The Daily Drawing Challenge (that I haven’t been doing every day)

A couple months ago I made myself a commitment. If I ever want to illustrate Atlantic as a graphic novel, and not some idle pipe dream, I’d have to actually get good at drawing again. So… I was going to start drawing every day. For half an hour.

Hah. Yeah. That might have been a bit much. I certainly never followed through to that level. But… I have been drawing. Not every day, and there have been gaps, especially a few weeks ago when I had to work some massive overtime.

But, I am drawing. And that’s the important thing. Plus, as part of my ongoing social media experimenting, it gave me a chance to populate my Instagram with something. I know that I was never going to fill it up with selfies, so turning it into an artwork dump really was the way to go.

Sept 16: Allosaurus. After a trip to the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) I came home with a little figuring. It wasn’t a T-Rex, but still pretty cool. The drawing looks more like a velociraptor, and I think I’ll do it again at some point.

Sept 17: Waterfalls. This was just a 40 minute jobber, just to capture the overall vibe of a stock photo I had. Not overly detailed, but I think it still evokes the scene. That’s what I wanted… to be able to evoke. Like concept artists do… not all concept art is polished art. Some is rough, and just captures the essence of a scene, visually. Plus, when i start drawing Atlantic, I’m going to have to learn to be fast, so there’s going to be a bit of a mix between fine detail and quick/rough detail.

Sept 18: Hand. Or rather, hand mannequin. At work we’ve got these really cool model hands that I use to photograph gloves on. Nice and black, Darth Vader shiny. I wanted to capture that. Plus, hands are difficult, and a good challenge to take on.

Sept 19: Eye. Reese Witherspoon’s eye, to be exact. Again, another quick job. At some point I may tackle her whole face.

Sept 21: Skull. Oops. Was doing so well. Missed a day. Wanted to draw a skull. Just a really cool photo I found online.

Sept 22: Rhino. Funny story. I’d stumbled on a dormant Twitter account called “Let’s Get Drawing“. They’d previously been posting regular challenges to people, but had stopped. So I’d left them a tweet. In response to my tweet, they started posting again, in honour of National Rhinoceros Day, they challenged people to draw a Rhino. Given that I’d prompted them to get active, I couldn’t exactly ignore it. So, I drew a Rhino.

 Sept 27: Ballerina. Funny story here. On the 23rd or 24th, I’d downloaded this gorgeous photo of a ballerina. But, it turns out that it was much harder to capture than I’d expected, and after an hour of trying, I shut it down and stopped drawing. On the 27th, I came back again and tried once more. Still not happy, I gave up. “Okay,” I said, pulling up my Twitter. “Let’s see what LetsGetDrawing is challenging us with…”.
Draw a ballet danser.
Sigh. The universe is sending me a message. Or has a funny sense of humour. Or it’s just a complete coincidence. Who knows…

Sept 27: Mountaintops. This is kinda crap, but I’m not filtering here. Same day as the ballerina. I was in drawing mode and just trying stuff.

Sept 27: Arctic Bay. Third one from that same day. Taken from one of my stock photos. Love the scene. Think I captured the essence of it without getting bogged down in specifics. Went out to watch the SuperBloodMoon that night… but it was hiding behind clouds.

Sept 28: Ice Cubes. Again, taken from a stock photo. Harder to capture than you’d imagine.

October 10: Daisy. A LetsGetDrawing challenge. I only drew one petal… used Photoshop to duplicate the crap out of it. In hindsight, I wish I hadn’t. My designerly instincts tell me to shortcut and just get it down, my artist instincts tell me to put the time in. It’s a constant battle.

October 12: Kitten. Another LetsGetDrawing challenge. I’d just gotten in from our Thanksgiving road trip. Was tired and stressed from a long drive. Wanted to relax. As it turned out, I’d been in the mood to draw a cat, and when I saw they’d posted that challenge, I went ahead and drew one.

November 1: Monument Valley. I just felt like doing it. Found an image in my stock collection. Colours aren’t accurate and it’s rough, but I think it captures something. Instagram had started allowing non-square images, so I decided to work with a 3:2 ratio going forward from this one.

November 3: Jellyfish. Another LetsGetDrawing challenge.

November 6: Astronaut. Another LetsGetDrawing challenge. It came with the hashtag #manonthemoon, and I believe the account is in the UK, so I suspect it was inspired by the awesome John Lewis “Man On The Moon” Chrismas Advert. I’ve always loved that Oasis song, and the Aurora cover they used really made it special. And tearjerking. *sniff*

November 7: Darth Vader. I grew up with Star Wars, and yes, I’ve already pre-purchased my Thursday night sneak preview tickets for The Force Awakens. When the time came to do a drawing, I thought “Okay, let’s do some Star Wars”. Star Wars is also always good for lots of Twitter and Instagram hits, so there’s extra incentive. And hey, did you know that Darth Vader’s mask is really, really hard? I’ve seen a ton of crappy illustrations of him over the years, so I don’t feel too bad adding my own to the mix. The “Hoth” background came first… then I used the Liquify tool to clean up the proportions a bit.

November 8: Darth Vader. Back for more. Sucker for punishment, I am. I think this one turned out a lot better. I spent more time on it, had a better source image, and, well, just did a better job.

… and that’s where I’m at now. I think I’m going to do a Star Wars Month (or so) leading up to The Force Awakens, and just keep drawing Star Wars illustrations. Looking forward to it.