Sunday, April 11, 2010

Sketching

Use it or loose it. Some days or weeks I spend in front of the computer hammering away at digital painting, design, animation or motion graphics. Which means that some weeks I don't get a great deal of actual drawing time in.  Or rather didn't get a whole lot of drawing time in until I picked up 'Drawn to Life' by Walt Stanchfield, a two volume collection of lectures by the long time Disney Animator.

In it he writes 'give up the bad habit of not drawing today'. He suggests carrying a cheap pad everywhere you go and draw anything you can when you can. He goes on to suggest drawing a box to place your sketch in - to force you to think about composition, To use a pen instead of a pencil, to be quick and to not care about mistakes. To focus on gesture and not detail.

And so I have been. As an artist, I can really recommend doing this. Much like keeping the gears greased up. I also recommend 'Drawn to Life' for any artist, no matter what their specialty.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great website Skye. Looks like you have really landed on your feet. Good stuff.

Skye said...

Many thanks Andrew.
It's been a long hard journey and I have learned so much (in life and in art) since we last saw each other. But then, thats what time gives us all right?