Alecto's Sketches, Doodles & More

[Alecto]

Raven (from pdphoto.org), charcoal and white pastel pencil over loose red and blue washy imprimatura.

I'm going to try to do one of these a week minimum.

[tyree]

hes excellent... great detail!!!! tyree

[azulparsnip]

aaahhhhhhsome

[Alecto]

Thanks! It's funny you should mention the detail Tyree; My New Year's Resolution is to draw with only enough detail to explain the form and to abandon all features that seem unnecessary. I have a life-long habit of trying to put in everything I see and I'm starting to realize how counter-productive that can be. This was my first attempt at my new minimalist approach.

[tyree]

it looks so nice and detail to me particularily around the eye....lets see more... tyree

[mscash]

Perfect choice for a background color! and methinks it's our heads filling in the details thou just hinted at - ah, sweet success!

[rosebard]

Very nice effect the red/blue imprimatura gave. You rendered it very nicely. Once a week minimum ok? If possible like to see more than one. Looking forward to next one.

[Alecto]

Oops, am I getting behind? Here's a sketchy grisaille done with colored pencil. I'm not worried about trying to make a smoothly rendered image -- this Sketches & Doodles thread will be my excuse to underwork, as opposed to overwork. So I spent about 30 min on this, just to get an idea what a layering like this will look like.

I read in an archived thread somewhere that you can't do grisaille underpainting with colored pencils because it will make the top layers of colors too grey. So, naturally, I had to try. This is my first step -- French Grey prismacolors over some nameless neutral brown from a cheap children's watercolor set. I'll do the rest of the layering later today.

The image is from the RIL, but she doesn't look much like the original ref.

[Alecto]

Thanks Tyree! I'm thoroughly sick of tons of detail; you can't imagine how heartwarming it is to hear that I did fine without it.

Sheryl and Bard, I have to admit that the color of the background bothered me because of its coolness, so I laid in a warm yellow after the fact (the reference was of a raven with a desert backdrop, and I couldn't shake the feeling that it needed to reflect that warmth, even if nobody else knew where it was coming from). I do like it better now.

I played with the grisaille a little more, then I layered some colors very loosely over top. This is just done enough for me to decide that this particular French Grey over brown underpainting actually works. There is still a grey component to it, but it's warm and doesn't bother me. Even this cheap paper I'm using would accept enough more layers of cp to almost completely obscure the grey, so I consider this a successful experiment.

The original ref is: "25791mariana_pose_for_portrait.jpg"

[tyree]

alecto...id say it was a very successful experiment...wow you are fast..i cant believe that first sketch only took 30 min..are you finished now..or was this just your experiment with the coloured pencils...??? tyree

[Alecto]

I'm finished and it was just an experiment. I don't feel like developing it any further. I wish the camera would make it look like it does in real life; I used a strong poppy red in her shadows and deco yellow for the lightest areas of her skin. The one in my sketchbook is much more colorful than the one on the screen.

I've already washed the next page with another imprimatura ground in preparation for my next sketch -- time to move on. I'm not really that fast, but I sprinted into this one; literally, I was almost breathless when I was done. In addition to abandoning detail, I'm attempting to teach myself to work much faster. A sketch like this would normally take me several hours, but I'm convinced that I can work faster and get just as good an effect (or maybe better!).

Thanks for looking!

[blane]

That bird is GREAT!! The minimalist approach (as you called it)is simply a more mature approach to drawing and painting than recording every last bleeding detail. WAY TO GO!! If amping up your speed appeals to you, go for it. I have forced myself to get over that desire. Now I tend to go nice and slow. Hey, whatever works for you.

[Alecto]

Thanks, Blane. My desire for speed revolves around the fact that if I allow myself to dwell on the drawing after I've started it, I fuss and mess and agonize, finally killing it in a spree of overworking. I don't need to be fast, I just need a work-around for my tendency to beat my drawings to death. For me, that work-around is to look at an image for a long time before I attempt it, planning my process before I pick up a pencil. Then when I start, I go and don't look back. I say it as if this is how I work now, in reality I've just started trying this. Working quickly is unnerving, but highly energizing. It's frustrating, but I've enjoyed the few that I've attempted this way. Thanks for looking!

[blane]

Not a bad plan, knowing what you want to do before you do it.

[katsarecool]

Originally Posted by Alecto

Oops, am I getting behind? Here's a sketchy grisaille done with colored pencil. I'm not worried about trying to make a smoothly rendered image -- this Sketches & Doodles thread will be my excuse to underwork, as opposed to overwork. So I spent about 30 min on this, just to get an idea what a layering like this will look like.

I read in an archived thread somewhere that you can't do grisaille underpainting with colored pencils because it will make the top layers of colors too grey. So, naturally, I had to try. This is my first step -- French Grey prismacolors over some nameless neutral brown from a cheap children's watercolor set. I'll do the rest of the layering later today.

The image is from the RIL, but she doesn't look much like the original ref.

This made me sit up in my chair! Wow! Great job and a very lovely portrait!