Sunday, April 30, 2023

100 Days of Drawing (Week 3)

Art's Axiom

  1. If you want to learn to draw, draw every day.

This week's drawings

This week we'll learn the cylinder, use the cylinder to draw tubes, continue using the cube to draw more complex structures, and draw manga:


Materials:
  • graphite pencil
  • charcoal pencil
  • eraser
  • paper (printer paper, notebook, etc)
  • colors (colored pencils, crayons, watercolor, etc)
  • alternatives to the above: smart phone or tablet drawing app

Day 16: the cylinder


Mark gives step by step instructions for drawing cylinders in Lesson 10 of his book, You can draw in 30 days : the fun, easy way to learn to draw in one month or less.  He starts with a foreshortened circle for the top, a line for each of the sides, and a foreshortened circle at the bottom.  He then asks you to create two more cylinders behind the first one and shows you how to shade them and draw shadows to create the illusion of three dimensions. Here is a link to his video: You Can Draw in 30 Days: Day 10.

I added Hello Kitty to my cylinders to make them more fun.  Here is a How to Draw Hello Kitty by Art For Kids Hub (an 8 minute video with 11 million views. Use shift-N to get past the advertisements)

Day 17: advanced-level cylinders


In Lesson 11 Mark guides you in drawing a cityscape of cylinders.  He begins by bringing your attention to using size and overlap as methods to create three dimensional objects in 'space'.  He then goes into a step by step tutorial for drawing.  Lesson 11 starts on page 105 of his book.

I decided to do Lesson 11's bonus challenge: holes - cylinders going down versus cylinders going up.  A hole is a good place for a meerkat to hide in. Here is HTDraw's How to Draw a Meerkat Easy Step by Step (4 minutes, 2.3K views).

Here is a link to mark's video for this lesson: You Can Draw in 30 Days: Day 11

Day 18: constructing with cubes


Here is a link to Lesson 12, Constructing with Cubes in Mark Kistler's You can draw in 30 days : the fun, easy way to learn to draw in one month or less. He uses cubes to build a house with a pitched roof. He also gives us a peek at using two point perspective to create the illusion of space.  Finally, he uses cubes to 'carve out' the interior space of the house.

Here is the link to Mark's video of this lesson: You Can Draw in 30 Days: Day 12



Day 19: chibi proportion


In their book You Can Draw Manga Chibi Characters, Critters & Scenes: A step-by-step guide for learning to draw cute and colorful manga chibis and critters, Samatha Whitten and Jeannie Lee provide instructions for creating chibi characters.  They begin with the head and neck; give examples of drawing the eyes, and hair; and draw a chibi experiencing various emotions.  They give you manikins for chibi kid bodies and adult bodies and example drawings of clothing (shirts, pants, shorts, shoes, purses). 

I've done sketches of the manikins.  I think of them as bulky stick-figures. Note that the 'adult' chibi's head is proportionally smaller than the 'kid' chibi's head. I encourage you to think about these as guides; tricks to help you create three dimensional drawings of the characters that live in your imagnination.

Here are three YouTube videos for your consideration:


Day 20: manga faces


In his book, Mastering Manga, How To Draw Manga Faces, Mark Crilley gives you step-by-step instructions for drawing: 

Here are some manga face and hair videos that you may like:

How to Draw Manga Girl Face in Front, 3/4, and Side View by Love2DrawManga ( 11 minutes, 165K views)
How to draw anime hair | Step by step easy! by miikobelle (8 minutes, 31 K)


Day 21: manga eyes


See Chapter 2, Drawing Eyes starting on page 26 of Drawing manga : animals, chibis, and other adorable creatures by J C Amberlyn. J C gives us some tips on making manga eyes:
  • leave space at the corners
  • horizontal oval for basic eye shape
  • the iris and pupil normally continue above upper eyelid
  • drawing highlights, larger one can overlap the iris
  • sketch your drawing in pencil, then ink in your drawing
After sketching with a graphite pencil (HB), I darkened my lines with a charcoal pencil (PRANG 601-M) and then inked in the right eye.  Charcoal pencils make nice, dark lines

For a video tutorial see How to Draw Manga Eyes! Step by Step, Slow Tutorial for Beginners! by Love2DrawManga (a 16 minute video with 1.3 million views)

Day 22: manga hair


The Anime Art Magazine article Drawing hair: all you need to know to get started! provides ideas to keep in mind while drawing hair on our characters: hair origin; three hair "sections"; hair bundling; and relation between hair style and length to character.

WikiHow gives us tutorials for 6 Ways to Draw Anime Hair.


In his book, Mastering Manga, How To Draw Manga Faces, Mark Crilley has examples of manga hairstyles:

Here are three video tutorials on for drawing manga hair:




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Tuesday, April 25, 2023

100 Days of Drawing (Week 2)

Rules of Art

Before we go any further, let's review the three rules of art

1. First rule for making art:
    • THERE ARE NO RULES FOR MAKING ART!
2. Second rule for making art:
    • THERE ARE NO RULES FOR MAKING ART
3. Third rule for making art:
    • THERE ARE NO RULES FOR MAKING ART!
Other artists and art teachers may disagree with these rules. If they do and have something valuable to teach you, accept their rules as good practices or strong suggestions.

This week's drawings

This week we continue our endeavor to draw cuteness, to use cubes to make complex structures and to use circles to rough in forms:




Materials:
  • pencil
  • eraser
  • paper (printer paper, notebook, etc)
  • colors (colored pencils, crayons, watercolor, etc)
  • alternatives to the above: smart phone or tablet drawing app

Day 9: Chibi animals


Continuing my quest to learn how to draw "cute", here are a couple of chibi bunnies.  

To draw the bunny running I spent time modeling the body while looking at Running rabbit by Richard Buriton.  To make it a chibi I shortened the bunny's body and gave him a large head and big eyes.

I colored both bunnies with a watercolor wash in procreate.  Going over the lower parts of their bodies with the wash again makes it darker and creates an illusion of three dimensions.  Adding the shadow under the running bunny helps to 'elevate' the bunny.  Adding a shadow to the sitting bunny, anchors her to the ground

I used Ансплэш Степана's A little rabbit walking outside as a model.  I only had to give it big eyes to make it a chibi.

Art ala Carte has posted a nice tutorial on How to design an Imaginary Animal Character.

Here is the link to my Procreate video:
    

Day 10: stacking tables


Once you learn how to make a cube, you can join them together to make more complex.  Mark stacks three cubes to make a table and then goes on to show you how to stack these to make fascinating forms in space (See Lesson 6 starting on page 62).  Here is his video:  
    

The rabbits from yesterday were still jumping around in my head so I used a man in a rabbit suit which Kenneth Eliason shared on Unsplash.

In order to start using all of the picture space, I've added a backgound which is simply a horizontal line (or in my case a slanted line) with a blue sky and a brown plane. I applied the colors so that it is paler (less saturated) at the horizon.  This is another trick for creating an illusion of depth.

Finally, I added shadows for the table and the rabbit.

Here is the link to my Procreate video:

Day 11: cool koalas


You can draw a koala by sketching the form of it using circles. Mark illustrates this in Lesson 8 beginning on page 82. Here is a link to his video:








I used Vish K's hello mate! photo on Unsplash as my model.






The Procreate video of my drawing shows my use of circles in sketching the koala:


Day 12: advanced-level cube


Doing this drawing, I spent time imagining how to get people from the bottom floor to the roof. More time than I anticipated. Sometimes I get caught up in the details, which is fine except that I begin to have this inner conversation telling myself that I'm taking too long to do something. The idea of "taking too long" is violation of the first rule for making art. However, "taking too long" is a flag telling me that I'm not enjoying "making art". So I took a break and when I came back I started playing with the background and the owl.  I was in a better place to enjoy finishing the building.
I never saw an owl standing up so I was surprised by the Southern Florida Burrowing Owl that Rusty Wilson shared on Unsplash.  He was my model.  He ended up being not so cute.  
Here is the link for Mark's video of advanced-level cubes or if you want to read the tutorial in his book you can go to Lesson 7, beginning on page 74.

Here is the Procreate video of my drawing:



Day 13 fish scale drawing game: 


My granddaughter taught me a drawing game.

On a sheet of paper, make a fish scale design. We take turns making a drawing in each of the 'scales'. Then we guess what the drawing is. Here is one of Izzy's.



"It's a monster." I say.

"No Paw Paw."

"Well, it has fangs and wing things. Is it a bat?" I ask.

"No Paw Paw! Those aren't wings. They're legs. 
"Eight legs . . . eight eyes . . . two fangs. 
"It's a spider."

Playing the drawing game with my granddaughter is humbling.



Day 14 Chibi people: 


Sometimes it's just fun to doodle.  

Here is a link to a tutorial on drawing 3 simple chibi poses

by Candy Cane Kennie









Day 15: the rose


Starting with an oval, Mark shows us how to furl a flag to create the top of rose petals and round the bottom to make a rose bud. To read through his tutorial, go to Lesson 9 beginning on page 88.  Or watch his YouTube tutorial: You Can Draw in 30 Days: Day 9.








After following Mark's tutorial for sketching a rose, I used Anna Pavlin's rosebud as a reference to finish my drawing. 









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Sunday, April 16, 2023

100 Days of Drawing (Week 1)

Introduction

One of my goals in life is to influence my grandchildren to draw.  The best way for me to accomplish this is to draw; to be the example. And in this day and age I can make little movies so that they can "watch" me draw.

I organized my 100 Days of Drawing to teach the following:
  1. basic drawing techniques (Source: You Can Draw in 30 Days by Mark Kistler).
  2. drawing cartoons (Reference: Draw Manga Animals, Chibis, and Other Adorable Creatures by J C Amberlyn)
  3. the elements of art:
    • Line
    • Shape
    • Value 
    • Form
    • Space
    • Color
    • Texture
  4. drawing humans
  5. the principles of art:
    • Balance
    • Emphasis
    • Movement
    • Proportion
    • Rhythm
    • Unity
    • Variety
The target of these 100 days is to learn tricks and techniques to draw, first using our imagination and then from life.

This week's drawings

For our first week we'll have our imagination play with circles, balls, cubes, boxes and cuteness:

Materials:
  • pencil
  • eraser
  • paper (printer paper, notebook, etc)
  • pen
  • colors (colored pencils, crayons, watercolor, etc)
  • alternatives to the above: smart phone or tablet drawing app

Day 1: draw a circle.


Use a vertical and horizontal line to help.  

Play with it.  Turn it into a smile.  Color it, turn it on!

A circle is flat.  In art, flat objects are called shapes.  

Play some more.  Turn it into a boulder.  Put some other round rocks near by.

If you pretend that your circle is three dimensional and shade it to look three dimensional, you'll have a sphere.  In art, three dimensional objects are called forms. In You Can Draw in 30 Days: Day 1 Mark demonstrates shading a circle to make a sphere.

Play some more. Circles are fun!  We can use them to make all kinds of shapes and forms. 

Here is a video of my drawing (best viewed fullscreen):




Day 2: draw overlapping circles


Drawing circles overlapping other circles is one way to create the illusion of space.

A way to create the illusion of form is to shade your shapes away from the light source.  Also, adding shadows in the direction away from the light source creates the illusion of space.

This is a continuation of the boulders that I drew as part of Day 1's drawing.

Here's the link to You Can Draw in 30 Days: Day 2 where Mark Kistler demonstrates drawing overlapping circles.

Here is a video of my drawing (best viewed fullscreen):




Day 3: advanced-level spheres


This drawing took me a while to complete. I suggest making the balls bigger, drawing less of them, and having fun turning them into something else.

Establish a light source (I indicate my light source with the arrow in the upper right). Add shade to each round shape to make it look like a ball.

Mark Kistler addresses advanced-level spheres in You Can Draw in 30 Days: Day 3.  He starts giving us a peek at perspective by introducing the horizon in his drawing.

Here is a video of my drawing (best viewed fullscreen):



Day 4: draw a Panda or two


Circles can be used to draw lots of things, especially faces.  Here we use a big circle for the head and smaller circles for the black eye patches that pandas have and still smaller circles for the eyes, the pupils in the eye, and the highlight in the pupil. 

I used a square to help me with the shape of the body.  This helped me locate the arms and legs.

Here is a video of my drawing (best viewed fullscreen):


Day 5: draw cute Manga faces


Cuteness can be conveyed by using round faces and big, really big eyes. 

I'm using Drawing manga : animals, chibis, and other adorable creatures by J C Amberlyn. A copy is available on the Internet Archives.  J C gives step-by-step instructions to draw a chibi head on page 14.

To give another perspective on drawing "cute", Genevieve's Design Studio has posted How to Draw Cartoon Faces which in addition to demonstrating drawing cartoon faces provides a good introduction to using a drawing app (Procreate).  

Here is a video of my drawing (best viewed fullscreen):

Day 6: draw a Chibi


Chibi comes from the Japanese chibi kyara which means "tiny character". The proportions for chibi are normally between two and three heads high, their heads are usually round with large manga eyes, and the details of the legs and arms are minimized. As a result, the cuteness associated with the big-eyed chibi face is reflected by the size of the chibi's body. One of the best examples of the chibi style is Hello Kitty.

Chibibyjean provides a tutorial showing How to Draw Chibi Character on Your iPad.


Day 7: draw a cube


In a way,  all the marks that we make are either a curved line or a straight line.  The circle is a wonderful way for us to start playing with curved lines.  Likewise the cube provides us a playground for straight lines. When I think of cubes, manmade objects come to mind: houses, buildings, trucks, boxes, buses. An extension of the cube is a box.  An extension of the sphere is a tube.  We'll be using boxes and tubes to help us sketch things we see and things that we imagine.

In You Can Draw in 30 Days: Day 4 Mark Kistler gives step by step instructions for drawing cubes.

Day 8: hollow cubes


Here we are at end of the first week, and it's boxing day. Since I started off telling you that we would be drawing cubes AND boxes, I had to extend the week, thus the 8th day of the week. 

Looking back I enjoyed doing these drawings but have to admit that Day 3 was a bit tedious. I think it would have been more fun to draw circles on the imaginary 'Great Plain' and tried various techniques to make them into balls. 

kitten
I included a chibi.  They make doing the drawing more fun. Although I said we were learning tricks to draw from imagination, I use photos to help. In this case I borrowed Ray Zhuang's gray and white cat and exaggerated the eyes to add "cuteness".

Attached below is the Procreate video of my drawing.  For step-by-step instructions, go to page 52 of You Can Draw in 30 Days or watch Mark's video, Lesson 5: Hollow Cubes.


Table of Contents & INDEX
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Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Meeting of the Minds

Over coffee with my friends this week we continued our conversation on conversation. After a few minutes of muddling we remembered the television series that Steve Allen created in the 70s: Meeting of the Minds. Steve 'invited' thinkers from previous eras to get together to discuss and argue aspects of  today's culture 

Steve was by no means the first person to do this. Reading the following words of Niccolò Machiavelli I can easily see him going into his upstairs study, closing the door, and 'entering the ancient courts of rulers':

"When evening comes, I go back home, and go to my study. On the threshold, I take off my work clothes, covered in mud and filth, and I put on the clothes an ambassador would wear. Decently dressed, I enter the ancient courts of rulers who have long since died. There, I am warmly welcomed, and I feed on the only food I find nourishing and was born to savour. I am not ashamed to talk to them and ask them to explain their actions and they, out of kindness, answer me. Four hours go by without my feeling any anxiety. I forget every worry. I am no longer afraid of poverty or frightened of death. I live entirely through them." 

This strategy is also used in the Great Books of the Western World. Mortimer Adler, one of the major collaborators in publishing this collection, sees these books as an invitation to continue the Great Conversation 

The Meeting Of Minds were televised on PBS from 1977-1981. There were 24 episodes, 8 of which are available on YouTube.  The scripts of 22 of the episodes are available to us in the Sacramento Area through Hoopla.

MEETING OF THE MINDS EPISODES

EpisodeDATETITLE
(Links to IMBD)		(Links to YouTube)Hoopla
S1, Ep11/10/1977President Theodore Roosevelt, Queen Cleopatra, theologian Thomas Aquinas, and American revolutionary Thomas Paine Part 1Show #01Volume i
S1, Ep21/17/1977President Theodore Roosevelt, Queen Cleopatra, theologian Thomas Aquinas, and American revolutionary Thomas Paine: Part 2Show #02Volume i
S1, Ep31/24/1977President Ulysses S. Grant, Queen Marie Antoinette, Sir Thomas More, and Karl Marx, author of The Communist Manifesto: Part 1Show #03Volume ii
S1, Ep41/31/1977President Ulysses S. Grant, Queen Marie Antoinette, Sir Thomas More, and Karl Marx, author of The Communist Manifesto: Part 2Show #04Volume ii
S1, Ep52/7/1977English naturalist Charles Darwin, American poet Emily Dickinson, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, and feared conqueror Attila the Hun.: Part 1Show #05Volume iii
S1, Ep62/14/1977English naturalist Charles Darwin, American poet Emily Dickinson, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, and feared conqueror Attila the Hun.: Part 2Show #06Volume iii
S2, Ep13/6/1978German theologian Martin Luther, French philosopher and writer Voltaire, Greek philosopher Plato, and social reformer and nurse Florence Nightingale.: Part 1Show #09Volume v
S2, Ep23/13/1978German theologian Martin Luther, French philosopher and writer Voltaire, Greek philosopher Plato, and social reformer and nurse Florence Nightingale.: Part 2Show #10Volume v
S2, Ep33/20/1978American social reformer Frederick Douglass, formidable Chinese Empress Tz'u-his, Italian criminologist Cesare Bonesana-Beccaria, and French libertine Marquis de Sade.: Part 1Show #07Volume iv
S2, Ep43/27/1978American social reformer Frederick Douglass, formidable Chinese Empress Tz'u-his, Italian criminologist Cesare Bonesana-Beccaria, and French libertine Marquis de Sade.: Part 2Show #08Volume iv
S2, Ep54/3/1978English philosopher and Renaissance man Sir Francis Bacon, women' s rights advocate Susan B. Anthony, Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, and Greek philosopher Socrates: Part 1Show #11Volume vi
S2, Ep64/10/1978English philosopher and Renaissance man Sir Francis Bacon, women' s rights advocate Susan B. Anthony, Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, and Greek philosopher Socrates: Part 2Show #12Volume vi
S3, Ep15/26/1979theologian St. Augustine of Hippo, Byzantine Empress Theodora, American President Thomas Jefferson, and British philosopher Lord Bertrand Russell: Part 1Show #13Volume vii
S3, Ep26/2/1979theologian St. Augustine of Hippo, Byzantine Empress Theodora, American President Thomas Jefferson, and British philosopher Lord Bertrand Russell: Part 2Show #14Volume vii
Unknown6/2/1979Greek philosopher Aristotle, Italian diplomat and author Niccolo Machiavelli, English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Chinese statesman Sun Yat-Sen: Part 1Show #15Volume viii
Greek philosopher Aristotle, Italian diplomat and author Niccolo Machiavelli, English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Chinese statesman Sun Yat-Sen: Part 2Show #16Volume viii
S3, Ep36/9/1979Shakespeare on Love (featuring the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Hamlet, Romeo, Othello, and the Ghost of Hamlet's Father): Part 1Show #17Volume ix
S3, Ep46/6/1979Shakespeare on Love (featuring the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Hamlet, Romeo, Othello, and the Ghost of Hamlet's Father): Part 2Show #18Volume ix
S4, Ep13/29/1981Scottish economist Adam Smith, birth control activist Margaret Sanger, and Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi: Part 1Show #19Volume x
S4, Ep24/5/1981Scottish economist Adam Smith, birth control activist Margaret Sanger, and Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi: Part 2Show #20Volume x
S4, Ep34/12/1981Leonardo da Vinci/William Blake/Niccolo Paganini: Part 1Show #21
S4, Ep44/19/1981Leonardo da Vinci/William Blake/Niccolo Paganini: Part 2Show #22
S4, Ep54/26/1981Oliver Cromwell, the only ruler of England who was neither a king nor a queen, Daniel O'Connell- "The great Irish Liberator"- and Catherine the Great, empress of Russia for thirty years: Part 1Show #23Volume xii
S4, Ep65/3/1981Oliver Cromwell, the only ruler of England who was neither a king nor a queen, Daniel O'Connell- "The great Irish Liberator"- and Catherine the Great, empress of Russia for thirty years: Part 2Show #24Volume xii




As an aside, the history of television is available through over 3,000 interviews of directors, screenwriters, and actors who have made that history: Television Academy Foundation Interviews.



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