Wild ones,
The other day I shared with you how just 15 minutes per day adds up, showing how I filled a two page spread, A3 in size, in 20 days.
Granted, I have been doing this for a while now, I have shown up, and I have practised, and I have revelled in pushing pigment around to honour a wild being. But the process is the same, no matter where you are on your journey.
It may take you twice as long to get the same double page spread filled - does that matter?
Nope, not one bit.
Because there is no room for comparison in this life-long journey of connection and wonder that sketching and revering wild beings is.
There is lots of room for inspiration though, and encouragement, and empowerment, and those three things are what I want to give to you every moment I show up here, to share with you.
A couple of you asked via email if I could show what a 15 minute session looks like, so I have recorded the first sketch on my new double spread page, honouring Hare.
Let’s sketch
This spread will be done in Persian Orange by Derwent Lightfast. I haven’t sketched with these Derwent pencils before, though I use them in small parts of my larger drawings. I found this pencil to be lovely to sketch with, though there is not a lot of value (dark and light) shift in this reference, so it will be interesting to see how I go when I start to draw an eye, for example.
In this video you can see how I move the pencil around in broad strokes, keeping my eye very much focused on the reference, rather than my page. I look for queues such as shape of larger anatomical structures, or negative space (the space around the subject), and I really only get the basic form down in that 15 minutes. It is immensely satisfying to know I have more days left to work on just this little drawing alone, that I can keep the conversation going with them.
I chose this reference because it is dynamic - the Hare is in movement, and it gives me more to consider than a simple sitting portrait - I need to look at how the legs overlap each other in stride, where the shadows fall, how different the muscle and bone structures are in movement rather than still.
Here is the link to the reference if you would like to follow along. And if you want to share your work with the community in chat here, or even just email me back, I would be honoured.
This is exactly the same process that I use for all my sketching - finding form, then starting to build up detail and value.
The difference between this video I share with you here, and the content of Drawn to Wild, for example, is that I narrate the entire process as I go. You can see and hear how and why I am doing what I am doing, I will show you when I have opportunities to see more deeply (we don’t call them mistakes around here) - such as where I needed to move the position of the back leg here, and I will talk about the need to embody what we are doing ) not just make it an intellectual pursuit).
We get to work with a new being each week, and have an inordinate amount of fun, compassion, and reciprocity doing so. If this sounds like something that would inspire, encourage, and empower your artistic development and connection to the wild world, Drawn to Wild is waiting for you.
Let’s build a movement of peace and calm and reverence in sketching our wild kin.
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