Sketch Book Work. 28/9/12

 Since we have been back at Farnham i have been keeping a sketch book on me so i can draw where ever i am, no matter what time it is and lucky enough for me, a family friend child was having a birthday party do it was a excellent time to get my pencils and sketch book out and draw some faces and children's faces are so expressive and their emotions so frantic. For those reasons i find children hard to observe and draw, but they can also be really rewarding to draw. I am really pleased with the quick drawing about of the little boy blowing some bubbles - it was actually my idea to bring bubbles.. i thought the children would be so excited they would keep and keep blowing the bubbles, so i would get slightly longer to draw the children in the same pose. I can imagine it being a sweet little animation. A boy trying again and again to blow a bubble, and when he does a little boy over his shoulder pops it. The frustration on his face and then i can contrast it with the excitement of succeeding with blowing a huge bubble at the end. Simple narrative, but it means that i can concentrate on visual communication.

Now, babies are a different kettle of fish. This gorgeous little girl was 6 months old and was extremely well behaved so she made my life extremely easy. I had to say i did struggle getting the shape of her face right, mainly around her cheeks. I did not want to make her face look too slim because it would make her look older and too round made her look like she had swollen cheeks. I am particularly pleased with her eyes, i feel like the facial expression in the drawing makes her look slightly concerned, lost or worried. At this time her mother had stepped away so I could concentrate on the drawing. Also, i think the way that she is sucking on her fingers creates a sense of being confused. If i was to go back to improve the drawing i would maybe do some more tonal work to the little floral top the little girl was wearing. On the other hand, i quite like the simplisity of the fine line drawing and i wouldn't want to do much more to it. Although i would like to do some more drawings of her, due to babies not being like a adult life drawing model, it challenges me to work quickly and challenges my ability to work accurately getting the main features down on a limited timed basis.

The next drawings are quick 5 minute drawings of other children at the party. They vary in positioning as i tried to do the drawings from different views and angles to try and challenge me. Again, as i said before toddlers and young children are not the easiest to draw live, but i think you can get some great spontaneous action poses from children and i think that if you can get their expressions right, you can come up with some great drawings which can fuel some great ideas for animation stories or characters.


BELOW:  more images of work from the party and close-ups.