Words, Art & Science by Anthony Francis
John Dee, again with the Sharpie sketches. I like the layout of the face better this time, but while it gives me practice on overall shapes, the resolution of the Sharpies is so broad that it makes it impossible to do a good rendering. So that which makes it easy to do a drawing makes it hard to do it right.
Still, drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Quick Sharpie sketch of the Emperor Tiberius. Eh, meh: forehead's too big, and the whole Sharpie sketch thing, while it forces you to commit and gives you practice, is nevertheless a technique which makes it hard to get the shapes quite right. But, hey, it is quick, and it got me to bed earlier.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Sharpie sketch of Fred Rogers. Meh - it was too hard to recover from a few small errors to make the face really look like him, even though the overall face landscape isn't too terrible.
Still, it's before 3:30am, and I'm drawing every day, 30 minutes earlier this time.
-the Centaur 
No-regrets Sharpie sketch of Mahatma Gandhi. Actually, some regrets, in that the no-roughs state of the quick sketch sometimes creates problems - like, his egg is more head shaped, scratch that, reverse it, and his smile lines cup more to the chin, and the mustache doesn't overlap enough with the nose.
Ah well.
But even if it's late and I'm tired, I'm still ... drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Quick Sharpie sketch of the friend from high school mentioned in the last blogpost. Image and name withheld as he is apparently not a public figure, but nonetheless [your name "greenville"] found them anyway. The sketch is ... okay. A little cartoony - the real person's jaw is a bit rounder.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Super quick sketch of Kelthani, an alien character from the "Alliance" universe of my "Stranded" and "Sibling Rivalry" stories. Fun fact: Serendipity the Centaur in "Stranded" is named after Kelthani (her middle name is Keltanya). The barely visible tattoo is the first three letters of "USMC", because Kelthani is literally a U. S. Marine drill instructor born in Darlington, South Carolina ... about 500 years from now.
And yes, he can probably kick your ass. He was a Marine for 300 years.
Done to celebrate finishing a notebook and switching back to an older (like, 20 years older) notebook with blank pages that features Kelthani quite a bit. Sharpie sketch right over very light roughs, trying to reconstruct his bone structure from memory, cleaned up in Photoshop with the levels tool.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
A quick sketch of Bishop Lucinda Ashby, done by roughing in ink and then tracing over my own roughs. I'm not going to share the source image - it was from a Zoom call, and I don't have permission to share - but comparing to a published picture of Lucinda, it's clear I dented her face a little bit. :-(
Ah, well. Sorry, Rev. Lucinda. Still ... drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
A no-regrets Sharpie sketch of Epicurus, from the following bust, allegedly of Epicurus.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Semi-quick sketch of David Hilbert. Face is a bit squnched to one side, and I could have put in more work on the wrinkles. But frankly, the original picture is dark enough under that hat that it's hard to interpret, and it's late and I'm tired, so I just went with it instead. More tomorrow.
Quick sketch of Susan Francis. The head angle ain't bad, and the eyes aren't as oversized, but I'm still doing something wrong with the overall face landscape. Perhaps time to return to drawing the roughs upside down, or perhaps a few tracing exercises to help tune my perception of face feature sizes. Oh, and also, I think her hair got dented in the upper right, now that I look at it one more time. This was just a misstep of that particular hair feature - I intended it to go further out, but just gaffed it.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Quick sketch of Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman. I got the head tilt right for once, but I seem to have exaggerated the size of the forehead with respect to the rest of the face, and perhaps widened the mouth / nose area, taking away from Hoffman's distinctive look. But it's late and I'm tired, so I rushed it.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Drawn from a small centaur statue I have in the genre toys / reference objects collection on my drawing desk. Didn't come out too bad, and the perspective and angle were an interesting challenge.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Suuuper quick sketch of Gene Robinson, done by tracing over my own ink roughs.
As for the analysis, eyes off a bit, yeah, whatever, it's time for bed.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
As it says on the tin: it's late and I'm tired, so here's a quick sketch with a big honking Sharpie on 9x12 Strathmore, no roughs whatsoever. Roughs would have helped correct a few errors of outline and proportion - I didn't quite get the roundness of gabby there on the left - but real roughs would have taken longer than 10-15 minutes, and I'd have been up to 3AM again when trying to get to bed early.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Sharpie sketch of the Apostle Paul, interpolated from the earliest descriptions and paintings we have on record: "A man of middling size, and his hair was scanty, and his legs were a little crooked, and his knees were far apart; he had large eyes, and his eyebrows met, and his nose was somewhat long.” The joined eyebrow is from the description, but the pointy beard, sideburns and clothes come from these:
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Suuuuper quick sketch of Willem Dafoe in The Last Temptation of Christ, done with a big honking Sharpie. My first failed drawing on Strathmore 9x12 served as a basis for a quick resketch on 9x12 tracing paper, again with the Sharpie - it has such a crystallizing effect on your drawing, as those huge darn lines cannot be taken back and you just gotta GO with it. Not altogether bad for 10 minutes, though that darn "head de-tiltification" thing is still working against me:
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Quick sketch of Reginald Fuller, using pencil roughs (started upside down to get the proportions, then rotated back to normal to fix the details, which was harder than expected; the first upside down one turned out to be more useful for me to see the features and relationships, but I only got it right once I put it right side up). Then a quick render with Sakura Pigma and Micron pens and a Sharpie.
Not ... altogether bad, though it could have used another pass.
He, also, looks so happy.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Super quick sketch of Robert Axelrod, done by tracing over my own roughs twice then rendering over that with my standard Sakura Microns. Eyes WAY too big, face too wide, I didn't quite get the head tilt (as usual), and it seems like I cut off part of the top of his head, though I was partially able to fix it.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Suuuper quick sketch of E. T. Jaynes with minimal roughs and one big honking Sharpie, rescued from a bad shading attempt by tracing over my own drawing, and them I'm like, hey, I can leave the tracing paper over the original attempt and that gives me my grey layer. Didn't quite get the head tilt:
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Quick sketch of John Watson. Kind of reminds me of a cross between H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Kent.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur