Poppy, Gibson Girls and other sketches and art thoughts (Patreon)

These are sketches I didn't know I was hoarding until now.

I'm feelin' green this month. I practiced a lot of a certain kind of academic figure drawing when I was back in school and got used to drawing with charcoal and white conte on paper that I toned with gouache. Back then I always used these bland af browns and grays because I was a very serious artist man, lol. It's funny to see this new stuff as an extension of something I did 10 years ago yikes.

I really like these green tones because of how they liven up the flesh tones on top of them, even though the peach tones I'm using on poppy are relatively tame, almost gray. It's just that complementary color making everything else look warmer.

I both like and hate how art is such an indirect process. You can't know in the moment that you're planting seeds you'll harvest 10 years later, which is why I think the best advice anyone can take into their art practice is to make it easier in the moment, make it more fun so that they get discouraged less. If you only make yourself feel safe to draw and enjoy what you do, progression happens. But I know that's also hard for anyone (myself included) to accept.

 It's funny how in a way this Poppy piece is a direct product of the anime figurine studies--they put me onto this idea that all you need is a line of color at the intersections of forms to create some luminous warmth, and I like the result of doing that on top of these drawings.

I hope you all had a great weekend. I feel bad for hoarding these drawings, but I don't really realize I'm doing it. Let me know if you'd rather get more frequent single sketch page posts-- I mostly feel like they wouldn't be substantial enough on their own.

<3

Winton