• A collage of sketchbook drawings of women with wavy and curly hair, and two digital paintings of the same character with long wavy, purple hair. The text Practicing in Between is on top of the collage.
    Digital Painting,  Drawing,  Figure Drawing,  Illustration Series: In Between,  Sketchbooks

    Practicing in Between (Part 1 & 2)

    Winter’s begun and the longest night is here. I’m ready for fresh starts, a new year, and lengthening daylight slowly inching back towards spring. I’ve been practicing art quite a bit, and am so close to filling two sketchbooks: a multimedia one and a smaller drawing one (hopefully a sketchbook share video is coming in the near future 🤞). Today I have 25 sketchbook pages to share in this post (!!!). And I came up with the idea for an ongoing series that I’ve just begun, with a new original character!

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  • A sketchbook page with figure sketches, including a girl eating a slice of pizza. Piles of pens are laid next to the sketchbook on both sides.
    Drawing,  Sketchbooks

    More Gestural Sketches

    I suppose I apply a wide definition of what a gesture drawing is – if the spirit of the drawing is meant to be gestural, even if the end result becomes too detailed or tight, I think it still counts. While drawing these pages, I was thinking of the “not this / this” photo that is on Proko’s How to Draw Gesture guide. I agree that the action lines are the quintessential nature of a gesture drawing. I just don’t always accomplish them, hah.

  • A linear sketch of a woman raising one arm with her eyes closed. The line art has a purple gradient applied and the background is peachy colored. The sketch is oriented horizontally, as if she is laying down.
    Digital Painting

    Digital sketching progress

    I think daily practice is starting to pay off a little. Two months ago, whenever I tried to sketch directly in Photoshop with my Wacom tablet, it felt so awkward; I scrapped drawings a few times in frustration. Tonight I worked while using a photo reference, but the sketching felt must easier. I was able to softly erase lines like a kneaded eraser, layering up an under sketch until I had the line I wanted. Then I would solidify those lines to be darker while erasing the rest. I worked on a single sketch layer. I also really like making the background layer something other than pure white – it…