Author: martinnc

They’re still looking like those wooden mannequins you see in art shops, but I’m just concentrating on learning the technique for now.

I didn’t feel I got the gist of this last time so I’ve done some practice drawings. I also looked at comic artists and the different models they use – for weedy characters, beautiful women and super-heros. The beautiful women are like the fashion models, and have unrealistically long legs (8 and a half head design, with the extra half head height added to the legs).

I came across a book on my shelf about fashion illustration and it suggested a formula for drawing people (women, mainly), where you build people up from several standard blocks. These drawings are me following the instructions, including a peculiar paper-folding technique that perhaps could have been done easier with a ruler..

This time I used normal fountain pen ink with bleach on the end of a wooden skewer.

I tried to use bleach on this sepia ink but it didn’t work, then I tried to scrape out a drawing but it’s only print paper so it tore. In the end I used white acrylic. It’s an idea I was trying out for my daughter’s art project.

Bah – again overworked and the tones not quite right. The colours are okay, though. Maybe I’ll have another go at painting the same drawing.

Drawing to be painted later.

These onions were going a bit mouldy on the skin, so had variety of colours. The scan came out badly: the colours were less saturated than shown.

Another one in fountain pen so no planning.

A quick stand-up sketch in fountain pen. Things are wobbly when I don’t plan them!