A double treat.

In second year animation we went on a field trip to the Experimental Farm to draw animals. I don't tend to draw animals often (this is my first and only lifedrawing experience with animals), nor have I ever studied animal anatomy. I really don't know how to gauge how good these are. *shrug* Regardless, here they are:




Click on images for larger images.

All drawings done with brush pen and are 1-5 min sketches.

More Lifedrawing? YOU KNOW IT! - entry 3

And one more from the Gouache Silhouette series:



Why I left the bottom left silhouette on a tilt I will never know. I was tired a lot in those days. :P A lot of stranger things happened.

The two silhouettes on the right were actually students posing fully clothed and not in the nude. There was never a requirement for the students to pose nude...Although, there was this one time that my classmate Aaron decided it would be a good idea to jump up on the platform, lift his shirt, yell "THIS ONE IS FOR YOU ANNE!" (Anne was our lifedrawing teacher, a very proper 50-something lady) and proceeded to tweak his tinny man nipples. Thankfully Anne thought this was very funny and proceeded to giggle like a school girl.

Now back to the silhouettes on the right. These two figures were the first attempts at seeing shadow. We didn't use a direct light source and were stuck with the diffused lighting already present in the room.

This was also one of the few times we actually dealt with drapery (referring to anything made out of fabric that folds). There just wasn't enough time in the two year animation program to go into depth with drapery.

I found that the animation course pretty much prepared us to draw anything rather than focus on drawing specifics of certain things. Obviously, this is a much more valuable skill than being able to focus on one or two things. The phrase "this is how you draw ________" was never used. Instead, a "use as much reference as you can" teaching technique was implemented. Google image search became your friend. There were some assignments where we had to submit our reference with the completed works. I still look up everything and use TONS of reference. If you are a starting out artist, or even an experienced artist that doesn't already do this, USE REFERENCE. Sit down and look at 30 or 40 images of what you are trying to draw. It will improve your mental catalog as well.

More Lifedrawing? YOU KNOW IT! - entry 2

Sorry about the hiatus. Was off in the land of Toronto partying it up a bit. I am back and ready for more old art posts. :)


Gouache Silhouettes! These were done in less than 2 min.

Ummm...I am tired right now and dont have anything brilliant or insightful to say right now. I will post another page of silhouettes next time...hopefully with something more to say on the matter of gouache silhouettes. :D

My first lifedrawing term.

As promised, more lifedrawing. Dont hold your excitment in. Let it out. It's okay.

If anyone has EVER done lifedrawing at Algonquin College (in Ottawa) you will recognize these casts. Millions of us have drawn these casts. I am one of them.

Anyways, these are from first year, first semester animation. Its only outlines. Why? The philosophy behind doing only the outlines is that it shows where your weaknesses are. Shadows can be used to cover up errors in volumes. Our lifedrawing teacher was of the school of thought that shadows come later when you can bring out the object with just the outlines. I tend to agree with her school of thought, she brought some amazing work out of me.

And without further ado, The Boys:


I believe this was the first thing I drew in animation for lifedrawing. Yes, he is missing an arm. :P

Here is a GREAT way to measure your own success, draw the same cast from two different angles. He wont move. :P Here are my results from such an exercise:


This guy is missing an ear. The other one was kind of wonky and my head is weak but I am showing it because you can compare the rest of the body to my other cast drawing. The rest of the body is definitely better than the head.

And his "finer" side:


After we had finished this cast we had to recopy our drawing in pen (with a light table) and then draw the skeleton inside. The hard part? The skeleton was not posed in the same position. Not even close. We had a skeleton that we could walk around and look at but we needed to figure out how the skeleton fit inside of the body.

Here lies my bones:

Click on him to see the bigger drawing and see all the little vertebrae I shoved in there. There should be the correct number. Talk about a crash course in anatomy.

Back to basics III.

ANNNDDDD...the last lifedrawing post, for now.



Okay, here we are getting into some longer poses. The coloured pose at the top was done using pencil (for the outline) and water colour markers. Here is the only time we ever used colour in lifedrawing class and this was the only class we ever did it in. I REALLY liked using the water colour markers.

The three poses under the coloured pose are all done in pencil and gouache. This was an exercise in shadow. Here I did get lazy with the hands. I think I ran out of time but I am not going to make excuses. :P

Under that we have some poses in brush pen and pencil. Nothing crazy, again focusing on lines of action.

Back to basics II.

Okay, onto old lifedrawing number two. This is still from my second year animation program:



Moving onto gouache (a type of paint), brush pen (a pen with a brush like nib) and pencil (col-erase).

Hands are the hardest thing on the human body to draw. If the artist is hiding a characters hands its a good indication that they are a poor artist. A true measure of an artist is their ability to draw hands. When the artist draws the hands behind the back or in the pockets, or in a fist it is heavily frowned upon. It's considered weak. Sounds very elitist but really its about a good drawing vs. a bad drawing. I still struggle with drawing hands but force myself to try and include them as much as possible. The hands I have here are done in brush pen and col-erase.

Below that we have two different types of gestures.

The 15 second exercises were an attempt to get a "strong line of action," that is, a line that goes right through the body and denotes a movement. Line of action is important. Without it, character's look stiff and static. Lines of actions, usually "C-curves" and "S-curves", are a big part of laying down a drawing. Strong lines of action can make or break a pose.

The longer poses were done in brush pen. Just a general lifedrawing exercise. Didn't help that the model wasn't very good.

Back to basics.

Where should I begin? Only makes sense to start with the basics. ANY decent artist needs to have a good chunk of lifedrawing under their belt. Animators are no different. Thus, it only feels appropriate to show some of my older lifedrawing.

Before you start wondering, yes, the times are correct. We were timed on all our lifedrawing. The times and styles were geared towards teaching us to understand movement of the human form. Lifedrawing became a rush of adrenaline and when you were on, you were on. Days you weren't, it was best to leave and start drinking in the campus bar which was less than 25m from the lifedrawing room.

Anyways, page one:


Okay, the top half of this page is dedicated to a technique called "one line drawings" and they are just that. ONE LINE. You are not allowed to lift the pen off the page and no whiteout! What you put on paper is what you get. Most of these ranged from 3-5 min each.

The bottom half of the page is done in conte. For those of you who don't know what conte is, it's like a harder charcoal (yes...people draw with charcoal). Still frightfully messy though. The actual times are indicated beside the drawings. The purpose of the faster ones was to convey as much of the form as possible. In the longer poses we started looking at how light and shadow play. Conte is personally one of my favorite mediums to use.