I’ve had finished the figure awhile ago, but just recently went back and livened up the sky, water reflection, and cattle. Illustration for the “Lost Boys of Sudan” picture book.
Category Archives: Figurative
New Life Drawing of Female Nude
Our room where we normally do our life drawing at the Art Museum was occupied for the evening. We ended up in a store room, but there was grand piano, what luck! I have to work that in later. I see I drew piano too small so I will have to fix that. I spent my hour and a half concentrating on the figure and getting it done. The hands were fanned out and toes were curled, that was most challenging, but I think that worked. Polychromos Pastel on Brown Pastel Paper 12×19″. I liked the Polychromos Pastels would like to have set of 60. 😉
Thumbnail sketch of Book Cover
This is a rough concept sketch for the front and back cover of “David’s Journey; A Lost Boy of Sudan”. Yes, after much debate between my coleagues it has a title now. 😉 The image depicts 1000 mile walk to Kenya. Next I will draw a actual size drawing or maybe I’ll draw it at a 127% which is the size I will render it.
Herding Cattle Illustration
This is the illustration for the cattle herding boy, I haven’t rendered the boy yet because I am wondering if I want to redo it. I was experimenting with how to do the water and I’m not sure if want to try it another way. I’m also not liking the ribbed paper. I will start the next illustration on Canson paper and see how that goes before I finish this one. I am my own worst critic. 😉
New Sketch for Picture Book
I’m worked out the detail on one of the pages of the Picture Book about “The Lost Boys of Sudan.” Cattle herding is central to the life of the South Sudanese. Next I will do a pastel of the picture. I would probably normally work out details on more pictures first, but I wanted to present a color rendering at the next meeting.
Drawing a Crowd
In the picture book there are pages with crowds of people sitting, standing, and walking. Obviously I don’t want to make them detailed, but just an impression. I used vine charcoal to keep it loose. Here is the first study.
Another Life Drawing
I liked this pose, and the foreshortening of the body was a challenge to draw. I was happy to finish it in our limited time on location. Conte Crayon on Brown Pastel Paper 15×18″.
Boy in Oil Pastel
I thought I would try a portrait of a boy in Oil Pastel. He is a relative of the author of the picture book, who lives in the African village. I wanted to test oil pastel on a subject, because Oil Pastel is not so fragile as soft pastel. My biggest concern was to render detail, but this shows it is posssible, and this is a scan, which worked well. I like how the oil pastel looks soft and fleshy. I had to work with the colors I had. Holbein Oil Pastel on 4.5″x6″ sanded brown pastel paper.
And More Page Roughs
More Thumbnail sketches for the picture book, they are used to make decisions on what the overall content and composition will be for each page without committing to much time and effort on them until we know for sure how we want the page to look.
Last Night’s Life Drawing (WIP)
Last night we used a more dramatic light on our model, and I tried using a pastel card, that is kind of like sand paper. I want to use this type of surface for illustration except this one is a little rougher than I want, but I do like it better than paper. It holds more color, for more opaque contrasting color.
TracyB.art 