stone cold sketchin'

#1

Hi all,

I’ve long enjoyed other’s postings and work on this site, and decided to take the plunge and post some of my own digital sketches. First of all, big shout-out to ValenoSangue who mentioned in his sketchbook thread using the Nintendo DS and the homebrew app Colors as a tablet and painting program. I’d never heard of this, but one week later, and I feel like my life is changed. It is the most intuitive program I’ve ever used–of course, it is very stripped down, only a hard round and soft round brush, adjustments for brush size and opacity, and the color wheel…but I find that I can move really fast.

I’m starting with copies of existing works to get the feel for the program. All of these are done with the Nintendo DS and colors, between 30 and 60 minutes on each.

This first is a copy of a painting I clipped out of a catalog, but I don’t know the artist name or tilte of the piece:

This started off as a Klimt copy, but I made some departures:

Stone cold original:

This one is a Rembrandt copy:

#2

Actually, your original is the only one with any life in it; the others look like they were made by someone else :slight_smile: Granted there are some anatomy issues in your original, but I’d say that is where you should spend your time. The first post and first reply is always the hardest, and now you’ve done both. Onwards !

D’Arcy

#3

Onwards and upwards hopefully. More Nintendo DS sketching:

At my parent’s house, 90 minutes over a pot coffee.

Little planters, 15 minutes.

My dad at the nursing home, over an hour.

#4

More Nintendo DS sketches:

This is a quick painting based on a pen and paper sketch I did a couple of months ago of my sister. Our dad was in the hospital and things were not looking up. Maybe 15 minutes.

Girl in green shirt napping on a red couch with a red blanket. About an hour while watching the American female gymnastics team choke at the Olympics. The girl in the green shirt woke up about half way through and went to bed, so I had to fill in some gaps.

#5

More stone cold DS sketchin’.

Sketching on a plane:

Saturday morning looking at my backyard with a cup of coffee:

Based on a pencil sketch I did in Siena, Italy:

Rembrandt’s self-portrait–though it looks a little more like Jack Nicholson to me than the original:

Concept sketch:

#6

DS quickie:

Pen, paper, and water colors about a little girl and a tornado:

#7

Nice sketches Ninja, that DS sketching looks too fun! Can you zoom in and out a bit also? Might have to look into one of those…hmmmm?

#8

Thanks for the words, Rabid. Yeah, the DS and Colors is great. I love working with it because it’s the closest thing I’ve ever used digitally to real life painting. No layers, no history, no image adjustments, just the color wheel and open canvas. There actually is a color picker tool, but I didn’t even notice it was there for at least two weeks. The zoom tool will let you go in up to 4x–with the dual screen you can keep the top screen so you see the image as a whole, while you work in detail on the lower touch-sensitive screen.

What I like best about it though is the portability. I can take it with me anywhere without it being a pain in the ass. Also, I have a two-year-old daughter who loves to destroy electronic devices. So, if I want to use my tablet, I have to wait for her to go to sleep, drag it out, hook it up, and then make sure it’s put up before I go to bed.

Anyway, here’s some life-drawing sketches, just pen/pencil on paper:






#9

Cloudy sunset in Texas, DS and Colors:

Pecan tree in my backyard:

#10

hey I really like your realllife drawing you did. They have good shaps and depth.

#11

Thanks, TedNindo. I like drawing and painting from life better, but sometimes I’m tired, and I just want to practice without thinking.

Apple on my desk over lunch:

#12

Set up a mini-still-life while watching the Office Season 4 disk 2:

Desklamp hyper quickie over lunchbreak server outage:

Random decorative pot on endtable:

#13

Mini still-life while watching The Office Season 4:

I think The Office lost something this season. It’s like they worried too much about character development and not enough about snappy, funny humor.

#14

I haven’t posted in a while. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with things when life gets in the way. Here’s some various sketches, thanks for looking.

Marker sketch of the Bund in Shanghai

Bund at night

Drinking a beer in Xin Tian Di

Aeroflot is so not awesome

Watercolor of the Oklahoma winter sunset

Shenzhen airport

Doodles

More doodles

#15

Cool stuff man, i’m digging your latest ink designs. Those earlier life drawings were great too… it is nice drawing from life… don’t have to think as much as you say lol. Welcome back.

#16

Hey, thanks. I’m glad you like it. The ink “designs” are me doodling during meetings, computer processing times, or whenever my mind wanders…at work, mostly. My notebooks are filled with this stuff.

Watercolor from reference photo:

DS sketch on a plane:

Doodles:

#17

Watercolors and a pot of coffee:

#18

A couple of watercolor sketches

#19

More watercolors, all using photo references:

#20

Nice watercolors, i’m digging the stroke technique and your color choices are wonderful…using a proper ref seems to working quite well for you. Looking foward to more.