Character sketches

I'm not the type artist who keep a sketchbook in the sense of one bound drawing pad, where all I do is fill it with drawings from life or my imagination, and nothing else. My artistic sense isn't built that way. Obviously there are artists who just flow with the pen or pencil and this is their main outlet. My moments of intense 'sketchbooking' are just that, moments, and nothing more, small bursts of time when all I want to do is draw. Often times I draw on whatever is near me and on the most immediate thing to get the idea out, however rough it may end up. Sometimes they are the most useless little scribbles but I understand what I'm doing whether or not any else would. I should probably post some of these quick 'visual thoughts' to show how utterly scribbly they can be. Along with these musings I end up doing many thumbnails of ideas and mainly use my sketchbook as a place for 'ideation', or idea creation. I think this word, however made up, is a brilliant summation of what is going on while figuring out the design and aesthetics of your thoughts. Then, I shift gears and want to do this creative searching on a canvas and I abandon my sketchbook but not my ideation. My goal would be for these explorations to be more and more refined as I develop.

The below character studies are examples pulled from various sheets of paper in the studio. Some are intended to add to the development of my paintings others exist just because I felt the need to draw.

Sketchbook pages

Here are a few sketches from me using a new calligraphy pen. I think it's going to take a little more practice to get used to its qualities, but so far it been a nice change from a pen that can't get thick and thin lines quickly. Although picking out small details with the ends of the pen has proved to be tough. These are all 5-15 min sketches from life. In one you can see I've added gouache later on.

I've got a few shows coming up in April, May and in July that I will put up on the blog as they get closer.
Also, a new website is under way and should be up in the next few weeks.

Thanks for having a look.