Observation journal exercise: simplifying sketches, mixing them up again

This observation journal exercise is primarily visual, but I’ve included a few ideas to turn it into a writing exercise.

This is a useful exercise for learning the shape of a thing, and then mixing it up. It moves from basics to details to stylisation to caricaturisation, to character design, to playing on other people’s pattern recognition. It’s particularly useful for making an unconventional shape believable, and teaching your hand to make recognisable but idiosyncratic versions of a thing (particularly useful for sketchy art styles). I do a version of this when preparing to draw an unfamiliar animal, or a lot of a half-familiar one.

You could do this with any thing or creature, but I like chooks — they’re dense but highly variable and I don’t have enough excuses to draw them.

Illustration exercise (or writing exercise — if you’re courageous!)

1. Take your [chook] and break it into the basic shapes from which it is constructed. Try very simple (e.g. the two-eggs approach) and more nuanced. Try considering just types of line-segments that outline it (straight lines? s-curves?).
2. Take a few examples of [chooks] and work out what the basic overall shape of each is. Is there a shape in common? What are the fewest number of sides that recognisably contain a [chook]? If it has lines (e.g. legs) and you extend them, do they always pass through the same place?  (And if you can, find a video and sketch them in motion, to see the line they follow when they move.)
3. Choose any basic shape (e.g. circle, square, triangle) and use it to design a [chook]. Fit a [chook] into it entirely. Then use it as the general base for a [chook].
4. Draw a sequence of irregular, scribbly shapes. Turn each into a [chook]. Lean into the recognisable bits, the bits where the shape suggests a [chook]. Then lean the other way, and force the shape to be a [chook] against its instincts.
5. Make some ink/paint/coffee blots. What are the minimum details you can add to turn each into a [chook]?

The exercise of turning this into a writing exercise is itself a useful one! But here are a few ways you could adapt it: for refining description; for designing a character; for a more metaphorical approach to the shape of stories (see links below).

sisterhood of the travelling sofa

Here are some related posts, with more detailed compositional variations on this exercise (and one writing exercise):

• Fitting Pictures Into Shapes
• Sketching the people glimpsed from the corner of your eye
• The Story Behind the Shapes
• A writing one! Stories Into Spaces

Want to support art and writing and posts like this about them? Here are some ways:

• patreon.com/tanaudel (monthly support from very little)
• ko-fi.com/tanaudel (one-off tip jar)
• art on things on Redbubble and Spoonflower. 
• occasional mailing list for news: Mailing List Sign-Up

BWF and BAD — sketches and recovery and too many zines

My festival weekend is done! I only got a very little sketch done at the Brisbane Writers Festival, mostly because (with a short break to raid the zine market*) I was talking all the time — either on the Haunting History panel (with Angela Slatter, Shelley Parker-Chan and Chloe Gong, chaired by Jo Anderton), chairing the Toil and Trouble panel (Angela Slatter, Trent Jamieson and Malcolm Devlin — somewhere there is a photo of us all with fans), or giving a three hour workshop on writing Australian Gothic stories!

And on the Friday — as part of Brisbane Art and Design — I gave an artist floor talk at the QUT art museum, about the art I did for the activity space for the Spowers & Syme exhibition, which is still on and is a delight.

But I was very in everything, which was energising (and energy-demanding), which leaves little time for sketching, even though there were some wonderful crowd scenes (these are hungry authors in the Green Room). After I finish the PhD (and a few other things), I need to get an artist-at-large gig again somewhere. (I think that might have been the first thing I ever officially did at a Brisbane Writers Festival!)

*”Zines are like, $3 each,” I told myself, cradling a sick headache. “How bad can it get?”
I bought so many.

Oz Comic-Con Brisbane sketches

Oz Comic-Con sketches! (I also sketched the March Homegrown Oz Comic-Con). Special thanks to Karissa who went to my house and found my sketchbook when I forgot it on the Sunday!

Importantly, these include another great (but very different) Kermit.

There was a fair bit of space in front of my table, which was excellent for sketching, and observing occasional convocations of spider-men.

There is a Death above! And a reprise by Mr Smiths below.

Best are the little interactions, especially between different fandoms, and the ordinary moments of superheroes checking their phones.

And the odd Kylo Ren doing some shopping.

The March sketches are here: Oz Comic-Con sketches

Comics and writing guests, with Kate and Sarah who kept us more or less under control

TV Sketching: Shakespeare & Hathaway

I will put up the travel sketches once I’ve scanned them, but in the meantime: Some TV sketching! Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators, Season 4 Episode 2 (f.i.n.a.l.l.y. available in Australia).

As usual, the rule is: no pausing the show.

I didn’t sketch the first episode because I was eating dinner at the time, but I’m not ruling out revisiting it.

These are mostly featuring Sebastian and Luella, of course.

For more TV sketching, see the tag: TV sketching.

Sketching — Oxley State School

This week, I spent a delightful and slightly chaotic session sketching prep students in the school gardens, with P&C and Landcare volunteers. (Thanks to Yvonne, particularly, for organising this, on the basis of my sketching the committee in action at the election!)

Such fun and joyful subjects (and gardens) — but also there was the additional artistic challenge of trying to sketch while five-year-olds swung on my drawing arm and offered critiques.

A really charming time, and it was especially nice to be involved with the local community, of varying ages.

Flashback: Cafe sketching in 2011

This surfaced again recently.

Here I am in 2011(!) drawing on the wall of a cafe in King’s Cross, Sydney (Coco Bar, I can’t find that it exists anymore). I’d been staying in a youth hostel across the road and sketching while having coffee each morning, and the cafe staff kept asking me to paint a mural. I kept saying no, I was leaving soon (and hadn’t done a mural). Then they came out one morning with a permanent marker and said, “Free coffee until you leave,” and I bargained them up to free daily coffee and pain au chocolat, and then freehand-drew the picture directly on the wall.

This, incidentally, is still the best way to get me to do most things: trap me in the location, feed me, and don’t let me out until I’ve done the thing.

Here’s the page of the sketchbook I am using as reference in the photo.

Electoral sketching

Election day sketching! A very cold, rainy day, so sketched near the sausages.

Here are some action shots by Liz.

Adding a touch of colour

Between steps at the school

Getting meta

Sketchbook: Boy&Girl — Brisbane Powerhouse

Here are all the pages from my sketchbook from last night at the wild, impressive, ribald and hilarious cabaret/performance Boy&Girl (from Oscar Production Company) at the Brisbane Powerhouse (it’s still on for two more nights).

As previously mentioned, I expanded my usual limited speed-sketching colour palette by adding pink for flamboyance.

The joy of this sort of sketching is in capturing the movements.

The physical personalities of the people on stage.

(And it was delightful meeting more of the cast afterwards, and watching them pick out people — even the ones without the super-obvious costumes.)

Lighting is tricky in this medium, at this speed, in a show with LED and fire components.

But occasionally — as with the audience members at the table below, and the crew on the first page, I can capture a hint of what the light was doing.

Boots and heels!

Lyrical dance and sequins and shadows and fire!

As posted yesterday, here is my little setup in the balcony — the crew let me borrow a stand and light, which was great. If I get to sneak in to sketch a show like this again, I’m going to experiment with some sort of low-powered booklight.

The show is on for two more nights, and check out Oscar Production Company to see what else they do!

Boy&Girl

Up late sketching Boy&Girl

Audience settling in, crew in position, MC takes the stage

This evening I went to Boy&Girl (from Oscar Production Company) at the Brisbane Powerhouse — I’d been on Saturday to watch it with friends, but they (specifically Em and Bryce) let me back this evening to sketch from the balcony!

I’ll post more pictures later, but there are only two more nights of shows. so if you’re in Brisbane and want some ribald, lyrical, raunchy, acrobatic cabaret-style fun (and it certainly is having enormous fun, as well as being very skilful), head to the Powerhouse website to book.

I was working mostly in the dark, so had to limit my colour choices severely to be able to find anything. Usually, as posted about previously, I’d default to blue and gold. But given the colour and spangles (and fire, etc) of the show, I added in hot pink and a lighter pink, which actually gave a reasonable range.

More pictures soon. In the meantime, here is my setup in the balcony, on one of the lit music stands being used by the crew.

TV Sketching: Queens of Mystery

Some sketches (done in Procreate) of Queens of Mystery Season 2 Episodes 1 & 2, “Sparring with Death” (Acorn TV).

The usual rules apply: no pausing.

Never enough time to draw houses!

Never trust a sauna

There were some very complicated chairs

Group shots are a trick at speed

Tiny shoelace-tying moment! Also: dramatic lighting remains enjoyable to draw.

It’s a very stylised show, which makes it a lot of fun to sketch: strong clear colour cues and coding, distinctive silhouettes, slightly exaggerated movements. I wouldn’t mind going back and sketching the first season.