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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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
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Eastern Merchant Portrait
Every now and then, I attend portrait drawing sessions. Occasionally, models there wear costumes and create mysterious and interesting characters. This person had eastern motifs with flowy fabrics and sparkles throughout the costume, and for some reason I channeled this eastern merchant portrait. This portrait is tiny, 6 by 9 inches. I actually had a
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Figure Drawing Side and Back View
Here is figure drawing of side and back view poses. These are quick gestures, the one on the left took 10 minutes, and the other one — 7. My goal was to capture the dynamic feel of the poses, and I think I did that well. If you look closely, you will notice that 7-miute
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Quick Figure Sketches
This set is two quick figure sketches. I actually marked the time for each figure. The first one is 5 minutes, the second one is 2. I like how the 5-minute figure developed, but the 2-minute of has interesting quality to it. As if I captured the most important parts, the rest can be filled
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Figure Sitting on Column
In this gesture drawing, a figure is sitting on a column. That column was actually a regular barstool, but I improvised. That’s probably why it looks so wonky. I usually work on those elements last, and there probably wasn’t enough time to finish it properly. However, I like it as a gesture. This drawing probably
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Lady with Antenna Drawing
Sometimes, life drawing sessions evoke strange images. Like this lady with antenna drawing. I’m not entirely sure why it came about, the model definitely did not have anything like that on her head. But it felt right, so it appeared on paper. The same goes for the little bear-like creature to her side. It wasn’t
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Same Pose – Two Views Drawing
I usually go to the short pose life drawing sessions, because I can practice drawing the figure quickly and in a loose fashion. Most of the times, each pose is different. Sometimes, the model does the same pose, but turns to change the viewing angle. And sometimes, I just switch easels to get the same
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Dramatic Figure Gesture
Here’s another sketch from my local life drawing sessions. I visit these almost every week, but I fell behind posting them. These two figures probably took me about 15 minutes each. The first figure gesture is very dramatic. It looks as if the figure has been performing on stage. The second one is in a
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Sanguine Skull Drawing
Here’s an unusual for me artwork. I used sanguine on paper for this skull drawing. Skulls are great for practice drawings, but they also have an interesting aesthetic. I’ve had this idea of skulls and flowers in my head for a while now. It might now be that new or original, but I feel like