Art Marathon

I never published my demo drawing from teh art marathon I took part in last Friday, because I was using someone else's Mac laptop and didn't have a copy. She emailed it to me today and of course I hated what I drew in those 20 minutes, so I tweaked it a but (not enough of course) just to be able to publish something that was completely horrific.

Behind You, 3

I decided I wanted to retool this guy and get him ready for IG. It amazes me that I thought he would be good to go with a few small tweaks, but nuh-hu, he's terrible! From the scale of his arms to the length of his nose, he needs more work that I think I was ready for. This is part ofthe work then...

Newly Penciled 2

With the fine pencil lines I wondered if it could work with my digital watercolor techniques, so I decided to paint the face in. I actually like how he turned out, because I was trying to draw a thicker-lipped guy who was also handsome, as lately all my drawings have been sporting really thin lips. I'm gonna post him on Instagram so I thought I'd best add a nipple to sex him up a tad.

Newly Penciled

One of the new Grut brushes I tried is called P Borrowed Pencil Hi and it was coming actoss as a fine technical pencil, possibly an H hardness.So Iwent in with a precision drawing and deicded to try and do a very fine lined face.

Free Grut Brushes 2024

For whatever reason, some Grut brush ads popped into my view, and I decided to give them a try. Honestly, none of them are really encouraging me to use them. Maybe the pencil brush, but it's not a mind blowing pencil. I think I'm just more loyal to Kyle Webster.

Couchspread 5

So I thought I need to show teh man's face, but I'm just not feeling teh angle, nor the face I drew—it kinda reminds me of George Michael in one of his Wham! videos, when I hated his looks because he looked so gay (and I was so closeted I had to put up an immediate offense as a defense). Although I never did like how George Michael looked, not the facial type I preferred. Andrew Ridgeley was more my style.

Highwaisted Trousers Demo

We're on to pants in my class, and I demo-ed a pair of pants as well as a shirt. These were the pantsies.

Couchspread 4

I gave up on the front view, but thought, what of a back view? That could be interesting, no?

Bobbing Up Again 2

I had to redraw that last face—it wasn't that great. She's better.

Bobbing Up Again

I was doing research on what's the current hot haircut, and it appears to be...the bob. I mean, I thought we were doing that three years ago? I suppose this version isn't the middle-parted, super ironed-straight version of the other years, but just, a bob. A variety of bobs. Models and actos have been chopping their locks. Can't say I'm especially excited though.

Couchspread 3

I think I better give up—this version isn't much better either. Well, give up or at least set it aside for a few weeks/months/years and get back to it later at some unknown date...

Couchspread 2

I couldn't save yesterday's marks—I had to erase and redo the face. But I'm afraid I'm putting effort into something basically salvageable—this version isn't much better!

Couchspread

I was imagining how I might go about demoing a full digital drawing class, so I found myself narrating as I sketched. It didn't help that the sketch kind of went nowhere, and the best I can say is it looks like he's sitting, spreadeagled, in the corner of a couch (hence the title). But I don't know if I even ant to finish the drawing.

Marathon Man

Despite being under the weather—possibly with Covid! you never know with these home tests, even if they give you the literal all-clear—I had to show up both to my segment of the FIT art marathon as well as to class to demo drawing skirts flats. So Id di make sketches during the day and these are samples o fthem. I suppose it should be easier now to update this blog more regularly with me drawing pretty much all throughout my work days, but perhaps that's also a danger—you draw too much and in such throwaway fashion for demos, that it feels less significant?

Edit: I couldn't get a copy of the drawing I did at the event so here's an extension I did today of the drawing I did yesterday instead.

Man Demo

I was asked to join another Fashion Art Marathon at FIT. Being the new kid among the professors, we trot ourselves out to show both the new blood and new talent in FIT. I was asked to do menswear but I find it ironic since I have yet to be given any menswear-related art classes. Anyhow, I thought I'd just show a simple way of demonstrating how I work in my digital style, and this is a simple test I gave myself the night before, just to practice so I know what I'm doing.

In other news, this is my 6,200th post! GAH! But then again, this blog has been alive (and under the radar, just how I like it) for the past 17 years. So if I'm posting every day at least, it's been bound to happen.

Round Boys, 3 Done

I wanted to post my Round Boys series as a tryptich on Instagram, and I just finished tweaking and posting the final pose (that I thought I had finished weeks ago, but a body movement specialist's videos online showed me that I was making the legs a bit too long, so I was able to correct it. I'm happy with it but Instagram isn't loving teh trio, as the first one got lots more likes but the rest have had dminishing returns. Ah well, I like them!

Leather Demo

Had to demonstrate drawing leather and fur in model drawing class, and while I didn't prep at all, I feel like I did an okay job...although I also fear the leather shirt I brought just ended up looking too masculine on our model Xian. Oh well, menswear looks for women are still very much in style...

Woman Yesterday 2

I thought of developing the style more since I'm thinking of demonstrating a new style at a group demo I'm doing at FIT on Friday, as I want to keep my fave brushes more of a secret for now. This is my experiment with creating a mid century gouache style, where you can see the brush strokes underneath teh figre. But with htis figure I feel like I'm mixing too many old techniques improperly...

Woman Yesterday

My fashion illustration skills obviously hark back to classic illustration from when I grew up, and the nostalgia hanging around that in my head. This quick sketch was immediate, and evoked a lot of those old feelings, but it was done digitally and in present day. Does it feel too retro? To me, definitely. But I do like how it evokes the old school sketches. I'm particularly emphasizing the hands becaue I realize I draw small hands for some reason. I always thought maybe they needed to be more feminine (although one Fashion Illustrator I never met asked me to call him, then berated me for drawing small hands on men! LOL)

Woman Today

I have been a menswear fashion illustrator who used to do womenswear, but in fashion, you really do need to have a specific point of view for your illustrations to work. And as I work teaching more fashion sketch classes in FIT, I realize I'm coasting on old muscle memory and not really presenting a personal POV on women's fashion illustration. But the question was, do I even have one anymore? I can certainly do one on the fly (as I have more recently) but it doesn't have the confidence I do with menswear, nor for that matter, the confidence I had when I did it as a matter of course, back when I worshipped women's fashions in the 80s and 90s. So this is a conscious attaempt to sketch and see what makes me unique as a womenswear illustrator...but it's just a start for now.

Ski Man 3

My friend Dan posted an Insta story of Jay Kay from teh band Jamiroquai, and he was sporting a big red parka that I thought would be a better fit for the ski man illo I started last year. I never did like the jacket I designed for it, because it wasn't oversized enough for it to feel current, but I was letting the drawing style lead the look. That has been corrected now.

Round Boys 12

And he's done and ready for deployment to Instagram. I'm still not 100% about where his butt lays over his heel, but I'm not flexible enough to get into that pose so I couldn't check for sure. But in my folder of reference poses, I often draw a pose then pull up my references to check if I did the anatomy right, and I know that many men are flexible enough to sit on their heels. I didn't have any photos of this view exactly, so I often have to extrapolate from other photos how the muscles might react, turning teh man in my imagination, like a 3D model being viewed from all angles.

Round Boys 11

I loved what i started with yesterday and am happy he's developing well, but I'm still stymied by the leg anatomy and how correct it is or isn't. And sometimes, even when it's correct, it might not look correc t so I kind of need to to look right even if it's already anatomically accurate. Liks, is his butt sitting correctly on his heels? Are the legs the right size for this foreshortening? It goes on...

Round Boys 10

I thought changing his head made it more...ahem...iconic. This looks like a more heroic pose, as opposed to a comic book pose. I realize now that these hunched/crouched poses are pretty common in comics, coming from super heroes sitting atop rooftops, surveying the streets below. Maybe Spider-Man or Nightcrawler coming to mind...

I made sure to have a copy of the original nearby to gauge the proper scale so that they're both the same size.

Round Boys 9

Okay, this is getting somewhere. It feels a bit better because it's a slightly different entry into the circle as he's coming from the left now, although that left leg view is going to be problematic as I have no idea how the muscles should look in that pose, and this is just a guesstimate at this point. But I do like him looking down as if he got on to teh circle, got comfy, then is surveying the landscape before he climbs on out. Or possibly leaps!

Round Boys 8

Still trying to find the right balance between active pose and a somewhat iconic pose (although not in the way that social media uses the word, meh), that fits in the middle of the trio I had planned. I'm kind of loathe to do a spreadeagled pose again since I just did it for the opener, even if this one is more of a squat than a climbing-out-into-the-circle pose like the first.

Round Boys 7

I'm still playing with various poses for the middle panel. For all the poses I've already laid out (feels like a couple of dozen at this point), I'm still not satisfied.

Round Boys 6

I've been hard at work trying to get a trio together, but instead oft the difficult middle piece, I was able to get the opposite bookend. I think they look nice together! Now I just need to create a pose to go between them,

Round Boys 5

Trying to create a middle piece for a projected trio in this circle motif setup. I need a strong enough pose to transition from the very strong first one, to an as-of-yet un-finalized other-end piece, but kind of wanted a back view, leg extended down kind of deal. I got my friend Ernesto to pose for a few but I'm still not 100% sure what to make of this panel. It'll be a frieze!

Dries-y

Facebook fed me ads for Dries Van Noten, who I already follow anyway. But this one ad with a particular model just felt perfect for a fashion moment, for me, so I decided to draw the figure based on the pose and the outfit—which I don't normally do! But with his legs he inspired me to do what I feel is a very Renaldo Barnette style figure because Professor Barnette is a friend and one of the professors at FIT whose work really stands out as an easy representation of how croquis drawings should be done.

The second pose is just me riffing on the style without a reference pic.

Pants Down

Trying to plan out teh attitude of a particular sketch, with this being a very immediate sketch of the idea. Sometimes I wonder, tough, if I should consider this not the prelude but the final product.

Boy On iPhone

Sometimes while sketching I just get so inspired to draw, and I'm not often certain about what I want to draw, but the inspiration is to create something nice, possibly great...and then I get distracted. I liked the boy I drew, then I got distracted with testing out some new (to me) brushes in Photoshop, to emulate some of the work fellow artists do with gouache,

ManCroquises

A fave model agency, Tomorrow Is Another Day, posed a pola of one of their models and I really liked his simple, easy stance, so I made a croquis (well, two) of it.

Crqouises In Paint

I had a vision of me trying to create a new female fashion figure for myself, one that feels more relevant to what fashion is doing now, as well as to my own sensibilities. It's hard because I'm no longer as interested nor as adept at womenswear as I am at menswear, but it's also a good challenge.

But then I got distracted with new brushes!

Round Boys 4

 

I'm trying to make this a triptych, but I need a middle panel since I have the outside ones. But many of the poses seem redundant or too similar in frame.

Round Boys 3

I decided to pull this guy out and possibly publish him on IG, and as such also decided to make him chaste with some draping, and I actually think it looks better with his dick covered! But maybe I'll show both on IG just to have a backup for the peen lovers, lol.

Behind You, 2

I caved and did two hands on his. back again. It seemed to work better with his head position. And the banana yellow took over the entire background. But I did a drawing like this before so I need to find some way to spin it differently, I think.

Light & Shadow Demo

I was teaching my students to observe  highlights and shadows in a model, and I was quite pleased as I walked around and saw some of the sketches—some of them were actually getting it! Anyhow, these were my sketches from my demo as well as of me drawing along.

Sequins

I got a bit ambitious and out together a PDF of various fashion illustrators doing shine and shimmery things, and I decided to do my own version of a sequined dress (this one taken from Zara). Not the best sketch but not the worst for something I rarely draw, although it reminds me a lot like Cliff Faust's work, so I might be channeling his sketchs from Facebook.

Arms Crossed, Tatted Up

I decided to turn this guy into the sketch I originally did inspired by a tatted model and the hot chef from my gym who has a lighthouse tattoo. It turned out pretty well, and I think I'm uploading this to Insta today. Fingers crossed they don't delete the peen!

Arms Crossed

I'm determined to do a sketch for Instagram that will feature full frontal nudity again, but I'm also hedging my bets by doing a covered, underwear version. This drawing came together rather quickly, although I have to say his face was hard to come by-I went through quite a few less satisfactory faces (since I make them up as I go along).

Behind You

I didn't love the direction of the drawing yesterday, so I did another cute twunk-looking thing looking back at you, and showing butt. And trying to change his hand positions up a bit instead of having them both on his back, I have him holding a banana. I suppose it can be suggestive.

Early Bird Gets The Gown

Against my longing to stay in bed, I got up early to join my friend Renaldo for his model drawing class, the better to try out more toned paper sketches on our fave model Cyrene. Practicing beforehand gives me confidence it will work out when I do it for my own class, and truth to tell, I can feel it already. Doing a demo while not being 100% sure just sucks, bec ause you have to perform, lecture AND produce at the same time, presenting your work as the definitive model (no pun intended) to follow. The kids might not notice but I certainly do. It can be daunting even for those with experience.

Leering Overhead

I'm trying to get back into drawing the way I did before I started teaching. I feel like I put so much energy into my lessons that I go home exhausted and not wanting to draw anymore. So I'm trying to make something also that I can post fully nude on IG and get over the feat that they will censor me again like they did at the beginning of the year.

Toned Paper Demo

I actually sketched in Lamont's class yesterday, so I had practiced and felt comfy by the time my demo sketches for class happened today. We did evening wear on a non fashion type model, and she had natural curves and was kinda cool with a very doll-like face. All on toned paper, which I think the students can enjoy, and now that I think about it, since it is very my thing on digital work, why not here as well? It's certainly fun.

Setting The Tones

I was prepping for a model drawing class with the students working on toned paper, which is kinda my thing (albeit digital) so I decided to map out some sketch ideas on how they might approach laying in highlights. This was my sample sketch in Photoshop.

Walk On, Done

I got it ready for posting.I'm still not sure it looks right, yet I know the legs are right, he's just a big-gammed guy lol

Walk On 2

I still didn't refer to any photos so I feel a bit good about myself, but still think he can be refined even further. Not sure what needs doing, need to walk away from it. Legs look a bit large...

Walk On

I started out with a profile and wanted to a walking pose, and thought it flowed fairly well. I just need to sort out the anatomical details. Well, also his head might be too small (although I've certainly seen some models with that kind of proportion!)