WELCOME to Sean's Drawlrings! I share my art, tutorials and knowledge with you!

INTRODUCTION

Hey!  Welcome to Sean's Drawlrings! I'm on the road to becoming a professional concept artists for the video game and movie industry and so I'm always doodling and finding new things that have to do with art. I'm going to share my findings, secrets and art tips with you along the way.

WHAT IS HERE?

-Sketch Blog- I'll update all my doodles, sketches and artworks!
-Tutorials- with your suggestions, I'll be making digital painting/illustration tutorials soon!
-Free Content- Photoshop brushes, images, coloring pages, tutorials etc. all coming!

-Illustrated Stories- Saul Hansen and I will be posting 2-5 pages of written story accompanied by a full illustration twice a month for free!

MY WEBSITE
MY STORE

Thank you for all your support, open hearts and encouragement along the way!

Which Sketchbook to get? The sketchbooks I'm in love with.

Which sketchbook should I get? What kind of paper should I draw on? Should I use pencils, pens, water color, grass...I HAVE NO IDEA!

These seem to be the plaguing questions of many budding artists. Likely, they're the questions of many artists yearning to make a change or step out of their comfort zone.

Today, I really want to help you make a decision about where to start. More than that, I want to share with you 'HOW' to make a decision on the tools you'll be using to express yourself, your imagination and the world around you. 

Let's get started!

"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a  life time"

  The principle here is going to be 'do what is best for you'. I can tell you exactly what to buy and how to use it, but then we loose so much of what make you so WONDERFUL! I know at this stage, some of you will scratch your head and say 'But I have no idea what is best for me.' Well my friends, this is where the tough love kicks in and we start to critically think.

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SKETCHBOOKS 101

There are about 9 zillion types of sketchbooks out there, and that doesn't make the search easy. I've compiled a list of some of my own personal favorites. I've been around the block with sketchbooks of all sorts, and these are what have fit me, my goals and personality, but I haven't tried everything and I certainly don't know everything. So this is my humble opinion. :D

Your perfect fit may very well be different and you should consider what makes you unique when deciding. Remember, IT'S JUST A SKETCHBOOK!...you can go buy another one.

       Some notes on sketchbook lingo that you'll hear below:

• paper weight/# - how much a ream of 500 would weigh (ie; 65#= 500 sheets of paper would weight 65lbs.)
• tooth- the papers texture. More tooth=More texture
• acid-free- Acid free paper is more 'archival'. Essentially your paper will not crack and turn yellow as easily 900 years from now when you're showing your doodles from your younger years to your grand kids.

1.) Canson 9 x 12 Universal spiral bound Sketchbook 

The Canson 9x12 has been my go to sketchbook for years. It's particularly great for pencil and charcoal drawings. If you're going to carry something around though, you may want something in a more manageable size and a hard cover.

Pros:

• 100 pages of 65# paper is good all around quality.
• I like the tooth and it stands up to erasing well.
• Recycled paper (for those environmentalists out there)
• 9x12" paper real estate provides plenty of room for your doodles
• Spiral binding allows for this book to opened 360 degrees for easier scanning
• Perforated sheets for easy removal.
• Affordable. At around 10-12 bucks, you'll get a good sketchbook.

Cons:

• The cover is ugly and flimsy, so that leaves something to be desired.
• Spiral bindings are not reliable if you carry this with you, but they're also fixed easily.

2.) Canson 9 x 12 Field Sketchbook 

The Canson 9x12  hard cover is great to lug around with you outdoors, on your commute or if you might need a shield of some sort during your work day from the dragon lady in the next office. The cover is really great, though the corners will probably barely last you the life of the sketchbook.
Pros:

• Ditto to everything about the soft cover version.
• It goes without saying, this is great for those of you who treat your sketchbook like a farm dog.
• You can usually find these on amazon for around the same price.
• The cover is a nice plain black.

Cons:

• A little heavier to lug around.
• Again, spiral bindings are just kind of annoying.
• Only 80 sheets of paper in this one.
• No perforated sheets

3.) Moleskine Art Plus Sketchbook 5x8.25

The Moleskin Art plus series is great for a lot of reasons that I'll list below. I am particularly fond of the 5x8.25 version due to it's packable size for on the go drawing. it's another all around goodie with a convenient elastic strap to hold it together. It's also super thin.
Pros:

• Hard cover with round edges will allow this to last you.
• Elastic strap seems like it would be annoying...on the contrary, you'll love it!
• Open flat binding. Though there aren't perforated pages, you'll be able to scan your drawings that overlap that pesky partition with ease.
• Nice little hidden pocket in the back to hide all your naughty pictures or stamps or whatever you want to put in there.
• The paper handles ink, graphite, and even light water colors pretty well, though markers are another story.

Cons:

• Price. These will likely run you around $18 for this size. (but you can get lucky online)
• Not the biggest fan of the paper. Minimal tooth, a little slippery and thinner than I'd like.
• No perforated sheets

4.) Global Art Materials 5.25x8.25 Lrg watercolor book

Global Art Materials has a great selection of sketchbooks. If you're looking to get into water colors, this is a great place to start I spent a lot of time in my handbook journal with watercolor pencils, ink and loved ever minute of it. They're worth checking out even if you don't do water color. They've got lots of other sketchbooks, and I am particularly in love with the paper dimensions they use.
Pros:

• Hard cover with round edges and a nice texture to make you feel fancy!
• Paper absorbs well and keeps colors vibrant.
• Elastic strap...again, great to have!
• Great binding that opens nearly flat that includes a bookmark like the moleskine.
• Landscape layout allows for a much more dynamic exploration of good compositions.

Cons:

• Price. Usually found for around $15-18.
• Only 60 sheets of acid free, 95#, cold press paper (but that's good stuff right there)

5.) Canson Basic Sketchbook 8.5x11

If you can't tell by now, I'm in bed with Canson. The Canson Basic sketchbook is great for budding artists and the on the go type. Though, i'm not a huge fan of hard bindings at this size, it's worth the mention. The biggest reasons I mention this for beginners are these; The hard binding will prevent pages from moving around while it's closed and smearing your work. The price is low, so you don't need to be worrying about messing up page after page with crappy sketches...fill that sucker up! The hard binding will allow you to take this anywhere.
Pros:

• Great cover that'll last you.
• Paper is a great balance between price economy, quality, weight and tooth.
• Price. You just can't beat 100+ pages in a hard binding for $10 bucks.

Cons:

• Binding. This book won't lay flat, so scanning will always be a turd.
• Heavy. I personally think this sketchbook is heavy..maybe I should work out more.

 Of course these are MY choices. What has worked for those of you that have been at this a while? Leave your comments so we can discuss the pros and cons of the endless supply of sketchbooks out there.

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DECIDING 

Consider:

• Paper quality- weight of the paper, tooth, acid free
• Dimensions- are you going to be carrying this around? backpack, pocket, hand?
• Cover- how durable do you need this to be?
• Weight- are you a sissy like me or do you work out?
• Binding- Do you need it to open 180 or 360 deg? Scanning?
• Price- Have money burning a hole in your pocket or are you conservative?
• What do you want to experiment with? What direction do you want to go?

Now it's time to critically think. Ultimately a sketchbook is a place you need to feel comfortable and free to express and experiment. However, being too comfortable may prove to be bit of hazard to your art health. Staying too comfortable limits your growth and ultimately your skill level and work.

My advice is to choose something that will allow you the freedom to do what you're comfortable with, but also will push you to experiment with more. For example, If I were a pencil artist, It would be wise for me to buy, perhaps a watercolor book that would allow me to sketch in pencil but also would beckon me to whip out those fun pencils or paints, thus pushing me to new horizons, learning opportunities and discoveries.

Still can't decide, then go with your gut instinct. After all it is 'JUST A SKETCHBOOK'. Follow the advice from Nike and 'Just Do It' 

Next time, we'll be discussing the tools of the trade and talk about pencils, pens, paints, markers and how to make heads and tales of what to use.

Stay tuned and keep those sketches coming!
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Benefits Of Keeping A Sketchbook

Many people have been asking me 'Why I keep a sketchbook'.

After answering that question several times I've decided to write a blog post on it and keep up regular posts on art tips about sketching. 

Well, where to start? Sketching is such a broad topic and an incredibly personal avenue of the art process. However, there are some essential principles we can pull from it that we will discuss here. So look forward to more on sketchbooks later since I can't cover it all in one post!

What is sketching?: The most concise answer I can think of is this; 

Sketching is your own way of inputting data into your visual library.

'What is a Visual Library' you ask?  

'Visual Library': 

Visual Libraries are the images you've seen, drawn and actually have 'on file' to draw. 

When people say they're drawing from imagination or from memory...that's drawing from their visual library. Here's the thing though, 

"Until you draw it. It will not be in your Visual library."

Many think if they simply look at things in life, on Google or any other place, that they're 'well versed' in images. They fool themselves into thinking they have a broad visual understanding of the world they live in.  I'm here to burst that bubble.

Until someone actually spends the time to draw something from life, experience, memory or even an image, they will not truly understand the lines, shapes, values, forms, textures, color, spatial relations, unity, volume, weight or any of the many  qualities of reality. But once they draw it, it becomes theirs. It becomes that artist's, interpretation of that thing he/she sees, and will forever be in that artist's Visual Library.

So sketching becomes an essential tool for any artist that wants to expand their visual library. It makes drawing more fun, intriguing, fulfilling and powerful. Keeping a sketchbook is an artists way of not only expressing themselves (like some do with a journal), but a place to study the world around them. It's a place they can combine existing things with strange oddities invented in their wonderfully creative brains. 

But all that creativity...where does it come from?

It comes from exercising those creative muscles of ours...in our sketchbooks. Have you ever wondered just how an artist came up with that crazy robot, or wild environment, monster or character? I'll bet if you looked closely at the pieces that made up that particular image, you'd find out that, all of the individual parts are quite ordinary. 

Take this sketch of mine from 2004 for instance...

Pretty strange creature, I know. But lets break it down. On the surface, it looks like an other-worldly animal. However, as we look at the visual library that the parts and pieces were taken from you can begin to see things like the musculature of the legs and shoulders are, whatta ya know...human. I simply elongated and bulked up some of the proportions to give the idea of strength and speed. The eyes were really more or less inspired by fish eyes, the jaw and mouth...i'm pretty sure I picked that up from the Predator movies. etc.

Pretty soon you begin to see how I pulled from my visual library on this image.

So, Why keep a sketchbook? Top 10 Reasons.

1. Practice. There is no shortcut for this, it will make your images look more confident and believable. 
2. Expand your visual Library and own the images you sketch. This will allow you to find your interpretation of the world around you.
3. Study difficult subject matter and smooth out the wrinkles in your understanding.
4. Inspire yourself.
5. Quick visual language notes (do you see a detail on a bridge you never noticed before, make a quick sketch of it and add it into your visual library with a study later).
6. Experiment. (Different content, combinations of ordinary things or mediums like paint, charcoal and ink).
7. Keep your arm warmed up all the time.
8. Be a walking billboard (people know me as an artist mostly because I always have my sketchbook with me).
9. Outlet. You're a creative person, it's a part of who you are..so let it out in the most beneficial way possible!
10. A place to revise and experiment before a project. (in middle school when they told you to practice your presentation with your group 5 times before the actual oration, and you didn't do it...compare that to the confidence and fluid presentation you gave in college when you actually DID practice...point made).

So, stay tuned, next time, i'll be talking about some of the specific methods I use in my sketchbook to keep things interesting and fun, how I decide on what to draw and much more!



Check out some of my sketches below!

So, I'll be posting a few of these sketches here and there for all to take a look at. Of course they aren't super polished or anything, heck, they're sketches!  I usually do them during church haha. 

My home made samurai Armor art project impressed everybody!

I grew up doing martial arts, and I've done them pretty much my whole life...particularly Bujinkan Ninjutsu, kickboxing and BJJ, and as such have developed a deep passion for the Japanese culture. I once went to a wealthy man's office where he had 3 suits of Samurai armor dimly lit from an over head light, snugly displayed in 3 nooks of his office wall...ever since then I've wanted my own...but I'm not about to fork over 20K for one,...so why not build one..it took over 900 hours to make, but it sure as heck makes my studio feel awesome. There is some thing about it...the symbol of a warrior that I love.

Watch Video 1 of the Build

Watch Video 2 of the Build

My comic background and what it taught me!

When I was but a wee lad, drawing was my passion..but I never seemed to get over this 'hump' that all the adults wanted me to. I loved drawing comics and fantastical stuff. It's just soooo much more interesting to make up a world and characters and whimsical stories than painting a bowl of fruit. Though, I did do plenty of fruit paintings I always came back to comic art.

What it taught me...

• Lines- Line weights are critical in explaining surfaces, materials, and depth.
• Visual Library- You have to be able to draw EVERYTHING, buildings, people, cars etc. I had the chance to research and build a massive visual library.
• Composition- Each and every frame is an individual image and needs to flow with the others, so readability is critical.
• Story telling- This is probably the most prized possession I gained from the industry. Being narrative with an image requires a lot of nuances. An image that doesn't need words, tells a story, but allows the viewer to fill in the gaps is a fun and successful image.
• And many more things
• 
  

Art Tip: No matter what background you come from, weather it's comic art, playing the guitar, skateboarding or doing genealogy, there are going to be elements that you can apply to art! Composition, balance, rhythm, mystery, a good story or any other skills will make your art absolutely unique. Capitalize on that friend.

FINE ART is pretty fun when it's not so stuffy

See some of my traditional medium / fine art pieces. I don't do a ton of this stuff any more just because i'm so busy, but it's good to see it now and again to remind me of some of those essential and timeless design rules. I've recently been studying a lot of John Singer Sargent's work...what an incredible great american Painter...WOW.

ART TIP: Which brings me to a point that I wanted to make to aspiring artists. I see a lot of people studying anime, manga and various illustration artists as their soul source of reference material. I wanted to rant about this for a minute.

When we see a great illustrator manipulating anatomy, lighting, lines or anything, it is based on good design / visual language. In so many words, 'they do it for a good reason'. 'Learning' to draw from these can be really fun. Don't get me wrong, I used to draw ninja turtles and he-man all-the-time. But it can be dangerous without knowing why they made the choices they did, our visual library becomes skewed.

It's important to start from the right place. 'What place is that' you ask?! It's life, life is the right place to start. Drawing people from life, not photos, cartoons, or illustrations. Getting see the way light reacts, what true anatomy looks like in the real world, and studying these things in your sketchbook is the best use of time to become visually literate. 

Knowing how to draw correctly will aid you exponentially when it comes time for you to experiment with your own style. You'll have reasons for your design choices...it'll be not only your own style, but it will be an expression of the way you view the world around you. Once you understand the basics, manipulate away, at that point you'll know what to change in order to communicate your design.

So go have some fun and dig that nose into your sketchbook!