The Lion in Winter #5, 6, 7

I finished the rest of my Lion in Winter drawings this weekend...



















This was a really fun project. I really liked all of these sketches before I added color and now I like them even more. The markers were really fast and easy to use and pretty much look like the renderings that I do in acrylic paint. I wouldn't say that I'm a complete convert, but I'm sure that when an appropriate show (or any show) comes around for me to design, I'll use markers! Any constructive comments would be very much appreciated!

The Lion in Winter #4

I had to play with the contrast and brightness quite a bit to make this sketch look more like it really looks on paper. The past ones look much brighter than they usually are.

I really like this sketch. I'm quite proud of the face (the proportions - not so much). I have always had a hard time drawing faces in 3/4 view. This one, though, is one of my more successful attempts!

Richard the Lionheart is Henry's second son. His older brother is dead and he is now heir apparent to the throne - at least in his and Eleanor's minds. He is described in the play as a rugged, manly, handsome soldier. He is strong and tough, overly masculine. he has had an overly close relationship with Eleanor in his youth. It is also implied that he is a homosexual by Philip.

Mmmmmhm...a ruggedly handsome gay prince. Who doesn't love that?

The Lion in Winter #3

More marker adventures...The scanner has done funny things with the color on this one. The pink in the gown is more greyed in the actual sketch. The contrast is a little heavier too. Not too bad though...

Alais Capet is a French princess who has lived at King Henry's English court as part of a political deal between England and France. She is supposed to marry Richard, Henry's eldest son, but has been in an adulterous relationship with Henry for years. She is young, french and beautiful - like a ghost of what Queen Eleanor used to be.

I'm going for some bold colors in this production - colors that probably weren't around in the clothing of 1183. But these are royals - the characters are all larger than life. I'd probably also use some velvet which wasn't invented till the beginning of the 14th century and didn't appear in Europe till the end of the 14th century. Oh, well...I can do whatever I want...mmmhm.

The Lion in Winter #2

I'm becoming more and more comfortable with markers as I uses them. I've always been a huge fan of Prismacolor's products - I have several large sets of their colored pencils and have used their pastels before. They have such great saturated colors. Sometimes, though, they are a little too saturated and bright.

For this character, Phillip of France, I wanted to use a bright color for his tunic. He's a King after all and a fancy French one - so I went with blue. Well that blue was a little too blue. Out came my old friend, French (HA!) Grey 20%. That solved it!

I made a mistake on the fur and hair, though. Not enough texture - I just used the fine point side of the marker - obviously not fine pointed enough! Fixing that in the next few...

Kyle Returns...its marker time!!!

Hello, Duckies!!! Its been a busy, busy, busy summer. I returned home to Knoxville last week from Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, MN, where I assisted the wonderful Costume Designer Devon Painter on a beautiful production of Othello and designed the costumes for a fantastic small musical called The Daly News (I think I put those sketches up before I left, but I can't remember!). I did the Daly News sketches in marker which I hadn't used very much before. I loved how fast they were, but I didn't do very much with them - no real blending or layering - so I though that now that I'm home and have some free-ish time I should work a bit more in the fabulous world of markers. I've had these sketches of The Lion in Winter, one of my favorite plays hanging around since before the start of this blog so I thought, "Hey, why not throw some color on these!"

First things first - I rarely color directly on an original sketch. I get freaked out that I'm going to mess up and have to re-sketch the whole thing. On these I just went for it. I did these sketches on smooth finish 100lb Bristol paper. Its pretty much my favorite paper - very good to draw on, especially with the hard pencils I like to use. The markers seem to work OK on it. It soaks in a little too fast, but, as I've been told by the Marker Master, Bill Black, "They are MARKERS! Treat them like markers - they'll never look like paint!". I'm slowly getting used to the fact that there will be some streaks. If I were to do these again I would do them in a paper with an even smoother finish and possibly some color.

I did quite a bit of layering to grey out the colors. I think that there are three colors of marker alone in the little bit of underskirt, not to mention the pencil on top of the marker. I've very quickly learned that the french greys are my favorite things ever. I'd love to get the full set - I've only got 20%, 40%, and 60%. Brick Beige is also amazing for skin tone - I need to get a few more skin bases though...not everyone is Brick Beige colored!

I like the sketch a lot. When I did them I was focusing on faces and drapery more than anything else - some of them are a bit out of proportion - especially some of the men you'll see later. I'll try to post them in order that I did them so you can see the progression of my marker journey. Its a pretty small show - only 7 characters, so I'll be done by next week and then see what I should do next...maybe color a different show. I'd like to get pretty comfortable with markers...while some frown on them, they are so easy and fast to use!

Rachel 6/16/10

Well, i've been on hiatus from sketching or typing much due to a bad flare-up of carpal tunnel--i've had sporadically recurring RSI in particularly my right wrist since 2005, and managed to aggravate it with a combination of intense periods of typing too much, writing longhand, and sketching, topped off with overly-vigorous bowling. (I wish i were joking.)

The main lesson here is, if you don't have RSI yet and you are a costumer, please be mindful of taking regular breaks and resting your hands and wrists, and don't ever work somewhere that won't allow regular breaks or makes you use ergonomically-harmful cutting equipment or table heights.

But, to get off my soapbox, i did a sketch today! I was literally about to climb the wall wanting to draw something, and i remembered something i did back when i first had the initial bout with this injury: left-handed artwork. (I'm a right-hander.) I did a couple of paintings that first time out with brushes stuck down inside a wrist brace, then some with my left hand. I thought, why not try that again?

So, i'd collected a couple inspirational images i wanted to sketch from of dancers, in keeping with my overall desire to work with drawing figures captured mid-motion doing expressive action. This drawing was inspired by an Oya orisha celebration dance done by the Afro-Cuban Arenas Dance Company. Check them out here (my lady is 3 pix down)!

Totally drew this with my left hand, first using a red ballpoint for roughing it out, then going back over it with a navy marker. I kind of wish i'd stuck with the thin lines and gone back over it with a black inkpen or really anything with a smaller nib. But whatever, live and learn, and i DREW SOMETHING and it doesn't suck, even left-handed. So, hooray.

Eric 6/15/10

Wow... so, it's been what?  Two weeks?  Eh, it's the summer.  I'm sorry for all of our dire-hard readers, but summer time in the theatre is rarely down time.

Here is a sketch from the Isaac Murphy play we're doing this fall at LCT.  I decided to only post one, but here is a link to the rest of the sketches.

This sketch is of one of the Gossip characters in the play.  It's a really interesting function for a character.  She drives much of the story through her rumors and exaggerations.  From her and others we learn about Issac's changes, his failings and his perceived successes.

As a concept, there are eight actors to accomplish many characters.  They never leave the stage, and the shifts in characters are almost instantaneous.  Therefore, I wanted to create a world based on 1890 silhouettes, but simplified and layered, so that we can move through the costumes easily.  In some ways, this is much like the design I did several years ago for The Laramie Project.  Same deal: eleven actors play MANY characters, all within moments.

In terms of sketching, I'm decently happy with the work, but I'm seriously impressed by my own speed.  I'm still in my old mentality that a sketch would take me forever.  Now I'm knocking them out in fifteen minutes, tops.  Sure I could slow down and probably make fewer mistakes, but I'm enjoying the freedom of expression.

So, until next time my faithful readers (whenever that may be).