I’ve been experimenting with markers the last few days….while scanning in the experiments, I found a sketch in the same book that I did about 8 years ago while sitting in front of the Daily Grind in Fells Point.
I used to spend hours when it was warm sitting in front of Daily Grind either sketching or working on my novel….eventually I stopped because there was this one homeless man, referred to as “Crazy Mike” who would camp there all day long, every day, screaming at the top of his lungs at the other patrons, passerby, some “bitch” in head who was always on his right and behind him, sea gulls, the building across the street, the water, or his cup of coffee. The employees would give him free coffee (which really didn’t help) if he promised to behave….he could rarely behave for more than a few minutes at a time and would devolve into a screaming fit several minutes after getting his coffee. The employees would try to police him, but would inevitably give up after a try or two and would just ignore him.
Eventually, it became absolutely impossible to concentrate on anything while sitting outside (a shame since it was nice to sit there and watch the boats come in and out of the harbor), so I stopped going. Too make it worse, Crazy Mike HATED my guts, due to me refusing to give him change five seconds after he called me a dirty fucking wasp.
I had sympathy for him at first, and perhaps it makes me a bad person, but eventually my patience wore thin and I started avoiding him, and the Grind, since my point was to try and get some work done versus spend two or three hours every day being “tolerant” of someone who obviously had some sort of serious, serious mental issue.
They actually found Crazy Mike dead outside of Broadway market about a year or two ago….I don’t live near the Grind anymore, but maybe I should give it another try again.
What was I talking about?
Oh, right, markers.
While wasting time recently in an art supply shop in NYC, I purchased several “fancy” markers. I’ve never fooled with the things before, frankly because when I was in school, I don’t think nice ones even existed yet….and if they did, I wasn’t even aware of them because no one around me was doing anything interesting with them.
After watching Adam Hughes do some convention sketch work with them last year at Baltimore Comic-con, I was blown away though, to the point that I actually purchased one of his little convention sketch compilations.
BTW, I watched him do a sketch like that in literally seconds….when I’m confident, I’m fast, but Jesus, he threw out a sketch similar to the above in literally moments (probably from having to do thousands at conventions, but whatever).
Anyway, I purchased a gray, a flesh tone marker, and a blender and have been messing around with them while watching the Daily Show or whatever.
First time around I took an old possible draft for the very first Dr. Sketchy’s flyer, one that I ended up not using for anything. The sketch was alright though and I figured it might look good “markered”.
Basically all I did was ruin the sketch.
NOT the look I was looking for.
Next, I doodled a quick Bruce Timm-esque cartoon, and tried that, which worked out a lot better.
The next attempt was with a moe extensive doodle, this one involving shading. This one I actually like…the line style obviously works well with the markers. (I’m starting to get the feeling that anything that works well with a wash of some sorts will work well with these things.)
I tried once more…the marker came out alright, but the sketch itself was obviously that old “icon” profile sketch of a girl that bubbles up out of my brain every time I’m tired and not really trying anymore. Uck. I swear this stupid sketch has been kicking around for two decades in my head, and whenever it pops out, it means I’m tired and it’s time to do something else.
On a separate note, the Windup Space is taking submissions for a Forum Gallery show they’re going to do in a few weeks and I’m going to see if I can bump out a fast oil painting/sketch to show over the next few days. It’s going to be based on this previous sketch…
The canvas is setup, as is the projector (to transfer the basic dimensions of the drawing), and as soon as I hit submit on this sketch, I’m going to see how much as I can bust out. I’ll take a photo of the canvas at each stage, so maybe I’ll have another post in a little bit.
On another ANOTHER note, I’ve started using the scanner to scan in all my novel and story notes into Evernote from receipts, napkins, and bookmarks over the years….I’m stumbling across tons and tons of old sketches and doodles while doing so. I’ll dump whatever I come across here as it shows up.
Sketches 