Blog 02 / Sketchbook Tour 01 

Preparing this blog almost took me 4 Hours, so please read and share if you find it useful. 

Following the last blog which I promised to start sharing more about my thinking process and sketches behind my work I finally found some time to post this one. Now i know that i promised almost four months ago but believe me, the past few months were rough. I've been so busy with life events and client's works and they are coming back again so i had to add another chapter here. 

For those who read this, i strongly suggest you check the last blog post too because some of the titles have been explained there. 

First of all, i would like to explain that i've set a  new routine for myself since 2019, I already been sketching and making thumbnails in my sketchbooks which were imaginary, but now i started drawing every night from real life or reference. it's an amazing exercise which helps you to understand forms, shapes and proportions. now i've been going to live drawing sessions on weekly basis or urban sketching from time to time but this new routine is absolutely working since so many of us caught up with digital works... That been said, i've included some of those exercises as well.

+ DRAWING FROM LIFE & REFERENCE  

As i mentioned, I do these every day. Basically drawing animals, Bones, Plants and etc..

Some of them are on scratch papers created by B6 Pencil, some others are Direct Ink using Brush pen. I've managed to capture them and put them all together in a nice new layout for you to see them all in one place...

First Two are B6 and had an additional retouch additional touches in Tayasui Sketch App 

+ THUMBNAILS / COMPOSITION LAYOUTS 

So these are some of the thumbnails that I've created using my Inks and brush pen. most of the time before working on something personal, i do manage to create couple of these, sometimes i do study from movies or photos. 

 More Doodles 

+ MAIN SKETCHBOOK / IDEAS 

Some more sketches from my main sketchbooks, i already explained them in the last blog post so i'll cut it short. 

Using Muji Pen and Artline. 

I share some from 2017... 

+ QUICK GESTURE AND LIGHTING STUDY FROM LIVE DRAWING SESSIONS 

 For This section, i did not have all my papers around so i had to use some of my data stored on my Computer. I used to go to live drawing sessions back in my home town with my friends, It was so much fun and i must admit that i missed it so much.  

These are drawing's within a timeline of 30 seconds to 1 minute, sometimes more but i used Inks Directly to draw those, it's hard a bit because it's so risky to screw it up but at the same time makes you attention more and think more before you draw. there's no Crtl+Z here to help you out. 

 + URBAN SKETCHES

Last but not least, some stuff from Urban Sketchbook...

Dont panic when you see a blank page, just fill it up with anything you find from all around you. do it on daily basis if you can. dont try to draw something good or pretty, try to understand the shapes, forms, study light and most importantly Enjoy drawing! 

It's important to relax and enjoy while you work. i coulnt enjoy drawing when i first started, because i wanted to draw pretty things, i didnt care about deeper meditation, i was only focused on the surface. pretty hatching, stylization and etc... but now it becomes more clear that i have to enjoy and learn while i'm doing it. style and pretty stuff will come eventually. 

 So Another blog comes to an end, I hope you find it useful and interesting. please don't forget to send feedback or questions. We artists need feedbacks. 

I hope to create another Blog soon, I already have a plan for it.  

Wish you all the Best.

Blog 01 / Sketchbook Kit

So for start, Thought to share things I'm using the most! 

First of all its good to mention that I try to keep up sketching and doodling constantly on daily basis, especially when I'm pretty busy with client work, it's kinda refreshing between work and sort of archiving ideas for later, Its also feels good when you do things traditionally as well, not saying that its bad when its digital but putting yourself in that position to know if you mess something up the whole thing is gonna be useless is good, makes you think more.

Its something that I do for client works as well, doing small thumbnails, quick compositions, sketching before getting into computer always helpful before starting a project, and for me it doesn't have to look good, it needs to be useful for my project, sometimes they may look like crappy thumbnails but they carrying some useful information in case of design or compositional guide for my work! 

Now lets move to my main tools, I'm carrying 3 sketchbook at the moment, its good to mention that I use to sketch small, so I hate big papers, my main 2 sketchbooks are 8.5x5 Inches which being separated for Urban live doodling and daily sketches! 

I also have a 11x8.5 inches sketchbook which is mainly for my explorations and crappy ones! doodles, thumbnails, compositions and basically anything experimental happens in that sketch book, sometimes I may like an idea and I reproduce it in my main sketch book! 

Here is a photo of all three sketch books together, From left to right : main sketch book, Doodles and Ideas sketchbook in middle and Urban sketches on the right one.

 Now lets share some main tools here, I mostly work with inks, so basically I try to not use pencils often, its risky yes, i cant control my bloody mistakes but i learn to control it helps me to think more, (I do use pencils mostly on my urban sketching since I had to make some guide lines for perspectives and position of elements) 

Here is a picture of my most being used tools here, from left to right : MUJI ball point pens (really good stuff), Artline ( I do have various sizes for this but mainly using 0.2 on my small sketchbooks), Pentel Arts Pocket Brush Pen, and lastly Pentel Arts Aquash Water Brush which I filled it with black ink and water to reduce the opacity ( mostly using it as pencil to draw the first lines or some mid shadows on my sketches, really coming handy) 

Now lets share some samples here before I get into posting stuff: 

Here is a sample of reproducing a sketch from my Idea's sketch book into the main one: 

  Some samples of Ballpoint MUJI PENs : 

Ok now some samples for doodles and crappy ones that I mentioned, these are the exploration before my projects, pretty small and crappy but comes with some useful information! Mostly using that Pentel Arts Aquash Water Brush and MUJI pen

And a few samples for Urban sketching, these are mostly live at the spot or I took a photo from streets and sketch base on them! 

Ok so I will soon share some pages of my main sketchbook and Urban sketchbook and will break it down deeper with more content,  more thinking process and doodles which turns into final artwork and etc...its just the start so stay tune  I hope this blog becoming a useful thing for you guys, if you have any question just leave it here :) 

Amir Out.