Sketch Cover for Sale!

So usually, my sketch covers sell before I can post them online, typically it’s someone seeing me draw it and when they find out I’m selling it they buy it on the spot. It’s a nice problem to have I know, but it would be nice to be able to scan them in first sometimes :)

Anyways, this one is ready to go. $50 (US) and it is yours. Copic markers and black ink pens AND you get a WHOLE comic inside drawn by the ever so talented Greg Capullo. Man! That’s like Christmas!

Contact me if you are interested in this particular piece at pbarr2099@gmail.com or if you want a commission.

Commission Art!

Today’s blog I am posting a portrait I drew of my friend Pablo. Pablo saw a self portrait that I did of myself if a comic book style and commissioned me to draw one up for him. It was a really fun drawing because I love drawing people and I enjoy trying to draw a person’s likeness. I also tried out being really rough and loose with my pen work (get your minds out of the gutter). I was checking out video tutorials by Nate Van Dyke, a legendary San Francisco based artist and he fucks up his brushes and pens on purpose to get this raw looking style.

As far as commissions go, I usually charge around $300 bucks for something like this, but I give a bit of a discount for friends. The drawing is usually 11”x17” unframed. If anyone is interested let me know by emailing me at: pbarr2099@gmail.com or contacting me on my facebook page.

Thinking inside the box!

I know, I know... people think it’s SO much better to think outside the box, but a lot can be said about thinking inside the box as well. Being creative while staying within the constraints placed upon you (whether by yourself or by someone else) can really get your imagination flowing!

Think about this: how many times have you started at a blank piece of paper or an empty computer screen and been at a loss of where to start? By narrowing down your starting point, you are getting a leg up on this “creative anxiety”.

This is a great little creative excercise I learned in art school. First, draw a series of shapes (in this case it’s a box) on a piece of paper. The box doesn’t have to be pretty, in fact, it’s better if it’s not. I drew the box in Adobe Illustrator using the pencil tool with the stroke at 15% cyan and copied it and pasted it so that I had nine of them on one sheet. I printed it out then started drawing.

The challenge is to fit the character to that particular shape. Some of the examples below are of people at the restaurant where I was having lunch while others are just out of my head. Sometimes, the character just falls into place (which in my opinion defeats the whole purpose of an excercise). Any good excercise forces you to work, to think. We are not just “going through the motions” when we draw, we are examining our process and getting creative.

The shapes will force you to change the way you would normally draw a character and give you some great alternatives for designs. You can even take this a step farther and draw a variety of different shapes on one page (circles, ovals, triangles, heart shapes, bean shapes, etc...) and pick a character from your original sheet and draw that character multiple times using different shapes and proportions.

Have fun drawing...now get in that box!

Peasants and Pirates!

Hey e’rbody! Well, another week and another blog post. Here is another couple of pages out of my sketchbook. The first page is from some observational drawings I did at the Sonora Celtic Faire this last weekend. I basically spent most of the day posting out somewhere with my sketchbook and drawing people. It’s a great excercise drawing people that aren’t staying still because you have to capture the likeness fast and think on your toes. The different costumes are fun to draw and reminded me of the various Clothed Figure and Costumed Figure drawing classes I took in school. I did take some photo reference as well so I I have more things to draw from that day as well.

The second page is the start of a pirate drawing I did. I have been watching Black Sails on Starz and was inspired to draw pirates. The first thing I did was draw the large full figure drawing in the middle. While this was a good start, I decided that I wanted to make him a cannoneer so I made some adjustments to his body in the thumbnail to the left top corner. I broadened the shoulders and lengthened his beard a bit. I like the face better in the top right corner and will probably use something closer to that.

Speaking of Black Sails, I have a lovely drawing I did of Anne Bonny that you will eventually get to see once I fill up that page.

Later all!

Sketchbook Post

Hey all, here is another post from my sketchbook. Various lights, cups and knick-knacks. These were all drawn on location while observing the objects first hand for the sake of detail. I draw stuff like this to have a library of objects to put in environments (never know when you’re going to need a Han Solo coffee cup in a scene, right?).

I'm Back!

So I have been neglecting my poor little blog as of late, so to make up for it I am going to post a lot of stuff this week and maybe the next! First up are the phone sketches. I bought an iPhone 5s (which is a huge upgrade from my 4 year old droid) and with it I downloaded a sketch app and bought a stylus (because drawing with your finger sucks). It is taking a bit to get used to but so far it’s been fun and convenient. The guy with the beard is my good friend Shashank who I drew at a get-together this Friday. This was the first drawing I did with the stylus, I just bought it that day and was dying to try it out. I drew a couple of people wearing hats I saw at the Westfield mall in San Francisco this Saturday. Then later on, I went to what was supposed to be some boring lecture at the Sudo Room in Oakland and there was this dude with crazy hair there that I just had to draw.

Writer's Block...

Sooooo... at first I was going to make a blog post about my interview with Eblisun Grun over at Outside the Cube (that you can find here), but I felt that was too self congratulatory. Then I considered talking about the Man of Steel movie, but everyone seems to be doing that and there are still those who have not seen it. Friday, I got my new fancy schmancy business cards in the mail (that you can see the artwork for above) and I thoughts to myself “that would be a good topic”, but it would be rather dull and short, so that wasn’t an option.

Really it’s strange for me to not have anything to talk about because I’m usually so chatty. I talked to someone for two whole hours on Sunday about the innovative way I am going to show what Carla is thinking in my comic that I came up with this weekend and yet I am drawing a blank for my blog! Now I am starting to worry if this is what writer’s block feels like?! Maybe I have that now!! I hope it doesn’t carry over to artist’s block, that would be horrible as I have so many drawings and pages I want to finish. I was hoping to start inking my pages in the next couple of weeks, so I really can’t afford that!

All right, I’m going to go try and cure my writer’s block and hopefully I will be back on later with something cool and/or profound to say. Until that time I just want to welcome any new readers to my blog and let them know that this usually never happens and I will try and come up with something for later in the week. Until then here is the art from my business cards :)