Testing Times

The previous few weeks haven’t been blessed with much in the way of inspiration. Maybe it’s the infernal weather? Not really; I think I’ve begun to run out of nostalgic points of interest, so that channel is beginning to run a tad dry. This is a shame really, given what fun it’s been. I’ve been a bit lost and little has taken my fancy.

So, in a desperate attempt to get back on track, I went back to Reddit Gets Drawn. Old faithful. The more tolerant/long-standing friends of this blog will remember that I was at one stage doing these on a weekly basis, against the clock too. And sure enough, on return I came across this great model.

My attempt here wasn’t actually timed, as the wheel I previously used to determine the duration is, er… it’s in need of a new coat of glitter. 😉 But this exercise came in at just under an hour. It was a lot of fun – it’s a little bolder than my usual style and I’m pleased with the speed; the only thing getting me down being the background, which seemed quite the puzzle this time around, for whatever reason. Hey ho! Fun is the operative word. Whether it’s kicked anything else off, we’ll have to see.

Be sure to check out the comment thread itself, in which others are sharing their responses.

Paisley the Pretty

You go ages without a foray into Reddit Gets Drawn and then you do two in a row. Crazy, I know. Anyway, here’s Paisley, a very pretty cat who appears to know as much going by the pose in this photograph… but then, show me a cat who doesn’t know! Indeed I was struggling to find the motivation to draw anything today, until this adorable little one came along – bang goes my early night, eh Paisley? I’ll let you off ’cause you’re a cat.

For those stopwatch/Wheel of Time Reddit enthusiasts, I did try and go as quickly as I could (though I’d be lying if I said the aforementioned plans for sleep weren’t a big factor in doing as much). This took about an hour and a half in total, which is really rather quick for me.

And so to bed! Or at least when I’ve done my WordPress rounds. Yeesh, no rest for the wicked… I’m just joshing, of course. Where would I be without my bedtime reading?

I expect there to be many vastly more charming drawings of Paisley to come, so be sure to keep a paw on the comment thread.

Greencheeks

Why do birds suddenly appear…?

I had no idea it was Draw A Bird Day in these parts until I read as much from Laura’s entry on Create Art Every Day, so what we have here is an honorary entry at best. Or perhaps I did know, and that’s why this Reddit Gets Drawn snap leapt out and convinced me to draw a bird today. His name is Mac, and googling ‘green bird with red tail’ suggests it’s the green-cheeked conure – they look like wonderful pets and now I want one! I wonder how well they get on with African Greys…? Hmm.

I usually time myself when dealing with Reddit volunteers, as you know, but for some reason decided against that today and took my sweet time – this ultimately took just over three hours. I didn’t half wear my wrist out with all those feathers/curves – it’s not known pain like that for a while. Never mind, eh! I deliberated over the colour of the background for a long time, then thought, sod it, why not have every colour. Photoshop’s gradient tools to the rescue, there.

You can see the comment thread here, which already contains a number of beautiful pieces.

Well, now all I have in my head is The Birdie Song. I’m not even going to embed that. But I am going to link to it as I’ve made the fatal error of searching YouTube for it. Click at your own risk.

Time-Tested: 130

It’s been quite some time since I spun the wheel and went shopping for inspiration at Reddit Gets Drawn. For those newer readers that might not know: I have a colourful, uber-glamorous Wheel of Fortune-esque spinner, adorned with various time limits. I spin it, and it gives me the time limit for a drawing. Simples. I used to do it as a weekly thing on Saturdays, but after completing the first wheel, Christmas came and went and my routine was knocked about. Now I’ve settled on it just being a sporadic, whenever-I-darn-well-feel-like-it kind of thing, which will do me just fine.

Anyway shut up Jacob and get to the point. After a dusting off and a fresh coat of glitter, the wheel played ball, and gave me 130 MINUTES to work with my latest subject.

What an absolutely adorable photograph! I couldn’t resist. This time limit was generous, and thank goodness too – I must have abandoned and restarted shading the face five or six times in the first forty or fifty minutes. The shading just wasn’t working, there was either not enough contrast or far too much. Needless to say, this stumble worried me somewhat, ever more mindful of the ticking clock, but thankfully I managed to get something sweet out of it in the end. I focused heavily on the cheeks and chin, trying to really bring out that grin.

I’m happy to devote more time to the face than the clothing, it was well worth it, but the issues encountered meant there wasn’t perhaps as much time on the outfit as I’d have wanted. I think that’s clear looking at his trousers, and something about the truck doesn’t sit right to me – I think its too clear that I just did it on another Photoshop layer, thrown on… perhaps more shading on/around it would have helped. There was a lot more charming decoration to his tanktop too, but I left that out in the interest of time.

Much as I am picking holes in it, I am chuffed with the result. I think I captured some of the sweet little boy in my drawing. And now I find myself wanting a child of my own.

Here is the Reddit post and comment thread – keep an eye on it as others might upload their own efforts.

Woof!

What a cool dog! I could not resist.

This is another trip to Reddit Gets Drawn, tidily restored to the traditional Saturday slot, however, the wheel, erm… wasn’t working, so I couldn’t do it under timed conditions, sorry. 😉 No, in truth, I just thought I probably wouldn’t be able to do this lovable little tyke the justice deserved. Too adorable to go by swiftly.

I reverted from Corel Painter back to Photoshop for this. Starting out in Painter, I quickly began to get lost in an awkward smudge of black and brown paint, so after a few hours found myself back with the ol’ faithful. Maybe I shouldn’t have chickened out of the practice, but the dark coat and fur seemed a very daunting task and I just felt as if this would be the better way to go. The Photoshop result has come out better, with a pleasing synergy between it and my drawing of the grey wolf. I will, however, endeavour to try a furry creature in Corel before the trial expires.

Here’s the comment thread, which contains the photograph and some particularly good responses.

In signing off, here’s another cool dog:

Too much laughter. Woof woof indeed.

Keyon, Content (in Corel!)

This chap might look familiar to long-time readers. What seems a very long time ago now, the beginning of November, I made a Time-Tested with he as the commanding subject. It seemed to go down very well, and as I’d had such fun working with him, I took the (most uncharacteristically) bullish step of getting in touch and asking if he’d be intersted in taking a couple more.

To my surprise, Keyon was not horrified, in fact he was very much up for it! After some pleasantly brief direction and discussion, I was practically inundated with photographs… well, twenty or so. They are all portraits taken in a similar vein to the Reddit exercise, showing a range of emotions and feelings. Here are the first two, which fell under the umbrella of ‘content’ – attempting to show happiness and serenity without smiling. With that sense of satisfaction and happiness in oneself and one’s situation, it seemed correct that I could get away with my traditional drawing style. Some others might demand something different, though, so watch this space!

The above is another foray into the wonderful world of Corel Painter, this time trying to use its pencil tools. This was, again, a very pleasant visual experience while also posing much more of a traditional challenge. I’m still dizzy by the amount of things you can alter in it – pencil type, softness, paper stock, they’ve thought of everything! In a subliminal honour of the work’s Time-Tested heritage, I did this relatively quickly – circa seventy minutes. I quite like the result, but I’m left wondering whether it actually says ‘content’, and whether I should have gone more delicately on it.

Below, we have a piece I made shortly after receiving the photographs, back in the realm of Photoshop, and taking far greater liberties with regards time limits, as I would hope is clear to you. For some reason I used Photoshop’s default brush instead of my own concoctions, giving it perhaps a less graceful finish and making some shading a bit choppy, but other than that it turned out quite well.

My sincere thanks to Mr. Taravati for being so tremendously generous in his assistance. And indeed, with lots more photographs to get through, we will likely be seeing a lot more of Keyon here in the near future!

Time-Tested: 150

Jeepers! Someone’s ready for trick or treats a week early!

Another Saturday, another spin of the wheel – this time around, it gifted me 150 MINUTES to work with a volunteer of Reddit Gets Drawn. I was initially a little indifferent about this; it’s really the smaller times I’m looking forward to more now, which, I grant you, is quite a departure from when I constructed the wheel and was pining for as long as possible with each spin. But still, we must respect the wheel, and the choices it makes through no volition of its own. Who knows, I might go into it all complacent and PAY FOR IT. WHAT DRAMA AND SUSPENSE THIS CONCEPT OFFERS.

With almost three hours feeling positively pedestrian to me now (at least on Saturdays), I decided to go for a full body portrait, and this adorable photograph leapt out at me for pretty obvious reasons. I don’t think I’ve sketched a child for a very long time, certainly not for a couple of years at least. Infants are quite a different kettle of fish to adults, and it can be easy, if not going carefully enough, to turn a fresh-faced kid into a shrunken, haggard grown-up. With that peril in mind, I spent more than half the time doing and redoing the child proportions – thankfully the costume was a bit of a safety net here, but not much – and working on the face. After a little while looking quite a way off, I managed to coax the childlike smile out of the subject. Thank goodness I had all that time to get it right!

With the longer time, this also allowed me to use colour, which I haven’t been able to do for a while in these tests. Again, I’m pleased that could be so – you couldn’t really forego it here, could you?

That’s the scary ticking clock out of the way for another week! Seeing this cute shot rather makes me regret never giving much of a hoot about Halloween as a child… I want a costume! (huffs) Well, actually, there was one: a friend’s party shortly after the event circa 1998, where I dressed as the devil and was plastered in glittery make-up, but I won’t be drawing that any time soon.

Time-Tested: 45

Do you remember me saying last week about how seriously I was taking these timed practices? Well, it got to 5 o’clock this afternoon and I’d completely forgotten to do or even prepare one. That’s dedication for you.

NEVER MIND. It’s Saturday, and, as is now a long-standing tradition, I treat myself and spin a colourful and sparkly wheel that doesn’t actually exist. This week it gave 45 MINUTES to try and complete a drawing from the Reddit community. Reddit Gets Drawn throws up so many intriguing shots of a fantastic range of models – I highly recommend it to anybody who wants to practice portraiture. That being the way, there were so many potential candidates for this week, but the fantastic hair of this woman ultimately won me over.

As the clock ticked, my confidence in it swung back and forth, but I think considering some of my longer challenges that have preceded, it has turned out quite well. Maybe these exercises are beginning to pay off! There are areas of shading that need more care – most of the neck, the chin, the ear – and I didn’t get to do much with the hoodie, but I did better than expected with the time afforded. To be honest, I was just itching to get to the hair… it was a lot of fun, and I just wish I could have spent longer on it!

There are some marvellous and far superior answers to the submission pitched by other users of the Reddit. Do go and have a look at them!

Until next week – if I remember!

Time-Tested: 30

Another Saturday spin, and after last week getting excited at the prospect of doing some super-quick sketches, my big round overlord for these challenges, the Wheel of Time, decided to be cruel and only very nearly granted me my wish. It landed on 30 MINUTES. I’m thinking of altering the spaces on the wheel as the weeks go on in a bid to ensure variety, but I’m unsure; perhaps doing several exercises of the same duration would be even better?

For a change and a slightly easier ride, I moved away from people this week, but didn’t move away from Reddit Gets Drawn. There’s often a healthy glut of cute animal pictures to choose from, and yet again I wasn’t disappointed. I initially was to draw two cats, but then I happened upon this character; an adorable dog indeed, topped off by the suitable look of ‘really?’ to the birthday hat.

Considering I didn’t start shading until around nine minutes in (I now have a stopwatch with an alarm in front of me and everything… I take this extremely seriously!) I think it came out quite well! It’s probably my favourite of these challenges so far. I would have liked to have worked on and around the eyes a bit more, and the nose is a bit off, because, as you do, I completely forgot to even begin shading it… it was still white with about six or seven minutes left, and I panicked like mad with it. It was the same with the hat… I was sitting there touching bits of shading up as time was reaching its end and then scrolled up and realised I hadn’t even touched it! It’s much more snazzy and festive in the photograph.

This was such a ridiculous amount of fun to draw. I shall endeavour to do more animals, timed or not – as both character and subject, they put us to shame!

I wonder what time limit we’ll be dealt by the nasty spinning wheel next week? Isn’t it exciting – I bet you’re all on tenterhooks all week wondering, aren’t you? Wheel have to see what happens! (Have I done that one in a previous post? Probably have. Oh well.)