I like it when I find these random compositions. I learn a lot from them. One lesson is my drawings don't necessarily have to stick to a theme to be successful. Drawing these types of scenes with random objects also creates interesting responses and feelings from people viewing my art.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE, GRAPHITE ON PAPER 14" X 17"

portrait Drawing Male Teenager

Today we had two new models at the Al Hyter portrait drawing group in Toledo Ohio, Joseph and Jessie, two teenagers with their own unique character. This portrait is of Joseph, he has a great hair style for drawing. I like the way the length of his hair makes a nice shape for drawing. His hair is parted at the face so it frames his eyes, nose, lips and chin. I really enjoyed creating Joseph's portrait. Next Saturday I'll sketch the other model, Jessie.

Good drawing music was played at the portrait drawing session today:

• Fiddler on The Roof
• Simon & Garfunkel
• Ray Davies

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Drawing Still Lifes in the Winter Season

I've been drawing a lot of still lifes. I could easily post 2 drawings a day, 7 days a week for this whole month with just still life drawings of fruit and kitchen scenes. One main reason I'm motivated to draw a lot is the weather. I'm in Toledo Ohio and the weather out is bitter cold with snow so not much to do outdoors for me but work inside on drawings during the day when I'm not working on illustrations. I am grateful for the weather, it's making me produce a lot of work and I notice my drawings skills are improving.

Well, just got done shoveling snow, and more snow is expected for this evening so I'm going to sit down and draw a still life.

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Full Figure Portrait Drawing of Heather

Here's one of my drawings of Heather from yesterday's Al Hyter portrait session. This was Heather's last modeling session. A good crowd of artists showed up. Everyone produced nice pieces, and Bruce the organizer played some interesting folk music.

The portrait sessions are two hour, so the first hour I created a close up portrait of Heather. Then in the second hour I decided to created a full figure portrait. Here's where all the figure drawing sessions I've attended at Geiger Studios comes in handy: sketching this full figure with chair in 20 minutes came easy to me. I approached this drawing like I would a nude figure drawing. I started with a gesture drawing to make sure the figure would fit and that all main shapes were proportional, then I began to add detail and tone. Creating this piece was rewarding, it's a reminder that I have to keep attending these drawing session and draw daily on my own to improve my drawing skills. It's what it takes for me to become a better skilled artist.

I'm already looking forward to next Saturday's new model.

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