How to do I choose what to draw?

Hey everybody :)

Hope you're all doing well, I've had a fun day, digging a trench for a new hedge and gardening a bit. This evening I've been trawling the interwebs for pictures to draw. Sometimes people have asked me where I have found pictures that I drew from. More often than not, I have to give the answer I have no idea, because I can spend so long searching for a good picture I want to draw, and once i save the pic to my laptop and i click close on the window to the site i found it on, it disappears back into the realm of the internet .

There are a few steps I guess when it comes to me selecting a picture.

1. Normally it has to be someone I really want to draw, this often comes down to people who inspire me, or I feel a connection to at that time, in the sense of music or design or something. I think this is also why a lot of my drawings are of women, I listen to a lot of female singers.

2. I will get my groove on listening to some music, grab my hot choccy and a biscuit or two, or three... or four.. ok maybe half the pack.... don't judge me :D .... and select large images on google images. This means I get the highest resolution pics coming up which I need for drawing, because then I can see the detail when I zoom into features, nothing worse than a blurry picture to draw from!!

3. I'll type things in such as Kylie - aphrodite tour, photo shoot, shoot, cover , magazine... to get cool images to come up. I always try to pick 'out there' or more interesting pictures that I know will be more eye catching, than say your plain mug shot. I want excitement in my drawings and I don't want to draw a picture everyone has drawn either.

4. I can spend a couple of hours hunting for a pic, and then cropping it down or something to what I want to look good when I draw it. 

5. So voila :) That's how I do it really, of course sometimes people request me to draw people, but with so many people I want to draw, the ones I have the desire to draw come first. 

I found this on my searchings.... I think it really shows how much they love doing what they are doing :) unlike say Britney who only looks half there these days when she's on stage.

 

Over and out.

Jonny

Woodwork

Hi everyone :) Today has been a manly day :D

I have been in the garden, digging stumps out of a hedge we cut down, using the pick axe, axe and shovel etc. It's always a great feeling when I get the stump out in the end. There are so many good life lessons in gardening and art, don't give up, keep at it and you'll get somewhere :)

I did take a break though for a choccy biscuit :D

Once that was all done I decided I wanted to pressure wash my bench I made at GCSE about 7 years ago now I think. I started to sand it down a bit too, I think I want to paint it and when I move again it will come with me and be inside the flat. I designed it to be knock down to it splits into 6 pieces so :D I like putting a lot of effort into things I make and plannign and the making and seeing the final product.

I also oiled my hammock I made at A level. I quadruple checked the markings before I cut the wood to length for the hammock when I made it, and all the mortise and tenons etc. being hard wood - Iroko it wasn't cheap for the school to buy so I couldn't mess up, luckily I dind't :)

I could smell the oil, dust and soil on me and it made me miss my DT days. I really like making things with wood, I'll have to have a work shop and make things when I can :)

Ollie Pie came back from walkies so he had to be washed... this is mid shake :D 

A year and a bit on...

I got asked by a client to draw Jane McDonald for her, I had given the old drawing away so had to redo it. I really looked forward to doing this one because it was a great chance to see how I could improve on the first one.

I first drew Jayne on the left, back in November 2009 and this one is March 2011, I can see my proportions are better and my detail in the hair and placement of the figure on the page... interesting to see how I've progressed.

Commissions don't always allow full creativity so the images chosen are not always that spectacular and don't always show my full potential but this was great to do and compare :)

(P.S. bad lighting on the old pic)