Category Archives: sketch journal

Do computers age you?

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990620 Sketchbook 0009 Do computers age you?

Sketch of a man who is aging thanks to his computer

Do you ever have those days where you feel the computer is aging you? My problem is I forget to take a break every once in a while. If my eyes didn’t scream it me to blink, I could stay in a trance indefinitely.

This sketch came from a sketchbook I drew in 1999. I was spending a lot of time in front of a CRT then. Yes, you can tell by the blue line we were using CRT’s with humongous picture tubes then. I saved a lot of room when those monitors went the way of the mastodon.

What about you? Do you feel the computer adds a few extra laugh lines to your face?

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Playground Gestures

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Spear 3801 Playground Gestures

 

Sketch of a girl on a playground gesturing to be carried.

When I heard this week’s theme, I thought of the many times my daughter gestured to be carried when she was little. There is nothing that melted this dad’s heart more than to see those big eyes looking up at me with hands held high. It’s a combination of love, vulnerability and confidence that Dad would come through.

When we get older, we lose a little bit of that. Nobody wants to be vulnerable. In America, we all want to put on a facade that we are independent. But the best moments come when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable to the ones we love. I had to learn a little of that this week. It is one of the best, bittersweet lessons I’ve learned in recent memory.

I drew this for illustration friday. This week’s word is “gesture.”

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Call of the Wild

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Spear 38001 Call of the Wild

Cartoon of a woman entering a house and seeing her sloppily dressed significan other. She says, “Boy! I only have to be gone a few days for you to revert back to the wild!”

Here’s a rough right out of my sketchbook

My wife and son come back from an extended trip today. I’m hoping she doesn’t think I converted the house to a hermit’s hut. At least I’ve put away my buffalo cap and bermuda shorts. That should help tidy up the place.

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Monster sketch

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1008 Sketchbook 0036b Monster sketchNo, it’s not a gigantic sketch this morning. I’m trying something different with my blog. In the coming posts, I’ll take this sketch and bring it to a finished illustration.

This is a doodle out of my November, 2010 sketchbook. Lately, I’ve been documenting my sketches with a program/web service called Evernote. I highly recommend it for anyone who has a lot of notes and are trying to find a way to organize it all. It is a service on a web, but also an application for Windows and the Mac. You can also access if from your iPhone, iPad, Android or other smart phone.

The Mac version has worked very well for me. You can scan or take photos of your handwritten notes and sketchbook pages. If your writing is legible, Evernote will recognize the text and make it searchable.

I liked this sketch because it will complement the vector style I’ve been experimenting with. I’ve noticed my drawing style has changed while I’ve been drawing in Adobe Illustrator. I am paying attention to simpler shapes and how to design an illustration.

I’ve been a designer since college along with an illustrator. But I’ve noticed how the two disciplines are complementing each other. When I was younger, I thought the primary purpose of illustration was to accurately and convincingly portray an object or scene. That’s ironic, considering I’ve always preferred a cartoon style. Cartooning is all about exaggeration. If anybody in the real world looked like a cartoon, they’d stop traffic, and it wouldn’t be because they were drop dead gorgeous!

Now I see that an illustration needs to be designed well just like a well designed book or web page. That’s my epiphany for the day.

Next, I’ll get a more polished sketch together. Stay tuned!

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