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@ Tynka
2025-01-18 19:14:39
I feel like the new year is slowly starting to settle in. That doesn’t mean I’m off to the races. I still intend to take the whole month (or as long as it takes, really) to make plans and carefully set a course forward. I’m not rushing it, I’m letting it all set, like tea leaves at the bottom of a glass.
I still draw daily (I’m around day 193 now), but the nature of the drawing seems to have changed. Instead of using colours and taking time to capture light and mood, I only seem to be interested in quick line sketches, the quicker, the better.
They go well with being slightly absent-minded, which I am, in a nice way. Instead of looking around for inspiration, I turn to the books I’m reading and just sketch scenes that stay with me.
<img src="https://blossom.primal.net/8283613572a73701762a413e957ac5978c08da17369c79642c91aa529ad3249d.jpg">
All drawings in this post are based on The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown, one of the many tasty books I was gifted for Christmas. I’m adding the sketches in the order they were made because it’s kind of funny how the characters emerge. I didn’t plan for the main character to have short light hair, but somehow she does.
<img src="https://blossom.primal.net/6fb4f3a8e02c40da29e342375b9b89667b59986c8c4ce14cd22f1ad1a81b8115.jpg">
The book lends itself perfectly to easy sketching; the characters are not very complicated, but they are described with a lot of visual clues, and the story moves from location to location, leaving clear images in my mind.
<img src="https://blossom.primal.net/1b56b76a492961d35e89c205fbcc7c34a77ca47f2292591b25d5c3053f0bcc4a.jpg">
It’s pretty clear who’s the bad guy and who’s not, and it was a good exercise to try to show that in a sketch. There is also a lot of movement in the story, with characters being surprised by the events and having to run/ hide/ escape and confront each other.
<img src="https://blossom.primal.net/ade023f1dd395ac9430da00aa1126901a4281b696a5e552973ae1ab65ffffcb4.jpg">
There are a lot of doors, many different locations and a good dose of time travelling. I don’t think I ever drew a time-travelling kind of scene before, so of course, I had to try. I used the hairstyle, a piece of clothing and a bit of colour to show the same person at two points in time but also in the same room. Did it work?
<img src="https://blossom.primal.net/89ab51a62b9f3de730bcb69e3e1f199b928cd3f47e23193c83adc583bf481ede.jpg">
Recently, I’ve been really into the black and white illustrations in young adult, early reader, and chapter books. I love their simplicity and how much they can convey with a line drawing. I will hang around in that space for a bit, with my quick sketches.
I started a new book, funnily enough also about doors, so I might share more sketches soon.
Thanks for reading.
x
M