Process Video and Thoughts : Wolf Cub Life Drawing

Hi there. A while back, I was feeling like doing a life drawing. Although my work are mostly imagined illustrations, sometime cartoonish, once in a while, I do like to relax and wind down with making life drawings. I used to keep a sketchbook, (probably around 3 years ago) exclusively for life drawings with pencil, because I like to do it that frequently. The feel of scratching pencil on paper, was therapeutic and relaxing. Plus, drawing exactly what you see (not what you think you see), frees your brain from the pressure of creating from scratch. When creating these life drawings, my goal was never to make it as real life as possible. Instead, I love it when it looks convincingly real, but obviously a drawing (instead of a photograph). Which is why I always purposely left some rough marks along the way.

Finished drawing

Lately, I’ve been using digital tools more and more often. I’m a bit sad to say that I’ve almost never drawn with a (real) pencil this past year. Although I rarely make these drawings nowadays, I had a sudden urge to make one not so long ago, and decided to try and make it digitally with Adobe Fresco on my iPad, just for fun. The way Fresco recreates the pencil marks is very satisfying to me, and it really makes for an enjoyable experience. Having the iPad to draw with is also really great, because I could see directly the marks I am making on the picture, compared to when using a tablet with computer. Having said that, when doing my usual illustrations, I am very much comfortable with coloring using a tablet compared to on my iPad. Which is a bit of a hassle in my work process, meaning I often need to switch from iPad to tablet to finish a work. Even with many convenient digital tools on the market today, finding the one that works for yourself, is not as easy as it sounds. Is this just me? or is there something I’m doing wrong? There is always some kind of learning curve to tackle, each time I’m trying out a new tool, or a new app even.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the process video I have at the top there. And thank you for taking time to view this somewhat long blog post of mine. If anyone is interested in seeing my old life drawings, you could find some samples here. Happy weekend!