Sunday, September 29, 2013

How to Train a Turkey


day 1: Jimnie (medium) ballpoint pen on paper (W.I.P.)
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day 2: Jimnie (medium) ballpoint pen on paper (W.I.P.)
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day 3: Jimnie (medium) ballpoint pen on paper (W.I.P.)
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day 4: Sharpie (ultra fine/twin/chisel tip) permanent marker on paper (W.I.P.)
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day 5: Chartpak (chisel tip) colour markers, Sharpie (ultra fine) permanent colour markers & Sharpie (extra fine) water based white marker on paper
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Wanted to put together a sketch demo. Last year around this time I had done a sketch of a turkey around Thanksgiving (Canadian) on the iPad, this time I thought I'd do it on paper. Based off a Tim Flach photograph, my intentions were to have no game plan going into this exercise. I wanted to spread the work out through the week, never putting in too much time during each session. The initial base for the drawing was done using a Jimnie (medium) ballpoint pen. Lately I've been sketching more with pens to remove the crutch of an eraser while sketching. I prefer using a ballpoint pen because I'm able to control the line density and opacity more so that with a felt tip. I used the ballpoint from outline to full crosshatching. I've never used a ballpoint to that extent and found that the drawback to using one is the amount of pressure needed to be exerted to create dense line work can affect and/or damage the surface of the paper. Because of that setback I wasn't able to obtain enough contrast. On day 4 I decided to finish off the crosshatching using Sharpie permanent markers. To finish it off I was contemplating using chisel tip colour markers (wash) or fine point colour markers (hatching), and decided at the end to use both. Also using a white acrylic marker to bring back some highlights and definition.