Morning Warm-up!

I've been drawing a lot of vehicles in my latest project. I don't draw vehicles well. Even thinking of them as geometric shapes and simplifying details I still hate to, and suck at, drawing cars. The best way out of a car-drawing induced funk is to draw nearly naked men. Working out the straights and curves of a well-posed fashion model is ever so much more satisfying!

j. 

Anti-Bullying Campaign!

This weekend in Toronto I'll be participating in an art show open house. The event is called POWERHAUS and takes place at Glad Day Bookshop. The show runs from this Sunday 23rd of September to October 23rd. Click on Powerhaus to see the Facebook event listing.

I was fortunate in that I wasn't bullied as a kid. Not that I was out gay back in high school, but I wasn't even bullied for being a nerd, wearing glasses, or having braces. However...I did have fantasies like the ones I drew here...and that last panel almost, sort of happened. Actually the guy asked me to draw a naked lady for him. And I did. :)

Also, I noticed that I drew two crowd scenes of people exclaiming how awesome I...I mean, My Superhero counterparts, am/are. I draw my own applauding audience. What does that say about my need for approval? Let's not psychoanalyze, shall we.

If you're in Toronto come by the show. Several local artists are taking part and from what I've seen there's some amazing art going up. The show runs for a month so even if you miss the opening night you can still see the art and visit Toronto's famous Glad Day Bookshop.

j.

Life Drawing!

I did some life drawing last night at the local community center. I really like drawing with the brush end of Tombow markers on regular sketch paper. It lets me go over the drawings again by placing a sheet on top of my rough sketch -- not quite as thin as tracing paper but I'm able to see the drawing without using a lightbox.
Usually I work the drawing again traditionally but every now and then I'll play with the lines and go for something a little less literal (the drawing with purple was an attempt to do this).







j.

Pushing Ink!

Not the prettiest profile in the world but it was all done on the fly, so to speak. I worked on a lightbox over my marker drawing from the session with Peter. And speaking of peter, this is probably one of the only "finished" drawings of mine you'll see with one. :)

Above was drawn from a photo found online. This guy has an absolutely stunning backside to which I tried to do justice.

j.

Man-Shaping in Marker!

After the session with He-Man and Skeletor it occurred to me that I might never be able to draw a "normal" model again! Happily this is not the case. I received an e-mail the other day from a model at the local community center letting me know he'd be posing and that he hoped I'd be able to make it out to draw. I've drawn Peter once before and know what a great physique he has -- naturally I had to attend.




A few weeks ago I bought Dave McKean's book of postcard ink drawings and was absolutely blown away by his technique. His drawings are solid but maintain a loose fluidity that just mesmerizes me. I've been trying to loosen up when I ink with my brush. This life drawing session allowed me to let go a little and be free with my marker (I draw these with Tombow brush-tip colored markers). It's a lot of fun and I generally like the results.

I especially like how this one turned out. I exaggerated Peter's musculature, expanding his back and narrowing his waist (trust me, he doesn't need me to give him a good physique -- I'm just "cartooning" what's already there). I only wish I were better with color or I would have attempted a little skin tone. Peter has a great tan line so his white butt contrasted beautifully with the shadows shaping his tanned torso!

j.

p.s. Check out Colby Keller's blog post about little old me. He coined a new term for nerdy gays like me.

This is Anatomy?

Well, I'm sure this isn't exactly the type of image you'd expect to find on this here Beefcake drawing blog! My previous post where I played around with straight lines vs. curved inspired me to try a little experiment: to draw a figure alternating, as much as possible, between straight and curved lines. You might be inclined to call me out on a few of my curve-ishy "straight" lines...but I would argue with you that the area in question leans more to the straight and, therefore, counts as such :)

Now, I'm a cartoony cartoonist so my technique does favor the more exaggerated. There are certainly very few(if any) completely straight lines in actual human anatomy. But drawing is all about interpretation of the actual/real. Even in the most realistic of drawings there is stylization going on (meaning that the artist is making choices in what and what not to include in the interpretation of the three dimensional world onto the two dimensional drawing surface).

Whew! That's nearly enough "Art" theory for me! As one of my college art teachers used to say, "Talking about Art is like Dancing about architecture." *

Here's a fleshy colored doodle to put us back on the Beefcake track. This was another experiment, however. The Red line running up the front-side of the figure was my starting point. I wanted to build a figure with as much of his form "locked" to a solid perpendicular. When I'm drawing from life I'll sometimes look for such "through lines" on which to build the rest of the figure.

j.
* (As I know there are both artists AND dancers who read my blog, I type that quote with tongue firmly planted in cheek ;)