I like to start most drawing sessions with a sketch in one of several practice or sketchbooks I have running at any time. Some of them are focused topic sketchbooks, such as my Creatures Sketchbook (more on that in a future post), and some are less so. Such is my current ‘Practice Makes Perfect’ sketchbook, where I draw either from reference images, follow art tutorials such as those I find on Pinterest, or just free-wheel.
The current page I’m working on is a free-wheel, with intent. I am drawing from imagination, but at the beginning I set out a bunch of random shapes around the page, and then, like trying to find meaning in clouds, I fill them in with creatures.
Sometimes those creatures are monstrous, or cute, and sometimes, they aren’t strange creatures at all. I spent around 14 minutes doing this belly dancer, which is around average for a warm-up sketch for me of this size. I will continue doing time-lapses, but every once in a while I’d like to show you a real-time sketch. I think it conveys better the actual process of drawing. Too often timelapses look like magic.
I’m nearly done with this page, after which I might do a post or a video (or both!) about why I think doing a page exercise like this is very good for any stage of artist. I hope to see you then.
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