Gollylagging Books

16/12/2023

Unfortunately with the note app I’ve been using they changed their policy on their free version to a maximum of 50 notes.

By this time I already had 7,125 notes.

I’m gradually moving all my notes elsewhere to eventually delete that note app.

I’m down to 6,380 notes so far.

At this rate it might take me a few months, but I’ve been organizing a bit as I proceed.

06/11/2023

More drawing of hands technique

06/11/2023

Drawing a horse head technique

Horse face tutorial

05/11/2023

This week I have been working on pareidolia creations from one photo I took of curtains I have.

I included the original photo without any markups and then one copy with an area circled to show where I noticed a raccoon I could create and then a copy with a circled area where I noticed two more characters I was able to create.

I could probably create even more characters from this single photo, but I chose to limit it to three creations for this post.

02/11/2023

Foreshortening technique

31/10/2023

More hand drawing techniques. It gets easier with different techniques and practice.

30/10/2023

Mapping out a face is a common practice for many artists / illustrators.

It helps with directionality and proportionality.

Most human heads can be measured to fit particular characteristics or dimensional equivalents.

Details like the spacing of 5 eyes wide.
Include one eye space between the eyes.
Lips generally end around the middle of the eyes.
Top of eyes generally match top of nose where it meets the bridge.

Spacing and proportionality are key to learning to draw most human images.

25/10/2023

Drawing an ear from a side or angled view.

04/02/2023

If you wonder what I write, I’ll say it is a variety of things. Much of what I currently write is various forms of poetry, including forms of my own making. Most of the time they are simplistic. What I mean is they are not filled with bundles of intellectually and emotionally interpretive language, which I leave to other authors. Though that’s also open to change on a whim.

With that said, this is a new creation today.

What was my inspiration?

Sometimes words just flow in my head, but this started forming after watching actions of a blue Jay and a squirrel.

01/02/2023

New creation

12/12/2022

Work in Progress: Scarecrow
Trying to choose how to use.
Is it friendly or spooky?

27/10/2022

Did you know you can create illustrations with your keyboard?

Here’s my playful rendition of creating Frankenstein that way.

I might do another version to create a robot.

05/10/2022

Learning how to draw for beginners, for anyone interested in learning some drawing basics.

What do you need to start drawing and learn art and illustration? Just paper and pencil. We're not going to get to fancy in this first class. We will start w...

19/09/2022

This could us a little more adjusting and clean up, but the palm up - stop what you’re doing is not too terrible for a rough drawing.

With a little more work, I could put each finger and the thumb in separate layers and turn them a bit to create a more open handed palms up image.

Plus, to finish this off, I’d add the palm lines with some shading for light and shadowing and then it’s good to go.

19/09/2022

The continuation of the transformation towards a completed image. It is easy to see I didn’t try to make it a really smooth image as I’ve progressed.

The lesson here is that it doesn’t have to be perfect while learning how to draw.

19/09/2022

First part of transformation is to add vertical lines in the upper box and for clarity I added that upper left box. I figure I should have done that in the initial stage for a learning example.

I also rounded off the bottom box and maybe now it looks a bit more like what the final image might be, but will clarify more in next set.

18/09/2022

Along the lines of I can’t draw, I thought I’d do a “what’s it supposed to be” challenge.

I have something specific I’m going to draw.

I have started with a few basic shapes pieced together.

Can you guess what it’s going to become?

17/09/2022

As you can see, with all rough drawing included, I created two other bears while thinking about this.

17/09/2022

I’ve posted a few basic drawing tips and my effort to see what I could create with them in a quick session. This last post relating to this test is what got me thinking hard about it to see what I could create.

I was drawing some bears and I thought, I’d this that hard to teach?

Let’s see.

These are on different layers in the program I use.

I started with an ice cream cone.

Rotated it and adjusted position upwards slightly.

Added a few circles for ears

A partial circle for the jawline

Added some adjustments for the nose

Added an eye(double checked against photos to see if bears had eyes up front it on the side more)

Added a line for the mouth.

Minor changes and adds and I went from ice cream cone to bear.

17/09/2022

With use of software and layers and with a little extra effort, I was able to enhance this tree like a painter might do in a painting.

17/09/2022

Yesterday, as I mentioned in previous posts, I was exploring the concept of how easy it can be to teach some beginning drawing.

I now share this piece before I get to the final example I created for this test.

Once you draw the balloon on the left, it’s not so hard to draw the tree on the right. Someone might enhance it a bit but the tree trunk is just an extended bit like the balloon valve portion.

I’ll add a new post to show how I enhanced the tree in software I use.

17/09/2022

More basic drawings:
From ice cream cone to hot air balloon to regular balloon

16/09/2022

With a few extra lines added, you get an entirely different object.
From ice cream cone to air ballooon.

16/09/2022

I’ve had a few people tell me things like
“I can’t draw.

I have been thinking about that a fair amount today and I wondered, is there an easy way to teach drawing?

I think there is and I started exploring it.
Let’s see how my exploration is going.

Can you draw a simple ice cream cone?

You might notice I didn’t erase my early attempts. Perfection is not necessary.

12/09/2022

INSPIRATION:

Inspiration can be found in many places. For me, it’s in everyday items like food, curtains, trees, and even in water spots or stains.

This is a simple example, where I had an issue with my air conditioner this year and it created a lot of water on the basement floor.

As the water was drying, I took different images of the water spots on the concrete floor.

I took this particular stain and it reminded me of some sci-fi images of a world with little pieces floating near each other, rather than a singular cohesive globe. So, that’s what I created from it.

06/09/2022

In my recent post I shared one process I use for creating new objects or characters, I did mention I might create another version.

If you read that post, then you’ve seen how the process works, but this post is to show how I can often create multiple objects or characters from a single image.

Change angles slightly
Change ears
Change eye placement
Refine the nose shape
No tongue
Adjust jawline

And I still might try to create another version.

06/09/2022

I’ve been creating more drawings lately.

Some of my latest illustration work involves creating objects or characters I see from other objects or images.

Here’s an example.
I started with a section of this tree and take a photo of it. I often take 2 shots.

In the photo storage app, I do a quick edit to create a rough draw of what is see over the top of one photo. This gives me reference to what I was seeing.

Digital phone cameras still have a lot to be desired so it’s important to rough the imagine in as you’ve got it in mind or it might not be so clear later on.

On a larger device, I access the drawing app I’ll use and import the untouched photo.

I then rough draw or trace the object or character I see and try to clean it up after.

1. Image taken with phone camera.
2. Initial character creation, still on phone.
3. Character creation on iPad app.

This effort is okay, but I might do another version to get a different finished look.