Category Archives: Biro drawing

Accessing embedded knowledge works.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
1

An early drawing using early knowledge.

Following the magnitude of the last post it feels as if my brain needs a kind of rest, a short period to recoup and spend some more time considering drawing from imagination, what is starting to feel like a very big subject area. This won’t be the last time it comes up for discussion but, a bit more thinking time is required to crystalise my thoughts further. More often than not, insights arrive at unexpected times and from unexpected directions and letting them do this randomly relieves the pressure of sitting down and trying to think of what they could be before their arrival. It’s a bit like having your best ideas whilst having a bath I suppose.

 

It can be so easy to get distracted from ones core activity, in my case creating my pictures, and this has been happening a good deal of late. The process of clearing the backlog of drawings for posting needs to come to an end and there’s only one way that’s going to happen, putting them up here. This posts title image was done just over nine months ago, and why it didn’t get posted remains unanswered. What’s interesting about it now is how different it is from the later drawings that have gone up over the last couple of months. In the previous post I wondered whether familiarity breeds more embedded knowledge that we can access subsequently. Looking at this drawing I would posit that the answer to that question is yes. Later drawings are much more detailed and intricate, partly through design but also due to the mere fact that I know more about the subject matter, and crucially can access that new knowledge without necessarily realising it. Result.

The idea wall in action.

One other aspect of this exercise that has caused some pondering is that of subject focus. Since starting this whole bike drawing thing I’ve quite happily jumped from one type of subject to another. A dragster, then a road bike, then something else etc etc. All well and good you might think, but actually it was starting to be problematic in the sense that it was becoming hard to separate certain specific thoughts and ideas for one image from another. In simple terms, details for one drawing were ending up on another and vice versa. This probably had, or has, something to do with my habit of having two or three drawings on the go at any one time. As an attempt at remedying this a different approach was needed. So now instead of multiple drawings of multiple themes, the latest project concentrates on a core theme with multiple drawings around it. It already feels a better way to work as there seems to be a greater cohesion in what’s being created. This first series is about cafe racers and I’ll explain more about it in the next post. For now here are some of the preliminary sketches that are currently adorning the small wall of the studio.

Messing with different views.Speech bubbles could make a comeback.

 

 

What lies behind.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
1

Catch me if you can.

Back in early January, post No. 50 featured the finished version of the first of what have become known as the “Scribble” drawings. It depicted two guys vying for the lead in an impromptu street race somewhere out in the middle of nowhere on an empty road.

Shortly after completing that one, work commenced on a second drawing along the same lines. Working over a very loosely constructed pencil layout, the drawing is built up using light wobbly pen strokes. Features and details develop slowly and grow by passing over them many times. It’s a slow process but it allows me to balance the tones across the drawing as it progresses, continuously working around the drawing rather than concentrating one one specific area at a time.

Relative to other techniques it’s quite labour intensive but, this is offset by the “feel” the drawing adopts as it grows. You’ll notice from these detail shots taken with the camera, the whole thing’s on A2 so won’t fit in the scanner, even in sections, that there is no background yet. I’ll admit it’s an area I’m still having difficulty with but, it is becoming clearer to me why this is and how to deal with it.

This drawing has actually had more than a couple of backgrounds pencilled in, mainly in the form of loose townscapes, but all have been ended up being erased. Why? Well, mainly because they all detracted from the central focus of the drawing too much. They created a marked change in perception, from being a picture of two guys racing to a picture containing two guys racing. It’s a subtle difference but an important one as it’s all about where your eye wants to dwell.

There is a second challenge for me here too, and that is managing to render the background in the same style as the main part of the drawing. Easier said than done, the more that lies behind the core of the image, the harder it is to make it recessive so the two bikers don’t get lost in a sea of loosely filled in street details. It’s also hard to compliment the comedy of the two racers without detracting from them too much.

Currently I’m erring towards a simple approach tried out on a couple of previous drawings, a simple horizon which holds a small collection of references, small buildings etc, that help “place” the main subject but don’t crowd it out. This might sound like a bit of a cop out, but it’s not a thinly veiled excuse for avoiding extra work, more a considered effort to provide context and preserve the impact of the core of the drawing.

All things being equal, the finished version should be up here soon.

Time well spent?

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
Reply

At last, managed to finish the first big scribble drawing last night. At last, because this thing took far, far longer to do than first imagined. Although the style might look quite quick (and it seemed as much at the start) it required a lot of time to move around the drawing, continuously teasing out the many details in order to create the right feeling of depth and movement. It is a very satisfying process but requires a lot of patience. This technique is definitely one where knowing when to stop is an undefined line somewhere amongst the thousands of little bits of shading.

Capturing the little sideways glances of the riders as they vie for supremacy is my favourite bit, although it’s a close run thing between that and the slightly out of focus nature of the image, which lends to the feeling of movement.

Another one has already been started (am I a glutton for punishment?), again using a fine nibbed Steadler 430 biro and an A2 sheet of 220 gsm heavyweight cartridge paper. What with all of the other things I’m playing with it may be a while before an update on its progress can be posted. Watch this space.