Category: Art

Martina Martian

“You might not have heard of me, but you’ve probably seen my work.” said Martina Martian, illustrator, designer and lettering artist, on today’s Adobe Live ‘From the Sofa’ session. As her animated graphic GIFs have had 9.2 billion downloads, you have probably seen her work literally popping up on social media.

I’ve drawn this in Adobe Fresco, the iPad drawing program that she often uses for her lettering and design. After starting my usual pen and wash approach, I went for Fresco’s Conte Crayon and Old Bristles brushes.

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Categorized as Drawing

Fresco Cat

cat cartoon

In today’s ‘From the Sofa’ live stream, Tony Harmer gave us a masterclass in how to draw cats, using Adobe Fresco and Adobe Capture. Okay, mine didn’t turn out looking quite like Tony’s . . . but I learnt about masks and generating textures and I particularly enjoyed drawing with the Fresco ‘Cross Hatching’ brush.

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Categorized as cartoon

Idea and Maker

Krofts

Really appreciated the dedication of London-based Johana & Maxim Kroft, a.k.a. Idea & Maker, who are currently living in Vancouver getting up at 4.30 a.m. for today’s lunchtime Adobe Live ‘From the Sofa’ session.

Link

Idea and Maker

Idea & Maker

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Categorized as Drawing

Rachel Millar

Rachel

Rachel Millar, lettering artist, on today’s Adobe Live ‘From the Sofa’ session.

Link

Rachel E Millar

Rachel E Millar signwriter (or signpainter) and lettering artist based in Glasgow, Scotland.

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Categorized as Drawing

Make Yourself into a Character

Cartoons
Richard drawing

Barbara says the one drinking tea looks most like me, but I guess that’s the default position that she sees me in. My favourite is the first where I’m drawing. I like the out-of-control pen work! Gives him some life.

This is the latest in my Mattias Adolfsson The Art of Sketching: Transform Your Doodles into Art course. The idea is to simplify the character as far as possible. It doesn’t have to be a portrait as such. The next stage is to feature the character in a cartoon and I think that will be helpful because when I work out what I want him to do, that should give me a few clues about how to develop the character. If he just has to look blank and slightly worried, I’m there already!

Richard drawing
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Categorized as cartoon

Thomas & Tony

Today’s Adobe Live From the Sofa session, introduced by Tony Harmer, featured the 3D designs and illustrations of Thomas Burden.

Thomas Burden: wearegrownup.com

Thomas Burden on Instagram

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Categorized as Drawing

Wild Yorkshire on Instagram

Instagram

I’ve been posting on Instagram more regularly since I worked out how to upload images from my desktop iMac. It’s pretty much what I post on this wildyorkshire.blog but with the emphasis more on the images. Recently it’s been mainly cartoons interspersed with a few wild flowers from our lockdown exercise walks but I will have to get back to a bit more drawing from nature for my Wild Yorkshire diary in The Dalesman.

You can find my Instragram page at www.instagram.com/wildyorkshire

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Categorized as Drawing

Emojis

emojis

Mattias Adolfsson describes his alter ego cartoon character, as ‘always clueless’ and in this emojis exercise from his Art of Sketching course, that was the expression that appealed to me. The idea is to evoke an expression with the minimum of marks, so, apart from ‘anger’, top right, I’ve dispensed with eyebrows.

Could I evoke a familiar face using the same minimal format? My favourite amongst them is Boris. Probably one of the few times the words ‘Boris’ and ‘favourite’ have appeared in the same sentence recently!

Table Talk

Sofia's table

Another lockdown birthday, this time for Sofia, aged 12, who created a table character for a booklet of What am I? puzzles.

Just been talking to a neighbour who’s a teacher. Getting schools running again is proving an even more difficult than closing them.

From the Sofa Fresco Session . . .

cat and aviator

In today’s session, the 42nd of the live ‘From the Sofa’ sessions that Adobe has been putting out since the lockdown began, we were invited to draw along with illustrator Rachael Presky (who I briefly sketched as the workshop got underway). It’s rare for me to laugh while I’m illustrating, but today . . .

Although my character ended up looking like Catweazle, it’s actually supposed to be Tony Harmer, design ninja, in the character of Biggles. Tony’s cat, also in flying outfit was supposed to be adopting the Tree pose too . . . but it looks as if the duo are dancing the Highland Fling.

It’s drawn in Adobe Fresco on my iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the ‘Blotty Ink’ pen and the ‘Natural Brush’.

Taking part in the ‘From the Sofa’ design challenges can seriously damage your reputation as an illustrator.

Thanks to Rufus Deuchler for his advice on what is and what is not anatomically possible in Cat Yoga positions.

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Categorized as Drawing