Sorry for the delay in posting these updates, work schedule and a week of ill health got in the way.
To start with I will give a brief listing of some of the materials I mentioned in class. All these products can be found at
Artifolk is a great online store and almost unbeatable in price and quality of products
and here
I get most of my pens from Cult Pens. Because they specialise in pens they tend to stck more types of pen and marker than Artifolk.
There are other online art stores but these two are my favourites.
For those of you who prefer to visit a local store, I can recommend Hobbicraft at Crown Point Center, Leeds, http://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/Pages/Stores/Store.aspx?storeid=31 and there is a new shop opened in the Merrion Cenre in Leeds,
http://www.craftwiseonline.co.uk/ .
If you can manage the track to Ilkley, The Art Shop, is another good store to visit. It's situated near the main car park by the main shopping area.
They also have a website
PENCILS, ERASERS AND BLENDERS
I recommend you used decent quality pencils , they don't cost the earth. If you buy cheap, budget brands it's likely that you will not be satisfied with the results. I tend to use Derwents,Wolffs, Faber Castell and Staedtler.
Don't scrimp on erasers either. Cheap erasers will totally mess up your artwork. I recommend Winsor and Newton putty rubbers and Staedtler plastic eraser.
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Lot of my pencil work involves blending the lead to give a smooth area of tone or to create clouds of smoke or other effects. To create these effects I use both tissue paper wrapped around my index finger or a blending stump (fig4). Tissue paper can give a softer gentler blend over a larger surface and stumps are very good for smaller areas and detail work. Although I have seen many artists use a stump for large areas too.
INK PENS
There are a lot of pens on the market and I guess it comes down to giving them a try to find which ones suit you best.
Faber-Castell Pitt Artist
pens and Copic Multiliners are the brands I tend to use for inking (and
sometimes a brush) and although I try out other brands and experiment with
other tools, these are the pens that I feel most comfortable working with.
Faber-Castell Pitt Artist
pens come in a variety of nib thicknesses
XS=Extra superfine,
S=Superfine, F=Fine, M=Medium and B= Brush.
They also produce a Big
Brush which carries their heaviest nib which is a bit like using a No.8 brush.
My personal favourite is
the B nib.
The good thing about Copic
Multiliners, is that unlike the Faber-Castell pen, you can refill them with ink
cartridges and also replace the nibs. These pens are available in a number of
nib thicknesses ranging from 0.03-0.7 to brush. The Copic Multiliner is more of
a technical pen than the Faber-Castell. Another plus with the multiliner is
that your line work does not smudge or smear when coloured using Copic Colour
Markers or watercolours.
MARKERS
I use markers for quite a
lot of my colouring as the colours are nice and vibrant and can be manipulated
by using a blender fluid. There are a number of
brands of marker available but by far the most popular are the Letraset Tria
and the Copic Marker.
When Letraset was in
partnership with Pantone, their marker products were excellent and highly
popular, but since Pantone and Letraset parted company the Letraset marker, in
my opinion, has dropped in quality and I now use Copic as my number one choice
of colour marker.
Although each marker only
has two nibs as opposed to the Tria marker,which has three it comes in a range of three pens –
the Classic marker with a wide chisel and fine nib,
the Sketch with
small chisel and brush nib, and the Ciao which has a super brush nib and
a medium broad chisel nib.
All Copic markers are refillable with bottles of
Copic ink and all nibs are replaceable as well. The reason I prefer Copic to
Tria is that I have found the nibs to be more durable and they can hold the ink
for longer.
FIGURE DRAWING
So, to recap on week 1, in which we focused on figure drawing, here are some images that should refresh your memory about what was discussed.
For those of you who are still getting used to drawing the proportions correctly, try using the simply stick figure to capture the pose limb proportions.
One you have familiarised yourself with the proportions of limbs etc, try some loosely figure sketching, employing a light scribbly method , try to avoid heavy pressure with your pencil.
Here are some really nice loose figure sketches by other professional artists.
Aloose production sketch from The Powers (above) by Michael Avon Oeming
The last word on figure drawing - Frank Frazetta
LAYOUT
When studying other artist's work, try to rigure the layout and composition.
Often the best art uses the simplest layouts Frazetta is well known for his triangular/pyramid balanced compositions as well as using circles to frame the main point of interest. The image shown below has both.
NARRATIVE
Narrative can usually be found in most good fantasy art, even in a solitary figure drawing. The two Frazetta sketches below are good examples.
The figure above is poised for action. Is he hunting, creeping up on his prey, or is he approaching an challenging adversary? You cannot look at this drawing it not suggest anything to you.
A woman does not lie on a bed, sofa or floor in this position if she is the only person in the room unless she's practicing her powers of seduction, in which case there's narrative in that too.
Here's a couple of good examples from Richard.
RECAP ON CURRENT EXERCISES
Here are the last stages of where we are at with the current exercises.
For those of you who are still getting used to drawing the proportions correctly, try using the simply stick figure to capture the pose limb proportions.
Then try the tried and tested method adding form by using cylinders and ovals.
One you have familiarised yourself with the proportions of limbs etc, try some loosely figure sketching, employing a light scribbly method , try to avoid heavy pressure with your pencil.
Here are some really nice loose figure sketches by other professional artists.
Claire Wendling captures the movement and mood of cats (and other animals for that matter) like no one else.
LAYOUT
When studying other artist's work, try to rigure the layout and composition.
Often the best art uses the simplest layouts Frazetta is well known for his triangular/pyramid balanced compositions as well as using circles to frame the main point of interest. The image shown below has both.
NARRATIVE
Narrative can usually be found in most good fantasy art, even in a solitary figure drawing. The two Frazetta sketches below are good examples.
Here's a couple of good examples from Richard.
RECAP ON CURRENT EXERCISES
Here are the last stages of where we are at with the current exercises.
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