Sketching Trees in Charcoal

This video demonstrates my approach to sketching trees in charcoal.  Starting with thumbnails approximately 1x2 inches and progressing into large studies. I am using basic tools for this with recommendations listed below.

I know that it has been sometime since I posted a video and this one is a bit longer than I normally post, but at least it isn't the longest I've posted.  Hope you enjoy it.

-Steve

LINK:
https://youtu.be/xr8BWFMES5E

In Transition

Here is a leftover from Halloween.  This was done on toned Strathmore in charcoal. This started months ago in my sketchbook and I had fun scultping this character.  Not someone I would want to meet in the dark.

-Steve

The Mummy

Happy Halloween!

In the spirit of Halloween (with no pun intended) I created Uncle Ned rising from the grave, in charcoal on toned Strathmore.

Caveman

Another one from my travel sketchbook.  he started out as a doodle and morphed into a rough design sketch. As my normal workflow lately; I started this with my Pentel Mechanical pencil and then added value with Charcoal at a later date.

Cleaning a Sketch with Corel Painter

I thought it would be beneficial to show how I clean up sketches before posting to my Blog.  Here I used my Caveman sketch [from my 5x7 sketchbook] as an example in Corel Painter. One can also use Photoshop or a free painting suites such as Krita to accomplish the same.

-Steve

LINK: https://youtu.be/VY66Tm_GclY

"Alien Buggy" - The Making Of

This is an overview of my workflow of a design sketch that I did recently.  I cover the design stages and the pitfalls of not having a sold composition planned out at the beginning.

-Steve

LINK: https://youtu.be/17Ah5XWPAlw

Alien Buggy

"Alien Buggy"

Alien Buggy was started as a design sketch, then later I added an environment.  I used mostly graphite pencils, sticks with blenders, Verithin for sharp edges.  Then I cropped and added the border in Photoshop.  I truly enjoy doing fantasy designs with unusal characters.

Character Design - "Creature"

For lack of a better name I refer to this character as "Creature".  This was done in pencil and finished off in Painter and Photoshop.  The tutorial merely covers the basic process used in character design and is aimed less at "digital" and more towards "art".  This is far from being a finished product but the design phase is a vital set in any composition.

-Steve

LINK: https://youtu.be/n_m_OTByZCA

Puzzled Alien

"Puzzled Alien"

This is a graphite sketch on Bristol I did the other night. This is primarily done for design , though I did add the head tilt to add some personality to the little alien ...at least that is what I think he is.

Creature Design from Noise

This is a sketch I did the other night. It started out just as a contour line drawing of the head only, which I molded with values.  The idea came from "Noise" ...what I saw in an abstract object.

Copying Is Good Practice

There are a lot of ways to learn how to perform a task.  In art one of the fundamental ways is to copy other artists work that you admire taking away skills and approaches that you may not otherwise learn. 

Tree Study

  

Here are a few drawings of trees I did for fun recently.  They are done with a mix of graphite and charcoal on smooth Bristol paper.

-Steve