Recent Doodles

I moved to London at the beginning of the year and I’m still very much adjusting to this busy city.  Haven’t doodled as much as I’d like to but here are a few I managed to squeeze in.  I’m hoping to find some interesting drawing classes, really want to draw dancers and costumed performers, figured London is bound to have something like that!

IMG_0220.JPG
IMG_0222.JPG
IMG_0221.JPG

Zoo drawing day

The cute penguins did not make up for the freezing weather! Face and fingers were frozen but I finally had a chance to go to the zoo and it seemed like a good idea at the time >.>



Also, I've had an instragram for a while now, it's mostly instagramey-type pictures of food and bits and bobs but I think I might try to take more snapshots of my sketchbook on it.  Follow me if you like! http://instagram.com/szekeiho/


I HEART NYC

Went on holiday last week to fabulous New York City.  I was in full-on tourist mode and did all the big main sites! I'm still very much exhausted and slightly jet-lagged but of course I took a sketchbook with me and doodled whenever I could.  I never bothered to take any water-colours with me because my shoulder bag was already so heavy with travel junk so my sketches are definitely lacking some colour and the one main advantage to drawing in cold weather are the several pockets in your jacket you can use to hold drawing tools, so summer in New York meant no jacket so an A5 sketchbook in one hand, a brush pen and graphite stick in the other, a heavy bag on my shoulder and a big SLR camera around my neck :3
 
View from a window at the MOMA, you weren't even allowed to draw with pens at this museum and most of these places were incredibly overcrowded but I managed to find this sweet spot at the MOMA to draw this view because this window hid behind a wall where most people thought the exhibition ended not realizing that there was another display behind it! :)
 
Rodin's Adam at the Metropolitan Art Museum
I bought these brush pens in Kinokuniya, a big Japanese book/stationary by Bryant park and they're meant for Japanese/Chinese calligraphy.  I'd tried different ones before but this shop had 'testers' of all their different pens, which was how I found this one and I think I've finally found a brush pen that I love and love drawing with! I've tried every available brush pen at my local art shops but all their nibs crap-out on me after not much use.  I wish I bought more from the shop in New York so hopefully I'll be able to get them online.
 
Leopards at the American Natural History Museum.  Great displays of wild animals that you would rarely get to see, at least not still and in a great pose! :)
 
Spider Monkey at the American Natural History Museum.
 
View from a window on the fourth floor at the American Natural History Museum.
 
People sitting outside Macy's.  Didn't do too much drawing of people but this was me experimenting with drawing figures with that brush pen really.
 
Spent our last day at Central Park.  It was a perfect day for it and I were so tired from the week that it meant after a little exploring around the park, I could just sit for a couple hours and draw.  Real bummed that I didn't have water-colours with me though! 
 
Highlights for me was definitely walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, we walked across from Brooklyn to Manhattan, just as the sun was disappearing, it was really a magical way to view the Manhattan skyline and then watching Polina Semionova dance with the American Ballet Theatre and the Metropolitan Opera House was a dream come true.
 

Zoo Sketches

It is so outrageously sunny in Scotland just now.  I had the computer running at half ten this morning and I was preparing for a day of animation but then I decided that I needed to get out, so I drove up to the zoo and had a fun drawing day.  Spent most of my time in the outdoor enclosures, of course.  It was so nice to be drawing out in the sun! :)


Last Life Drawing of the term!

Finally found some time to record the last couple weeks of life drawing, so prepare for a big sketch dump! :)

A2, Charcoal, 40 mins
A2, Sharpie, Quick drawing - 2 minutes

A2, Charcoal, Quick Drawing - 1 minute

A2, Sharpie, Quick drawing - 2 minutes

A2, Charcoal, 10 minutes

A2, Charcoal, 10 minutes

A2, Charcoal, 40 minutes

A2, Charcoal, Warm-up sketch - 3 minutes

A2, Charcoal, Warm-up sketch - 3 minutes

Zoo Sketches and a Pumpkin!

So I may have skived life drawing this week but it's the first one I've missed this term in order to get some more animation done, I did however manage to squeeze a wee drawing day at the zoo.  It was the only day I could go and is probably the last chance I'll get to go until next year.  I also carved a pumpkin for Halloween this year :)






Sketches


My first assignment at Animation Mentor was to take sketches in a public place and then pick our favourite sketch to pose our character in Maya.  I'll upload those sketches with the pose this weekend but because the character I'm posing is a fully grown human, I had a bunch of baby sketches in my sketchbook - when you sketch during the day at a shopping park, there are bound to be lots of babies!

Life Drawing

A2, gouache and ink, 1 1/2 hrs

This weeks colour piece was not as disastrous as last weeks but I still felt incredibly out of my comfort zone.  It took a while to build up all the colours on this piece because I didn't have the courage to paint opaquely like you can with gouache, instead I built up layers of washed out colour.

Warm up sketches, 2-3 mins, Charcoal

Animal Drawings & Easter Fun

I've been a bit Easter-daft this year.  The first day that I decide to visit the new lambs of this lambing season, I actually happened to walk in on a ewe going into labour!  It was the grossest and most wonderful thing I've ever seen!  I've been checking in on the lambs so often that the keeper jokingly said that I'm trying to steal them >.>

(Deer)

(Lambs)

(Ewes)

I also made these paper carrots that are filled with mini chocolate eggs.  They were for children at a community crafting class that my sister volunteers for.


Here are the lambs that were born on the 5th of April 2012.  The unfortunate thing was that this ewe gave birth to three lambs but the first one was breached and was just simply too weak to survive.
Here are the same lambs a few days later.  Both mother and lambs are very healthy!

York and Chester Zoo sketches

Two quick sketches from my wee trip to York last week, one of which was in the National Railway Museum. Spent more time shopping than sketching really, the town looks just like something from Harry Potter!


Also spent a day at Chester Zoo. I'm embarrassed at how much fun I had at this zoo because it just shows how little I've traveled to more exotic countries. Just a few sketches here but I did manage to fill up a whole book! Lots of great ideas and inspirations for fun little characters which I hope to create this week - there was this one orangutan that kept doing rolly-pollies!