Arizona Artist Jephyr (aka Jeff Curtis): Sketchbook Graphite Pencil Drawings

Showing posts with label Sketchbook Graphite Pencil Drawings. Show all posts

Friday, May 31, 2019

Great Niece And Nephews Coloring My Sketches

Hi!

Not long ago I was sketching in a local coffee house and a young woman seated near me and I started chatting. Our conversation turned to what I was working on—and when I showed her that day's drawing and a few others she commented that they looked like they would be great for a coloring book—something that had occurred to me as well.

A bit later, I spoke with my niece who has three young kids—and asked if it would be OK to print-out some of my sketches and send them to her for her kids to color.

She agreed—so I printed out 3 copies each of a bunch of my recent drawings and sent them off to her (along with a box of crayons and colored-pencils). A few days later, she let me know through an email she had received my package and included some sweet photos of her kids.

It made me very happy to hear that my great niece and nephews are enjoying what I sent—and with their momma's permission—I'll share a pic of her kids coloring three different drawings from the group I sent.

The Three B's Making Artistic Magic On Their Great Uncle's Sketches

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Thanks as always for stopping by!

See you again soon.......

God Bless!

Monday, April 22, 2019

Captian Piglet And Jenny's New Ribbons

Hi!

Hope you had a great Easter weekend!

Mine was pretty good. I went to a Good Friday service at a church I'm checking out—and managed to get some sketching in each day.

Today, I considered going to an Easter service—but they're always so crowded I opted for some extra sleep instead—and that felt good.

: )

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Let's get to the sketches:

^ ^ ^ Started with another light scribble—Captain Piglet was a lot of fun to create.

I looked at several reference photos of pigs to help me finish this up—and that paid dividends with this next one

^ ^ ^ I obviously still had images of pigs floating around my cranium—and sat in a nearby coffee house stifling my laughter as I drew this one.

: )

I started this sketch with a few sweeping scribbles on the page (of course) and quickly "saw" Jenny's head in them—and added an appropriate body and background as I went along..

Recently—a lot of the characters I've created like Jenny and Captain Piglet have happened very quickly—and then most of the time spent after that is simply refining the sketch. That's been really enjoyable—because as I've written in other posts—sometimes ideas don't come along so easily.

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Thanks as always for stopping by.

See you again soon...........

Monday, February 4, 2019

First Sketches 2019 - Part Two

Hello!

Hopefully you've had a chance to check out Part One of my recent sketchbook drawings.

If not—you'll find that here.

https://artmusicpoliticsfaithhopeandlove.blogspot.com/2019/01/first-sketches-2019-part-one.html

Today I'll share more of my wacky characters and portraits.

^ ^ ^ As noted in my last post I've been creating more complete characters recently.

One afternoon I went out to a coffee house to sketch.

I honestly hadn't planned to make any kind of social commentary with this drawing—but as I was putting the final touches on this smart-phone mesmerized rabbit I looked around me.

Almost EVERYONE was looking at their phones. There were only two exceptions—but otherwise at least eight other people all were bent over and engrossed with their phones.

Just a few tables away from me sat an older couple—both silently staring at their screens. I watched them for several minutes—and neither said one word to the other.

I'm not anti-technology and spend a LOT of time on my computer every day—but think we have lost a lot due to our fascination with cell phones and devices—and wonder sometimes if a plane could literally go down and wouldn't be noticed.

^ ^ ^ I had a blast drawing this character one afternoon in a coffee house.

I had printed out a few photos of wart-hogs I used as references—but obviously went in a more cartoonish route.

I picture this sad, little tough-guy waving goodbye to a barnyard friend who is being taken off to market.

^ ^ ^ A while ago I heard an interview with a woman was a secretary for a famous and well regarded cartoonist/animator.

She said that she would hear him laughing out loud at his own work as she worked in an adjacent room.

I mention that—not to put myself in the same category with him—but because I sat stifling my own laughter at this character while I worked on it one day in a local coffee house.

I wish I always had this much fun when drawing!

Update: I was out sketching yesterday and one of the young men who worked at the joint I was in came over and wanted to see what I was up to. I showed him what I was working on and he seemed very interested so I showed him several other sketches including the one above.

I thought everyone would know the Hans Christian Anderson's "The Emperor's New Clothes" so when I showed him this drawing I mentioned the story and was surprised to hear he'd never hear of it.

Perhaps you know already, it's a morality tale about a king being convinced by swindlers that they had made an elegant outfit for him that was invisible to fools—and no one wanted to admit they were a fool—INCLUDING the emperor—so everyone agreed it was an amazing outfit.

Later the king took off his clothes and put on the new outfit and then paraded around in front of his people "wearing it"—and of course no one wanted to admit they couldn't see his new clothes for fear of being considered a fool.

Then at last a small boy stated the obvious—THE KING WASN'T WEARING ANYTHING AT ALL.

With that—everyone suddenly agreed—the Emperor wasn't wearing ANYTHING—and even though the emperor suspected they were right—he continued parading around in front of them with his noblemen holding his imaginary train high.

: )

http://andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheEmperorsNewClothes_e.html

^ ^ ^ Just a silly sketch that started out as a scribble.

I'd done some large looping lines on the page that led me to "see" the large diving helmet and filled in the rest as I went along.

^ ^ ^ This is another example of the kind of wacky portraits created from my imagination I've been doing for ages—and was drawn before I started creating more complete characters recently.

^ ^ ^ I'll close things out with this forlorn-looking "beastie" character—which goes back the furthest because it was the first drawing completed out of all the recent work I've posted in Part One and Two.

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Well—that'll do it for my most recent sketchbook efforts of 2019—so far.....

Thanks as always for looking in on my corner of the world.

See you again soon!

God Bless!

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

First Sketches 2019 - Part One

Hi!

I'm happy to be able to post my first sketchbook drawings of the new year.

There are eleven in all so I'll break this up into two posts.

In no particular order—and without further ado.....

^ ^ ^ More frequent visitors to this blog will know that I love creating wacky portraits—and have been focusing on those for quite awhile.

You'll find recent examples of them in Part One and Two—but you'll also see that I've been feeling like drawing more complete characters lately as well.

Although I've done a lot of them over the years—this was one of the first of several recent drawings that opened up that door again.

I've also allowed myself to embrace more of a straight cartooning approach over the last month or so—and have enjoyed that a lot too.

It's been a very refreshing change of pace.

^ ^ ^ This was the drawing I created right after the one above—again going with more complete character design and a cartooning approach.

^ ^ ^ I still begin a LOT of my sketches by lighting scribbling on the page and looking for ideas to spring from those unconscious lines.

After beginning this sketch using that method—I saw the face on this guy jump out on me from those scribbles—and thought it looked like a whale.

After that—the rest of this po' character in a precarious position began to take shape.

^ ^ ^ John Willy Bob is the kind of "portrait" I've been enjoying creating for ages—and is one of the older drawings in this group—before the more complete characters of late.

Although it wasn't intentional on my part—this character reminds me of older rockers like Neil Young or David Lindley.

^ ^ ^ In Part Two I'll post several more complete characters—but I'll close out today's update with another screwy "portrait."

Begun as a scribble sketch—I initially saw the lines that led me to creating this character's head.

Later I used an art anatomy book as a reference to add the cartoonish neck and shoulder bones.

The title, "Do You Feel Lucky, Punk?" came from thinking his expression resembled the face Clint Eastwood made while saying (nearly) the same line in a Dirty Harry movie:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Harry

"I know what you're thinking: 'Did he fire six shots or only five?' Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk?"

: )

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Thanks for stopping by.

This handy link will take you to First Sketches 2019 - Part Two:

https://artmusicpoliticsfaithhopeandlove.blogspot.com/2019/02/first-sketches-2019-part-two.html