Tag Archives: doodles

Less is more.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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Cafe Racer No.2

Hot off the scanner today is the second completed drawing from the Cafe Racer series. After much humming and hawing over how to finish it off, it seemed most appropriate to mirror the rather stripped down nature of the bike itself with a minimal approach to context. So a simple single line, curving to instill a light sense of speed and motion, got put in under the main image. Attempting to satisfy the persistent and sometimes nagging feeling that a fuller background should be present, I merely ended up filling the waste basket with tracing paper. In some instances, less is more, and certainly in this case it works best. Needless to say I’m more than happy with the outcome.

 

The first drawing of the series, which featured here a couple of posts ago is now framed, submitted and waiting to be hung in a local open art show here in Ealing. For successful submission it needed a title, and is now called “Full Throttle” which seemed to fit nicely. Enquiring of the gallery staff I learned that they were expecting up to perhaps 300 submissions. A healthy number in anyones book, and indicative of what a creative community we have here in the borough. It will be fascinating to attend the private view tomorrow night and meet some of the other artists. Very exciting, this is the first time I’ve ever shown a drawing and who knows, somebody might take enough of a shine to it to part with some money.

 

For anyone who might be interested in coming along and having a look, the exhibition runs until the 21st April and can be found at the Walpole gallery which is situated in Walpole Park just by Ealing Broadway, West London. And it’s free to enter.

 

The remaining drawings in the series are progressing well. My initial selection of sketches to work up seems to be constantly changing. Another idea popped up the other day during a free sketching session during a lunch break, always handy to have a pad and pen nearby, and is shown below. It’s an apparently simple view though I’m looking forward to getting to grips with it, and it should provide a great opportunity to work on my techniques for faces and clothing which are still proving difficult to master.

 

The Captain.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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Here’s another slice of the mixed fruit cake of drawing that goes on around here. The picture above shows a guy I have been playing about with for some time, and he’s the closest I’ve ever got to developing a character. He arrived in my life some time ago whilst working on a communications project. An opportunity had arisen to use a character to promote certain messages the client had in mind. This guy was not a direct result of that exercise but was born during a moments idle sketching one evening. The project had been about communicating expertise and my mind had wandered in the opposite direction to contemplating ineptitude and how to communicate that. The idea of a bungling, idiotic and ineffectual “superhero” type had a strange appeal, someone with all the gear and no idea.

Not long after his arrival he was given a name, Captain Shark, after my small design business whose logo he wears on his chest, and for want of anything better at the time. He rapidly went from a slightly muscular bloke to this rather podgy individual graced with abundant enthusiasm, an overly fertile imagination and elevated sense of his own abilities. A sidekick in the form of a small dog appeared soon after and my sketchbook at the time bulged with sketches of him trying to engage with the world in one form or another. And there he has remained for some time now apart from a few select outings like the watercolour above. This has very much to do with not knowing exactly what to do with him.

Over the last year or so he has undergone some experimental name changes, I closed my company so the shark reference doesn’t have the same ring to it, and a dormant attempt to turn him into something else, like a mad inventor or suchlike. So he’s very much still a work in progress.

What he does have though is staying power as frequent visits are made to that particular sketchbook to move him on a bit further or simply play around with him.

Whatever fate awaits him, he is immense fun to sketch and draw. Because his body form consists of a series of rounded blobs he is moderately easy to pose and the tight fitting spandex outfit lends him a kind of elasticity that is fun to exploit. Being a cartoon he is a great vehicle for trying things out, for instance, if I’m stuck on something else like a posture it’s often faster and easier to work it out using his bendy body form first and then develop from there. He is essentially like a bit of 2 dimensional modelling clay and a handy catalyst for getting ideas moving. More about him soon.