Category: Sketchbook

2017 Monster Month: Day 12 – Monstrous Inspiration

Here is another full page from my sketchbook of some random drawings that have nothing to do with each other, or do they? Hmmm. They were originally drawn without any real plan, but sometimes random doodles such as these can inspire a whole other image when put together.

This is often the point of drawing in a sketchbook. It is a place to get the bad drawings out of you so the good ones can see the light of day, but it is also a place where your mind can run free and slap out innocuous little drawings that can actually inspire real creativity later on.

Which of these drawings do you think were turned into a painting? Come back tomorrow to see a watercolor creation inspired by these sketches.

 

Look, an image not cropped so you can see it really is from a sketchbook!
Categories
Character Designs Monsters Random Doodles Sketchbook

2017 Monster Month: Day 10 – The Bird Lady

Okay, I realize that TECHNICALLY, this lady does not look like a monster. However, the whole scene gives me a bit of the creeps, so it is being included in this creepfest I call Monster Month.

This started as a sketch of a gnarled old tree in my sketchbook drawn lightly with a blue pencil. As it started to take shape, the birds seemed like a natural addition. Then, of course, an old woman needed to be added, who is likely the birds’ mistress, or perhaps she is not. That is the beauty and mystery that a single drawing can do to the viewer. It makes one ask questions. Who is this woman? Why are those birds there? What do the birds and the woman have to do with each other? Why doesn’t this artist seem to know the answers to these questions?

Well, maybe I do have these answers, or maybe I don’t. That is the beauty and the mystery that an artist can wield with his ink brush pen…

 

Tuppence a bag?
Categories
Animals Art: Drawings Art: Inking Character Designs Illustrations Monsters Random Doodles Sketchbook

2017 Monster Month: Day 9 – Trolls

Here is another page from my sketchbook that began with the short knight (where was he two days ago when we had all those dragons?!), and the rest of the page filled in with other short creatures that might be more comfortable in a J.R.R. Tolkien tale than in the cold winter of Russia where they were sketched in ink.

 

Not quite seven dwarves, unless you count the baby dragon.
Categories
Character Designs Monsters Random Doodles Sketchbook

2017 Monster Month: Day 7 – Thar Be Dragons

Here is a page from my sketchbook with a massive infestation of dragons. They came out of my pencil in all shapes and sizes, and with varying degrees of dangerosity. (That’s a real word – at least today it is.) You never can find a brave knight when you need one. Although in this case, the knight would really only need an eraser to defeat the dragons.

 

They’d better not breathe any fire, or the whole page will go up in smoke!

 

Incidentally, much like some sketches I showed you last week, these creatures came forth while traveling in Russia earlier this year.

Categories
Art: Drawings Character Designs Monsters Random Doodles Sketchbook

2017 Monster Month: Day 2 – Fantastic Beasts

I’ve been sketching a LOT of monsters in my sketchbook this year. So, you’ll be seeing more sketchbook pages than usual in this year’s selection of creatures that go bump in the night.

Here’s one such page of some creatures that came forth during one of my trips abroad. These guys were sketched in pencil in the freezing, wintery depths of Russia this past January! You wouldn’t want to encounter one of these fellas in the dark or it would be dosvedanya to you!

 

However, if these Russian monsters are your friends, then they would say, “poka” which is a friendly goodbye!
Categories
Character Designs Monsters Random Doodles Sketchbook

Lucky Lindy

Sometimes I really don’t know why certain ideas pop into my head. It can be completely empty one minute, then BAM! A completely random thought quickly inspires a completely silly drawing. Thus was the case this past weekend.

Without provocation, somehow my mind zeroed in on Charles Lindbergh’s historic first flight across the Atlantic Ocean, then in an instant, I wondered what an old man might feel about this event today had he been a child at the time. Then this drawing came to mind. Really, these thoughts all took place in a matter of seconds not having seen anything about Lindbergh. It was totally random.

Of course, if one were to do the math, this guy would be REALLY old. Lindbergh’s flight was in 1927, so if this guy was alive and remembered it – let’s say he was five years old back then. That would make this chair jumper 95 today. More power to him.

Anyway, I grabbed my trusty tan paper sketchbook, and this scene came forth.

 

It’s all fun and games until someone busts a hip.
Categories
Animals Art: Drawings Art: Inking Art: Watercolor Cartoons Character Designs Illustrations Random Doodles Sketchbook

Stranger Than Fiction

About a week ago, I went to lunch with my pal and Disney animator Kevin MacLean over at the oldest Bob’s Big Boy in the country located in the Toluca Lake section of Burbank, CA. Now, there’s no real point to this tale in specifically mentioning Bob’s other than it is part of the drawing, because this could have happened anywhere.

Kevin and I were returning to his car in the parking lot, and sitting on a park bench in front of the car with his back to us was a man who was wearing a strange headband with a cloth draped down the back of his head, and he was reading a newspaper and talking to himself. Kevin said, “I think he’s wearing a dress.” So, we backed out, and drove around to the exit where we had a clear view of him. Sure enough, he was sitting there nonchalantly reading the paper wearing a low-cut dress in Bob’s parking lot.

Later, when I got home, that image was still mulling around in my mind, so I let it spill forth onto some paper, the results of which you now see before you. Sometimes real life is stranger than anything one could imagine.

 

I wonder if he enjoys Dilbert?

 

You aren’t going to believe this, but Kevin and I were over in Hollywood this past weekend, and we saw the SAME GUY there again, passing us in a crosswalk. Kevin said, “Are you sure that’s the same guy?” I said, “I’d know that dress anywhere!”

Categories
Art: Drawings Art: Inking Art: Painting Caricature Chad About Town Character Designs Illustrations Life Drawings Sketchbook

Beach Sketches

When going to the beach, I take sun lotion, a chair, an umbrella, a boogie board, and my sketchbook. Here are a few doodles from the ol’ sketchbook drawn two weeks ago in Kitty Hawk, NC.

I’d show you what I did on the boogie board, but thankfully no one else on the beach had their sketchbooks with them.

 

The key to beach sketches is to not get caught doing them.
Categories
Life Drawings Sketchbook