Monday, May 28, 2018

Men & spirals

I just realised, I didn't share the further experimental sketches, completed, not long after finishing the 7-day challenge. As I was determined to find a way to incorporate spirals, into the appearance of men, who are naturally more angular, than women.




The first sketch to evolve, was inspired by the sea - of waves, and locks of hair, being caught in the wind. Mixing sketching with doodling, means, the composition didn't have to make sense. I captured what I wanted, and didn't need to explain more.

Which was extremely liberating, when I'm normally such a stickler for details.




Sketch number two, began with the focus on hair and glasses, to see how I could incorporate more round lines. The model in my reference picture, had a shirt on, but I thought muscles are round - so why not emphasise those? Once they were sketched in, however, I found the arms rather bare and uninteresting. Like they wanted to say, more. But what?

What else, but spiral tattoos!! Then the cigarette smoke was added, to lift the eye upwards again, because the heavy use of hatching (lower left, corner) was weighing the picture down.




Now I had tattoos on my mind, and found the ones, unique to New Zealand culture, were almost exclusively round! So my final sketch, became an exploration in more intricate detail, specific to the tattoos.

Doodling even allowed the tattoos to leave the skin, and become part of the background. So in the end, I discovered there were many more opportunities to introduce spirals, even when the subject I chose, didn't naturally posses them. What I loved about this specific challenge, was getting me to think outside my normal focus. Which is always fun.

So next time you think of sketching, challenge how you would normally do it. Explore how you make lines. It doesn't have to be with spirals. You might want to draw with dots or squares. Change the tools you use, as well. I eliminated the eraser and pencil, and went straight for permanent pen ink. You could even use a brush with any medium you want (watercolour, acrylic paint or ink) or why not charcoal?

The gist is, it doesn't have to make sense, and it doesn't have to fall within the regular rules - because it's purely about exploration. So liberating!


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