NEWS

Teaching Yourself to Draw from Your Imagination -- part 1

2009-06-28T14:57:00.000-07:00

Over the next few months I'm going to be posting some articles about teaching yourself to draw from your imagination. These ideas expressed on the subject of drawing come from both my own observations and from lectures from several fantastic drawing teachers I have had the privilege of studying with, such as Kevin Chen, Dallas Good, Steve Huston and Bob Kato.

Keep in mind that this is general theory and not to be taken as hard, fast rules about what makes a drawing "good." In fact, when it comes to making art, it's the ways in which we diverge from the principles that gives artwork its originality, style, and charm.

Also keep in mind that nothing I or anyone else says are going to make you instantly better; that's only going to come gradually and with a lot of hard work drawing people on your own and from life.

GESTURE

There are two elements present in all kinds of art: IDEA and FORM.

The IDEA is what you want to express, and the FORM is the different elements that make up the piece.

Another way of saying that is the form is like the notes on a piano, and the idea is how you string them together. And as in music, the quality comes not from how well you hit the keys but how they all relate to one another to form a song.

The GESTURE is the IDEA of a figurative drawing.

This can also be described as the "story," or the "pose." When related to drawing, these terms can be used interchangeably, and in fact I prefer to use the word "story" instead of gesture when talking about drawing because it is often much clearer as to what the goal is.

GESTURE = IDEA = STORY

If gesture means the same thing as story, then it should be clear that a "gesture drawing" isn't just a bunch of scribbles done in 30 or 60 seconds from the model, as was my understanding of it from the earliest days of figure drawing.

A gesture is any line or set of lines that gets the story across.

The gesture the most important element in drawing figures by far, because if you fail to tell a convincing story, no amount of style, anatomy, or rendering will ever be able to fix it.

A good draftsman can tell a complex story with stick figures because of his or her grasp of this concept.

I've chosen to use stick figures here to illustrate the point that people will forgive 95% of all your other artistic shortcomings if you can tell the story well.

This is where a lot of drawings fall apart, either in the beginning or in the later stages as you get farther away from the core message of what you're trying to say.

When in the early stages of learning to draw, it's often a good idea to start your gesture off with a single, usually swooping "action line" essentially serves as the "theme" of the figure. This concept is described in greater detail and with many fantastic examples in John Buscema's "How To Draw Comics the Marvel Way."

Also, I should note that the example drawings posted here don't necessarily represent my personal process of drawing; for that, you can look through older blog posts and get an idea of how I come up with my poses; it's a lot more organic and scribbly most times than it looks here. You're going to want to develop your own process, which I will talk about in another post.

Every line you put down should serve to strengthen the basic idea of the pose. If you're drawing a person who is tired or depressed, not only should your initial first few lines get that point across, but subsequent design decisions you make should reinforce that message. The reason being is that every time you put down a mark that gets away from the core idea, the less effectively it communicates its intended message.

In my opinion, the people who are the best at drawing from their imagination are usually animators. It's an animator's job to tell stories through pose. If the storytelling is just the slightest bit "off," everyone can tell. Therefore, it's extremely important that your drawings always focus on the story.

In addition to the initial sketch of a drawing where you get the general idea of the pose down, getting the details right is also important. As I mentioned before, any line you put down that doesn't strengthen the basic story of the drawing you're making serves to weaken it.

This is just another way of saying that to draw is to design.

In drawing just as in storytelling, you're usually going to want to communicate as clearly as possible. Silhouettes offer the fastest, clearest communication of gesture. Will Eisner explained silhouettes in his book "Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative," which I highly recommend.

Foreshortening

Obviously it is often more difficult to show the gesture on a foreshortened figure than on one shown at a more conservative angle, because a strong grasp of three-dimensional form and basic anatomy come immediately into play in such cases.

Consider your pose in such instances; it may be possible to tilt the angle of the viewer so that there is a clearer story expressed in the silhouette.

The biggest challenge with designing foreshortened figures (after the actual foreshortening part) is keeping the silhouette from being a "bean" and losing all the dynamism of the pose.

Also, you can use a digital camera and a self-timer, or a friend to quickly check and adjust accordingly the way you've designed the pose and make necessary adjustments.

It's essential to use reference while drawing. Failing to use a camera, mirror, or something else when you need it is like not using a dictionary to first look up a word you don't know the meaning of that you want to use in an essay.

Designing for the page

A key difference between the way an illustrator draws and an animator or cartoonist draws is in designing for the page.

Often times in illustration there isn't as strong of a need to stay "on model" as there usually is in comics, cartooning and animation.

Letting go of the principles you've practiced over and over in the drawing workshops to make more interesting illustration can be both extremely daunting and exciting at the same time.

The key to making this work is realizing that there are no limits to what the figure can do when you put it down on paper; as long as you are able to communicate the idea, the possibilities are as endless and free as you permit yourself to imagine.

Always push your design. It's much easier to take a step back from going too far than it is to push forward when you haven't gone far enough.

If you've noticed, this is just "design" in a broader sense, not just figure invention.

The ultimate truth of drawing figures or anything else is that it comes down to your skills as a designer; if it looks good, it's because you designed it well, and if it looks bad, it's because you didn't design it well; it has nothing to do with how much anatomy you know or how well you understand the principles of drawing.

All that knowledge is helpful for informing your design choices, but it doesn't guarantee you a good drawing.

Practicing

It's important that no matter what teacher you are learning from that you practice drawing out of your imagination on your own, AS WELL AS from life.

You MUST set aside time on a regular basis if you want to improve. It's more beneficial to spend 30 minutes studying the figure on a daily basis than it is to spend four hours in a workshop once a week.

Life drawing should be thought of essentially as "the lab" where you test out ideas and try to figure out what works for you.

Drawing from life is a key component of the over-all equation of learning to draw, as is drawing from your imagination and studying the drawings of other artists.

Do whatever you have to do to make practicing interesting and fun for yourself. If the idea of practicing the figure sounds boring to you, your brain will essentially shut off and you'll just be wasting your time. Find a way to make it fun.

Do not strive to copy exactly the way any one teacher explains to you to draw. It MUST be a process of trial and error. You are essentially trying to find out your own way to do things. This is how you will engage your brain so that you learn quickly.

Practice on your own. Your deficiencies in figure invention will become immediately apparent. Make note of your weaknesses and attack them when you draw from life. You are working to develop your own understanding of the figure.

One way to practice figure invention is to draw comics, which can give you scenarios you never thought of to illustrate.

Listen to different teachers and find out where their ideas overlap. Strive to find the principles and the core messages they are delivering; don't get wrapped up in their process.

Any teacher is explaining to you their own unique understanding. You cannot understand things exactly the same way they do, so you must strive to find your understanding. You must walk your own path parallel to your heroes, but not try to follow in their footsteps.

Pink Sky, Green Cloud

2009-06-24T10:22:00.001-07:00

Hey guys,

It's been hectic around here and I apologize for neglecting you, but a lot of the stuff I've been working on for the past month had NDA's attached so I've been unable to blog about it.

I know, I know. The excuses are pathetic.

Back to business though...

Earlier this year I did this piece for Scholastic for a short story called "Gracie," based on a film about a high school girl fighting for the chance to play soccer on the boys' team at her school (where there was no girls' team).

The cool thing is that this was for Scholastic, which means that a hundred billion middle-schoolers across the country got to see it and read aloud Gracie's story. I can only hope that my buttoned-down, conservatively styled illustrations were still fun enough to keep them interested.

I did this piece a while back--even before the "Crash Course" piece a couple of months ago, but the way I did the clouds and the grass background on this are what inspired a good two months' worth of experimentation that isn't anywhere close to being done.

Also, I was particularly proud of the crazy colors on this piece, and the art director liked them as well, however the POWERS THAT BE thought that a green cloud and a pink sky were too off-the-wall for the teeny boppers to handle. So I did a more "natural" colored version which isn't shown here.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

--Frank
p.s. I'm going to be at San Diego Comic Con for a day or two. I don't have a home base yet, but if there is any expressed interest, I will consider bringing some original drawings to peddle while I'm there. Email me at frank@frankstockton.com if you'd be interested in seeing anything in particular or in general.

Have a Green Day!

2009-05-21T12:35:00.000-07:00

Two years ago I received a phone call from Rolling Stone magazine asking if I was available to do an illustration. Unfortunately, I had just arrived in San Diego on vacation and was forced to decline the job.

"No problem," I told people, "they'll call back."

In April of '09 they finally called back. The timing wasn't so good. If it wasn't the Rolling Stone and I didn't know how long it took them to get back to asking me to do a job for them, I would have said "no." But Rolling Stone is one of the four magazines I've always wanted to have as a client, so I made it work.

The topic was Green Day's new album, "21st Century Breakdown." The review described it as theatrical, ambitious, and patriotic.

I don't do a lot of portraits, so this was a challenge, but I was really happy with the composition that I came up with. I tried to invoke a bit of the composition from Queen's second album cover (Green Day's new album was also compared to Queen in the review for the theatrical content).

Also, I tried to make them look as patriotic as possible. I did two versions, one with a colored U.S. flag, and one with a black and white flag, and the AD rightfully chose the colorful version.

____

After the issue came out, I excitedly went to the local magazine rack to see if it had hit the stands yet. It had--last month's issue with Bob Dylan on the cover--and opened it up to the page with my illustration.

Much to my dismay, the image had printed far too yellow, in a way that made the figures look very acidic in their coloring. The subtlety of the muted reds and blues had been spoiled in the translation from computer to print.

This is why I like seeing my work in print. People coming across your work in a magazine or book is much better advertising than sending out a postcard or email, so I like to see how things come out.

My first thought when I saw the printed version was "is it my fault?" As in, did I do something in Photoshop that made the colors this way, or did the designer alter my final version himself. Reason being is that I want to be sure to make necessary changes so that next time this won't happen.

A couple days later I emailed the art director and asked him for some tear sheets, and I asked if they altered the image or if what I did made the image too yellow.

The art director told me that the yellowing of the printed image was the printer's fault, and that he had already spoken to him about it.

While I'm glad it wasn't one of the first two possible reasons for the faulty appearance, I'm still kind of bummed that it didn't print out how I had envisioned. I hope that the next time I do a job for Rolling Stone that it comes out pristine and beautiful.

Just goes to show you that there are factors outside of our control as illustrators.

Thanks for reading,

Frank

The Bear Hunter

2009-05-04T23:24:00.000-07:00

I've done a lot of work for Neil Jamieson at Field & Stream over the last year, but it was bugging me that I had not gotten the chance to do something I felt was really great for them. A handful of spots, quarter and half-pagers, but no features or anything that I could really stretch myself on.

So one day out of the blue, I took it upon myself to just ask Neil if I could do something bigger for them, either full page or larger.

He seemed keen to the idea, and a few weeks later, he emailed and let me know that he had something that he thought I would be perfect for.

The story was basically about a man who felt spiritually very close to bears. So close, in fact, that he liked to track and hunt them with a bow and arrow.

For the assignment, I wanted to combine several other ideas I'd been toying with in previous illustrations, such as framing the piece in an organic shape, and working with a lot of highlights.

Also I should mention, I enlisted the help of my friend and fellow illustrator David Hollenbach to pose as the hunter. Thanks Dave!

Fortunately I was also given enough time on this job to experiment a lot and come up with something different and exciting. Most of the time, illustration has such short deadlines that I don't get a lot of freedom to experiment.

I'm really happy with how this piece came out, I hope I get to do more like it in the future.

Thanks for reading,

Frank

Swimming With Sharks

2009-04-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

I did this piece for the brilliant SooJin Buzelli at PlanAdvisor a while back. The topic: Risky Behavior. Size: 1/2 page spread.

PlanAdvisor and PlanSponsor are the two magazines I've worked with SooJin on. She ONLY uses illustration, and prefers the illustrative solutions to be more interpretive (read: NO BUSINESSMEN IN TIES!).

The result is that every issue she art directs looks like a miniature illustration annual. I don't know where you can pick up an issue, but if you get a chance, it's something you should buy. She gets really gorgeous work out of her artists.

Plus, she asked me to speak to her students at SVA a while back. And those who know me know I love to talk about illustration. I was very happy.

Have a good weekend,

f.

Illustration Crash Course

2009-04-15T07:06:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I got a call from Debbie Kim of Los Angeles Magazine asking if I was interested in doing something for their book review section.

Being originally from Southern California, I thought it would be particularly cool to do something for them, if because maybe there's a chance that one of my old friends still living in L.A. will be more likely to stumble upon it.

The book review I was illustrating was for a recently published memoir of Norman Ollestad, who as a 12 year-old child survived a plane crash in the mountains that killed his father, the pilot, and his father's girlfriend. The book recounts his thoughts and reflections on life with his beach-bum father as he makes the treacherous journey through the icy wilderness back towards civilization. Heavy stuff to say the least.

Being Los Angeles Magazine, I knew it couldn't be very dark, but of course has to stick to the subject at hand. I did a few sketches based on the idea of the journey and the psychology of what the boy must have gone through. To me, the key to the concept seemed to be over-all the presence of his father looming over him as he made the journey. And to a lesser extent, the plane crash.

Debbie liked the first sketch best, and we talked about making Norman larger, but after talking it through she agreed with me that the thing that made the first concept work was the scale of the father to the son. Truth be told, I felt that sketch B would have been more fun to draw, but I knew that A was best and that it would be more challenging.

Lately I've been working with adding texture to my pieces, as well as experimenting with adding graphic light sources. I wanted to combine both experiments in this piece by making the father's image be the shadow side of the clouds, but in the end I had to go for a simpler (and much better) graphic solution. By the way, I kept thinking of this illustration by N.C. Wyeth while I was doing this, which is probably the reason I tried so hard to make the softer charcoal version work. Maybe next time though...

When I was finally satisfied and out of time to keep toying with it, I sent the illustration away and shortly thereafter got some feedback from Debbie. She asked me to move some elements around and make the plane crash more apparent, which she was totally right about.

Sending me the illustration in the layout was helpful to me because I could see what she meant about moving certain elements around rather than her vaguely describing what she wanted me to do. I always get excited when I'm asked to collaborate on the design end; it shows that the designer really cares what the final product will look like, and in turn makes me want to do a better job.

Here is the final illustration in the layout. The issue should be out soon if not already. You can click on the image to enlarge it.

Thanks for reading,

Frank

Live Tonight prints at Nucleus!

2009-04-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,

Nucleus Gallery in Los Angeles just released a limited edition of my Live Tonight series as prints! Please click on the links below.

The works were originally commissioned to illustrate an erotic short story by author Saskia Walker.

Here is the original blog post for the images.

Here is a link to Nucleus.

Here is a link to Saskia's blog.

best,

frank

SPD Award

2009-03-28T07:22:00.000-07:00

Hello,

I just found out that a bunch of illustrations I did a while back received an Society of Publication Designers (SPD) Merit Award in the "illustration: Entire Story" category. The publication was National Geographic Adventure magazine for an article entitled "Terrorists at the Tea Party" It will be included in the SPD PUB 44 Annual coming up in May.

Here are some of the spreads from the feature. Art director Dave McKenna put it all together and deserves most of the credit for how it turned out.

You can read the original blog post for the opening illustration here.

f.

cloud surfing

2009-03-27T10:58:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all!

This is a process piece from the background of something I just finished. I'll probably be blogging it later.

BTW I'm going on vacation tomorrow so I will be absent from posting for at least 10 days. I've got lots of stuff to blog but have been too bogged down with work to post. Your patience will be rewarded!

f.

Tor - The Long Man

2009-03-11T06:24:00.000-07:00

Way back in October 2008 I was contacted about doing a cover by Irene Gallo of Tor books for a new novel called The Long Man written by long-time comic writer Steve Englehart.

After doing some initial loose sketches for feedback, the job was placed on the backburner for a while and I eventually forgot about it.

However, late in January the job started back up again and we were able to flesh out the concept for the book a little better. I would describe the concept of the story if I was able to do so accurately--hopefully you get a sense for it from my cover, though.

I ended up doing two versions of the cover, but the brighter colored version is what's going to be published. I think it will stand out more that way. The less saturated version, however, is my favorite of the two.

If you haven't noticed, the process piece I posted a few weeks ago was actually used in this illustration.

The Long Man is scheduled to be released on August 4, 2009.

best,

Frank

Ilana - Portrait

2009-03-06T07:28:00.000-08:00

Howdy, last night, my friend and fellow illustrator Ilana Kohn came over and was nice enough to sit for a quick oil portrait. It's so difficult to photograph oil paintings without a zillion little highlights, so I spent a little time in Photoshop taking a bunch of them out... still not perfect though!

oil on panel, 9x12" detail

f.

The Clark, Mass MoCA, and The Norman Rockwell Museum

2009-02-25T13:33:00.000-08:00

Last weekend visited the Berkshires in Massachusetts with a group of friends to spend some relaxation time.

On Saturday we trekked to the two major museums in the Williamstown area: the Clark and Mass MoCA.

I've got to say I was really surprised by some of the paintings at the Clark. Not only did it have a great selection of paintings by people I admire, but it held a lot of famous works I'd never seen before in person (some of which I did master copies of a loooong time ago).

Here are the Sargent paintings they had on display that blew my mind:

A whole bunch of Toulous-Latrec lithographs:

Degas sculptures:

and lots more good stuff (including stuff by Sargent's teacher Carlous Duran and a William Chase original). It was a HUGE surprise, and it reminded me how much I know about some of these artists and their back stories.

At Mass MoCA there was a lot of cool fun art to look at as well, but I didn't remember the names of most of the artists. The main exhibit was by Saul LeWitt which was an awesome experience. Several rooms were painted in rainbow stripes in various patterns, perfect for picture posing.

And lastly, on Sunday on the way back we stopped off at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA.

Norman Rockwell is one of my favorite picture makers, and a huge influence on me as a storyteller. I've always loved the attention to detail and storytelling that's so pervasive in his work.

The museum itself was surprisingly small though, and I was honestly a little disappointed in the museum considering the last time I saw a bunch of Rockwell paintings together was the traveling retrospective when it came to San Diego back in 2001. (The show in 2001 was life-changing).

Regardless of all that, it's still worth stopping by.

Going to see The Norman Rockwell Museum, though, made me think that it would be great if some of his better paintings were hanging in some major museums like the Met, or in a museum with other great golden age illustrators. Places like the Society of Illustrators have a lot of that great work in their archives, but not nearly enough and they are lacking a good permanent collection space that could showcase more than just a small handful of pieces at a time. Not to be critical. I guess after a weekend of essentially being spoiled by amazing work that the natural inclination would be to ask for more.

Thanks for reading,

frank

Cover & Spread - Velo News

2009-02-20T07:58:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

I did this a while back but should be on stands about now. This is a cover and spread I did for Velo News, a cycling magazine.

The book is oversized (10x12") which is always fun. I'm still waiting to receive my copy.

The issue is about the "Tour of California" race which would see the return of three of cycling's greatest athletes' return after their respective breaks from the sport: Basso, Armstrong, and Landis. I must have done a decent job on the likenesses because my friend Erik Petri who follows the sport knew right away who they all were. Thanks Erik!

Anyway, a special request from the art directors on this piece was that the spread be a continuation of the cover, so I had to design it in a way that they would work well together.

After a couple of small changes to the final art, I was given a PDF of the pieces with type in place.

Thanks to the AD on the project, Mike Reisel, for being so easy-going on this.

Figure drawing wednesday

2009-02-19T07:06:00.001-08:00

Howdy!

I went figure drawing last night with a couple of buddies. One of the models was a super skinny old woman. I really enjoyed drawing her.

process piece

2009-02-13T14:35:00.001-08:00

This is something in the background of an assignment I'm working on right now...

f.

30-Wed

2009-02-12T09:58:00.000-08:00

Here's some simple concepting that I turned into a sketchbook spread yesterday...

And busted out the oils for a quick sketch yesterday also... wow it was rusty...

f.

29 - MonTues

2009-02-10T23:02:00.001-08:00

I was in a doodling mood...

28 - Wednesday

2009-02-05T16:04:00.000-08:00

Sketches and some textural experiments...

27 - Tues.

2009-02-03T23:18:00.001-08:00

26 - Sunday

2009-02-01T22:23:00.000-08:00

This lady sat too close to me on a half-full subway, preventing me from moving my drawing arm today.

This drawing is my revenge.

____________

Here's some advice I gave someone via email about drawing today:

...

Draw Draw Draw!

Remember that no matter how you do things to do it your way. If you want to get good fast, you have to remember that even when you're in workshop and you're working on volume, gesture, or whatever, you're doing it YOUR way.

You should always be having fun.

There isn't one way you should be doing things and another way you shouldn't.

Learning principles of drawing and painting is EASY by comparison to finding your own unique voice. It basically will take you between 3-5 years to become really good at those principles, but you're going to be spending the rest of your life trying to find your own voice. And in the end, your own voice is all that matters. So whatever you do, you have to own it.

That said, don't worry about "style." You already have it, and in fact you can't get away from it. The people who spend all that time in workshops but don't seem to be improving are trying to cover up their own style. You have to let it come to the forefront if you want to really see improvement quickly.

The most important critique you will ever receive is your own. Ask yourself what you like about this piece. Then, ask yourself what you could do to make yourself like it more (be specific).

Crits from other people are helpful, but they aren't as important as your own. Crits from others can help you to see things for yourself objectively, but ultimately they are just someone else saying what THEY would do. And that isn't necessarily the best thing.

Another thing to remember: if you're drawing for practice--i.e. in the workshops--keep in mind what you're trying to get out of it. Are you trying to learn to draw figures out of your head? (try it and see; if you can't do it, you should change how you approach figure drawing)

I heard this from Scott McCloud's talk on TED recently, and I agree with it 100%:

1) Learn from everyone
2) Follow no one
3) Look for patterns
4) Work like hell

I hope that's helpful to you. I have a blog post a while back called "how to get better" that says the same thing a little differently. I hope you get some enjoyment or usefulness out of it: HOW TO GET BETTER

--frank

25 - Saturday

2009-02-01T13:21:00.000-08:00

Swordsman MonsterSlayer.

24 - Wednesday

2009-01-29T08:22:00.000-08:00

Figure drawing day!

23 - Tuesday

2009-01-28T06:08:00.000-08:00

continued...

22 - Sunday

2009-01-25T20:12:00.000-08:00

DAY 22
My buddy Doug came over today and agreed to sit for a quick portrait drawing... but somehow along the way it became a painting.

When he asked "What are you using?" I replied "I think it's either gouache or watercolor or a mix." I painted this by re-wetting dried puddles of paint on a palette I dug out of a box. The colors used were ultramarine, yellow ochre, and a bright red that I think might have been cadmium. Oh, and some white gouache.

FLATTING
Also: for some reason I've been getting a lot of emails about how to do flatting. I've mentioned before in past posts that flatting is a coloring technique for comic books and there are already tons of great demos online about how to do it. If you google "comic book flatting," the tutorial that I learned it from is actually the first thing that comes up, here.

Have a great day!

frank

21 - Saturday

2009-01-24T16:39:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was hectic; the first day since starting the challenge that I didn't actually draw anything for myself :(

One of the many errands I ran was picking up my Yuki-Onna and Amanda Crow pieces from the framers and dropping them off at the Society of Illustrators for the Book & Editorial show, which opens January 28th. I'm going to be at the awards ceremony on Feb. 6th to celebrate. Hope to see you there!

While I was dropping off my editorial and book pieces, I took a couple of pictures of my piece in the Sequential exhibit, and had the rare opportunity to be the fly-on-the-wall as two older ladies looked at and discussed my ESPN comic. Some of the stuff they said was comical to me, but it was all flattering.

Also, I received my easel in the mail from my parents on Friday. WOO! I'm so excited to have it here with me. So many hundreds of hours have been spent standing or sitting in front of it. It's funny how something I used to take for granted now holds so much sentimental meaning to me. I can't wait to bust out the oils.

Lastly, here are today's sketches, drawn at Starbucks. I was really enjoying myself and could have spent all day there, but decided to head back to the studio and take care of some errands.

Thanks for reading,

frank