Thursday, May 22, 2008

A Handful of Recent Sketchings

I find that one of the best ways to keep myself on my toes as an artist is to switch up the way I draw things. Since so much of animation, comics, and the like is about finding cool ways to simplify and stylize the figure (or whatever your subject maybe), I like to try new methods in my sketchbook--a great place to experiment and make mistakes.
Also, since I find that I'm not nearly disciplined enough to make changes in my drawing habits on my own, I try to get new materials and tools to draw with to keep me fresh. This latest batch is done with a 3.8 mm nib Pilot Parallel Pen (from my friends at Jetpens.com...that place is a goldmine for cool drawing/writing instruments), which is supposed to be a calligraphy pen, but I thought I'd try it out for this. I'm still drawing in a vintage book that I converted into a sketchbook by gessoing the pages with tinted gesso. This particular book is an old Jehovah's Witnesses tract from the 1960s or 1970s, which makes me smile.

Trees are pretty. I feel like I'm achieving marginal success in ripping off Bill Waterson.
These gestures are done with one of my staples--a Uniball ballpoint (0.5 tip is my favorite).



7 comments:

JAKE WYATT said...

I really like how different bag girl is. It's not often that I see you break out of your style like that. Props.

Laura said...

Beautiful, as usual, Anthony! And I am nothing short of stunned by your amazing line quality!

Jamal O said...

Very nice. Great line quality!

Unknown said...

dude I am down for a sketch adventure! let me know when and were and I will be there, great gestures of the people walking, your vintage j dub sketch book makes me laugh!

Claire Gordon said...

Hey Anthony!
I love that tree, very Bill Waterson. I also really like the walking people.
I would love to go sketch at the Zoo! Shoot me an email when you guys are going and I can meet you all up there. Thanks!

Brandon said...

nice dude i love your sketchbook stuff.

Lilliasaid said...

These are really fun! Good idea gessoing over an old book, it gives an interesting quality to the pages and pen work.

Liz

p.s. your baby is sooooo adorable...as I'm sure you know :)

The Illustrious and Illustrative Sketch Adventure Lifestyle of Anthony Holden. Cartoons, Sketches, Character Designs, Storyboards, Comics, Illustration, Animation, Silly thoughts, Intermittent Posting, and Arbitrary Capitalization by American animation artist, Anthony Holden. Thanks for stopping by and taking a look!
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