Tag: pencil

Moving from Science to Drawing

Drawing is tough.

It is even harder when you have a toddler to keep an eye out for. I got out of that particular fix once I moved to Calgary and I was able to allocate office space for myself at my new home. All of this took well over three months (between December to February), so drawing had to be on the backburner for a while (another reason for the lack of follow up posts in The Art Corner).

Now, having eased into a working routine this month, I was ready to go crazy with my art and keep up with the good vibes I had with my previous drawing of an eye back in November.

Unfortunately, the restart began with me careening into a major roadblock. Suffice to say, it took a lot of effort to overcome this obstacle. To relate this story, I need to revisit my childhood memories. Back then, I used to draw A LOT (art competitions, drawing classes, and a large stash of comics and kids magazines kept my creative juices flowing). What defined my work was the clarity with which I was able to approach whatever I wished to draw. I enjoyed the process.

Unfortunately, growing up has its toll.

In my case, drawing became less of an active interest by the time I finished my secondary education and it was science galore once I started university. It wasn’t until I began my doctoral studies that my continued passion for writing stirred my long-forgotten love for drawing. With every story I worked on, I really wanted to bring the worlds of my imagination to life on a piece of paper.

Long story short, I had to hit the drawing board again.

As I sat down to restart my drawing adventures this March, it became very obvious very quickly that my mindset needed a major shift. It wasn’t a case of, “I can’t draw!” Rather, after 12 years at university, my mind had grown accustomed to a strictly logical thought process. This had its fair share of benefits when I had to solve physics problems and what not but it didn’t translate well into my art process.

Incorporating a systematic approach to my art helped me easily build on specific skills such as the ability to deconstruct images into basic geometric shapes and objects. This was great for getting the basic structure of my subject, but when it came down to molding these geometric shapes to match reality, I found myself spending more time critiquing the details as opposed to getting my drawing done. This made even simple drawings and assignments very taxing. I realized I was thinking too hard, and needed to “let the art flow” and “loosen up.”

That was easier said than done, especially when it had to accompany a huge shift in mindset. Logic doesn’t follow very smoothly in art and part of drawing is to learn to be ok with restating and imperfections. That was a tough nut to crack for me.

Ironically, having a toddler running around in the house helped in this aspect. By the time I sat down to draw every evening, I was too tired mentally to engage as a critic. Rather, the process gradually shifted to just putting pencil to paper, being relaxed with my approach, and most importantly, being OK with it.

This made the difference. Moral of the story, “Keep it simple. Look, hold, and draw.”

So here we are with the pieces that I got to work on recently:

This involved an assignment on learning to draw by looking at your subject as opposed to the paper. The (Left) is a classic example of me failing to be loose, and the (Right) when I succeeded. Next up is to add more definition to the feet by capturing its contours.
A product of my frustration. I needed a mental break one night, and just tried something ambitious: a rough sketch of a portrait that came up on my Facebook feed (Permissions obtained from Irina Akulenko). I didn’t care about how perfect my linework was, just kept restating and restating in what was an enjoyable 45 min drawing session. Gonna keep working on it to perfect it.

Getting back into Art – Drawing an Eye!

Life is a balancing act. For me, that boils down to juggling my day job as a freelance science writer and my nighttime adventures as an aspiring comic book artist.

It took me more than a decade to realize my passion for writing and art. In retrospect, its funny I didn’t catch it earlier especially when the answer was staring me in the face.

I love writing. It started off with personal projects and now I’m wrapping up the final script for a graphic novel that I hope to publish sometime in the distant future. Art was more an on and off companion since my childhood.

Now, I’m ready to really get into it, and polish my knowledge and skills. I still have a long way to go and there is much to learn. Having made a specific section called “Art Corner” in this blog, I hope to utilize it as an art journal of sorts where I can post my weekly progress.

You have got to start with the fundamentals, and so I started off with this course on Udemy:

The first lesson was to draw a realistic eye, as best to our ability as possible. I would then draw the same eye, at the end of the course, as a means to gauge my progress.

I’m a pencil and paper guy but with my recent foray into comics, I have also been interested in picking up digital art. So I did two eyes!

The one on the left is obviously done using pencil and paper, and the one on the right is an ongoing struggle in my digital foray.

I hope to keep up with my weekly projects and post consistently! Feel free to critique the hell out of it in the comments as it helps me even more. And, don’t forget, follow my art journey at LockeInArt on Instagram as well!

Touching base with Pencil and Paper

When I was young, I spent a good chunk of time at my grandparents. It helped that their house was situated right next to ours, and my grandfather’s collection of weekly kids comics and magazines were an abundant source of entertainment and inspiration for the kid in me.

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My grandfather collected enough of these that we probably had over 500 of these thin magazines stacked up in a corner of the storage room.

Drawing came naturally to me back then, and I took any chance with a blank paper to draw whatever caught my eye. My grandfather fueled my imagination by sharing folk tales of old and just about everything that he knew while my grandmother indulged me with all the treats she could make to keep me energized with a full tummy.

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Being a Christian, my grandfather often shared his unique perspectives on the Bible. As a kid, the stories came off more as an epic fantasy, leading me to draw this rendition of Jesus and Simon Peter, no doubt referenced from an illustrated bible at his home.

As the years passed, my interest in drawing gradually took a backseat to my newfound love for writing. Rather than transpose what I felt was a simplified projection of my imagination onto paper, I felt it better to immerse in my imagination as a whole through writing. I was naive to think that between writing and art, one was lesser than the other.

Now, I have come full circle in realizing that art and writing are just two faces of the same coin. It is particularly sweet that I struck upon this knowledge in the process of completing the script to the graphic novel I have been developing over the last two years, and intend to dedicate in memory of my grandfather.

I have spent the last few weeks touching base with old friends in Pencil and Paper. It has been a difficult reunion to say the least, but we are gradually patching a decade of our on-and-off relationship in a newfound resolve to build a strong foundation for the future.

Frustration has been a loyal companion, but I’ve also used it as a source of motivation.

Firstly, I had to start by identifying the relevant skills I required to transition into the “graphical” aspect of my graphic novel. Phase Infinity, as I now call it, has all the characteristics of a long and arduous journey through diverse art courses intended to boost my amateurish skills while simultaneously churning out the artwork for my graphic novel.

To be honest, I find the final product to be a goal for the distant future. This isn’t necessarily discouraging as it is my first attempt after all. What has been annoying though is the persistent need to be overly critical about my work and for lack of any other word, too stiff and tight about my daily progress.

Figure drawing is my first priority as of this moment, and I have been enjoying it in all its gestures and forms. Consistency is the word for the rest of my year, as I hope to amass daily practice sessions.

Steve Huston has been my hero on this front, and I highly advice his books to my fellow artists among my readers.

Learning the human anatomy from an artistic perspective has also opened the door to some philosophy. Gesture drawing, in particular, has helped me embrace the fluid nature of our environments and our very bodies. For someone who has been enamored with the axiomiatic logistics of science and mathematics over the last decade or so, figure drawing has provided a refreshing, and new perspective of the world and its motions and rhythm.

Being a fan of Bruce and his philosophies, these two messages became screensavers of sort throughout my artistic process.

Being a fan of Bruce, these two messages which aligned with the philosophy of gesture drawing became de facto screensavers in my mind throughout my artistic process.

That is all for today! I will keep you all updated with my struggles in art-realm over the coming weeks by sharing some of my art work in the Art Corner, as well as a review in my next post of one of my favorite artists in Kim Jung Gi.