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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Venus, charcoal sketches
Sometimes I forget how short these 3-minute poses are, and concentrate too much on one particular part of the figure. As the result, I usually end up with armless Venuses xD
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Female gesture poses, charcoal drawing
There used to be a time where I’d be unable to tell which model I drew. It was a generic figure and could have been anyone. So I’ve set my goal to make the figures more recognizable and individual, at least to me. I can tell the person from there drawings, and that makes me
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Longer standing pose, charcoal drawing
I think this was a longer 20-minute pose, but I can’t be sure because at that time I didn’t label or date my artworks >.<
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15-minute pose, charcoal drawing
This is a longer pose, so I had more time for details. However, I didn’t switch paper, and it’s tough to add and subtract on low quality paper ~_~
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Two-pose male figure, charcoal drawing
I’m trying out different paper, and this one is super smooth. Unfortunately, I don’t really know what it’s called 🙂 We have it at the studio for free ^^; However, I can’t figure out if I like the smoothness. I feel like it leaves less room for erasing as even willow charcoal just wants to
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Short poses, charcoal drawing
More gestures of the same model. I wonder if I should re-draw the ones I like and try to develop them more 🤔
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Quick gestures, charcoal drawing
This is a example of getting distracted mid-pose and not finishing it 😀 The other two gestures are ok ^^ These were done on rough newsprint, I think it’s my favorite paper so far for warm-up drawings.
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Two similar poses, charcoal drawing
Every now and then, it feels like the model does two identical poses in the row until you walk around and check the weight shift.
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Multi-pose, charcoal drawing
Sometimes the poses differ so much, and I think nothing of it while drawing… However, looking back at it later, I see just hilarious scenes and have a lot of questions as to what’s going on there? This probably was a cool dance party until one of them lost their airpod xD
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Tri-figure, charcoal drawing
Whenever I start the drawing sessions with short poses, I just draw them on the same page. If the pose wasn’t working out, I just erase it. There’s simply no time to switch paper sheets with 1-minute poses 😀 However, sometimes these gesture drawings turn out to be pretty dynamic and interesting. They’re also a
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Leaning seated pose, charcoal figure drawing
I see the same problem here, I didn’t indicate the model’s surroundings, so the pose feels a little awkward. However, I still like it. Now, I usually just block in whatever the model is leaning on.
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Seated pose, charcoal drawing
There was a time when a seated pose was a mystery to me. I can’t say that I’ve mastered it, but at least I don’t get a panic attack whenever I hear “let’s do a seated pose” xD