A Life in Lines: Exploring My Drawing Styles and Sketches
Sketching, drawing, and doodling have basically been my shadow since I was a kid. I was that student doodling in the margins of every notebook during class. Miraculously, I never got in trouble for it! I even remember being allowed to draw all over a wall in our apartment during a remodel. It felt like total freedom.
These days, I try to keep that energy alive. I make it a priority to hit up life drawing sessions every week. There is something so raw and exciting about capturing rough gestures from a live model in just a few minutes. But I also love cozying up at home to work on more detailed pieces. Whether I am sketching portraits, inventing fantasy characters, or jumping into the latest online art challenges, my sketchbook is rarely closed.
This section of the blog is a giant umbrella for all those scribbles and masterpieces. It is where I share my drawing styles, from the messy 30-second gestures to the polished character designs. I hope you enjoy browsing through my visual diary as much as I enjoyed creating it!
Drawings
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Side and Back View Figure Drawings
These two side and back view figure drawings took 7 and 10 minutes each. The side view pose is more complex, and as the result it’s less finished. The back view pose is rather relaxed and straight forward, so it looks more finished overall. This sketch gives me an idea of a conversation. Each figure
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Under 5-minute Poses
In this set of under 5-minute poses, one figure is well defined. But the other one is pretty much a ghost. I either got distracted and didn’t finish the second figure, or the pose wasn’t favorable. The first figure took 5 minutes, and the second one — under 3. I used charcoal on newsprint paper.
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Stages of Drawing – Gesture
This sketch depicts two stages of drawing. The very beginning of drawing which is construction lines, and the later stage which is shading. It’s about 10 minutes difference between these two figures. These two poses look very similar at first, but in reality they’re very different. The first figure is simply standing with the arms
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Same Pose – Two Angles
And the drama continues in the next 20 minutes! This set of drawings took about 10 minutes each, and it’s the same pose drawn from different angles. I like the placement of these two figures on paper, it looks playful and intriguing to me. It feels like a beginning of recursion, each person holding its
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Drama Lama Drawings
These two gesture drawings took about 5 minutes each. I used soft charcoal on newsprint paper. I like the overall capture of the poses. There’s clearly some drama between these two, but we’ll never know for sure. It amuses me to come up with random stories for these figures, even though it’s the same model
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Trio in Time Drawing
Sometimes, it’s just one of those days when drawing simply isn’t flowing and even coffee doesn’t help. That’s what happened in this trio in time drawing. I like the composition of the figures, but their roughness is a little underwhelming. Each one took only five minutes, but I feel like I could have done more.
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Short Pose Drawing
Short pose drawing is great for capturing the living essence of the figure. It’s the dynamic gesture that makes charcoal come to life. This particular gesture is more complete, and it took me 7 minutes to draw. I didn’t have the time to re-define lights and darks, but I got proportion and pose pretty well.
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Two-Minute Gesture Drawings
Here’s another set of two-minute gesture drawings. I drew these very loosely, but I like how lively they look. This is the case when accuracy is overrated, and these wiggly lines translate into movement and emotion. It took just a few minutes with a charcoal stick, but eventually will transform into a finished drawing. By
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Moss Toned Self-Portrait
Here’s another self-portrait drawing. I actually don’t quite remember drawing it, but I remember being very annoyed by green paper. It seems like it’s fine, but somehow drawings of people on this color look weird. I changed the photo settings to black and white, and I think it looks way better. Recently, I tried using
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Dynamic Gesture Poses
Here are two five-minute poses from life drawing sessions at TSOFA. I actually like both of these drawing. They’re simply dynamic gesture poses that capture the movement and intent. There’s emotion and anticipation despite some anatomical inaccuracies. This is proof that a pose doesn’t need to be long to capture it well. Often enough, basic
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Crosswalk Figures
These two look like crosswalk figures. Their path has intersected once, and then they’ll never see each other again. That is life! Anyway, each of these figures took 10 minutes. I used willow charcoal on newsprint. I feel like I should have paid more attention to the light in these, because the values are all
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Statue or Woman Drawing
At life drawing sessions, we get different models and some tend to keep their arms close to the body. This is a classical contrapposto pose, but I’m not quite happy about the arm. I prefer when the arms are away from the body for short poses, because they tend to hide important points on the