Gesture Sketch

gesture sketch #thedailysketch #artwork #torso #watercolour #pen pic.twitter.com/8uf9m9wqAr
— norton elissen (@sighclone) February 3, 2015

Torso 3 The Rubenesque Torso

 I have not really been putting in much effort to submit a daily sketch into the #thedailysketch hashtag (eg, on twitter or google+) however it is good to have a little project to do each day to extend my art. Torsos are not only a traditional subject but they also offer the opportunity to do those fast gesture sketches (aka doodles).I suspect I learn more about shadow and forms with just a simple wash and perhaps a pen to "find" some detail.

Many sketches never get scanned, or taken through to a final art work (like below) but a lot of the benefit is not so much as a visual guide but more as a performance practice. That hand eye coordination that is so seldom mentioned in the art world. I like to think of my eye directly moving my arm and wrist without to much analysis, the body language of the model translated back into my body language.
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Acrylic on Board

Keep on sketching

Sketching is good for your health

The social networks have changed a lot while I have been giving them a rest, they seem to be a heck of a lot of ego and stalking rather than a place of collaboration and conversation, but it might just be me missing the point. However I have found the discipline of sharing one sketch a day (well almost daily) very rewarding and should I think it is better for my health. That 10 to 15 minutes of concentrated seeing and mark making and appreciating a good coffee has done good thing for my blood sugar and pressure, but perhaps less so for my waistline (ok I am exercising as well, weather permiting)

You can watch me on twitter @sighclone or on Flickr in my short black & inspired album.

Hello ..again

It has been a long long time since I posted it here. Too long! I'd moved to pastels some time ago and loved them as a rapid medium, you sketch and paint at the same time but... I could never get the detail I wanted and I always seemed to struggle trying to finish them, and instead I would ruin them with overworking. So my pastels where put aside for a while. Recently I have been inspired to return to the 2 minute torso idea, ok this is more of a gesture sketch (taking a fair bit longer than 2 minutes) and figured if I started smaller and didin't get fixated with the gradient of skin tone and detail, and more importantly stopped before it was to late I might have a chance of doing better and I must admit I am charmed by my fist attempt at a 10 minute toso pose and a shy first time model.

Beaux Gestes

Most often I get questioned about what is my style and where did it come from. I don't paint like my cartoons and I don't paint like the artists I admire (eg Gauguin) ... so where does my style start ...my theory is it is is not a conscious thing, it is much more physical it comes from the interaction of my eye and hand ... and it very much related to how I hold the brush and flex and bend my arm ... i don't paint in a slow considered way ... it don't even use pencil construction lines any more ... i just pick up the brush .. mix the colour and dab it here and there, my hand just does it guided by my o copy, but I eye but not its slave ... my mind and ego are looking away distracted ...music helps ... ok i do work from photos or a computer screen a lot so that is already resolving the perspective and giving a two dimensional thing to copy, ... but to be honest I look more at the tone than the lines ...confusing isn't it ...I struglle to explain it just love to do it. Four or fire gesture sketches and I'm away in the creative place, time, logic and sensibility vanish, this is a place of colour and emotion and .... and... no one knows until the wash drips of the brush as it flicks this way and that.

Like ideas & words, gestures have a life of their own.
Laurence Wylie

gestures sketches

gestures sketches, originally uploaded by sigh clone.

having been "out of action" for a what seems likes mopnths but may have jut been a week, I find myself muddling around and just pushing paint ... so I wanted to get some spontaneity back ... so i've changed to a new sable dagger brush and a simple wash or two ... but i am focusing on gesture ... gesture of my brush strokes