Words, Art & Science by Anthony Francis
Took a little more time with this one, but still needed to start it at an earlier part of the day when I had more time. But today was really busy due to work and research, so it is what it is.
-the Centaur
Pictured, Peter Capaldi from a ScreenRant/Guardian article.
Same subject, using better pens this time. I can more or less confirm:
Onward!
-the Centaur
What strikes me about this sketch is how much better the pencils looked. During the inking, my pen frequently "jumped" around on the paper, causing some of the lines to end up in the wrong place (particularly the right (drawn on the left) eye and the left (drawn on the right) jaw).
Perhaps another recommendation to re-visit my arm position (or perhaps the pen; this was a Pilot V5, which is a pen I love for writing, but not as good as the Microns and other pens I normally use for drawing).
Regardless ... keep going.
-the Centaur
Pictured: Porsche the Centaur, obviously.
SO this is with the notebook held further away and using more arm than wrist motion. I think it worked well.
-the Centaur
More from the Goldman book. I have a tremor in my hand which you can most readily see on the lower left; I traditionally have attributed it to the RSI that I picked up back in the late 90's during grad school (a combination of an internship with a bad ergonomic setup at work and at my apartment, during which I was also writing a proposal for the PEPE robot pet project and playing Dungeon Keeper at night; I woke up one day with a throbbing wrist and couldn't type for nine months).
But my wife pointed out I'm drawing in my wrist, not with my arm, and that can also cause wobbly lines. So I'm going to try the next drawing with a slightly further notebook position and more arm movement. Perhaps the tremors aren't something I have to accept after all. We shall see.
-the Centaur
Moar Goldman studies. Now far into the book enough to start reading his section on tools, which normally I ignore as I have my own preferred methods; but this time, I felt I could see what he was saying. Who knows, maybe I'll actually try some of his pencil methods this time, and not just ink.
-the Centaur
Still working through the Goldman book, which has the inspirational quote: "I hope you wear this book out from overuse!" And that's what you need when you're practicing!
-the Centaur
P.S. My wife and I were talking about learning skills, and she complained that she hadn't quite gotten what she wanted to out of a recent set of books. It occurred to me that there are two situations in which reading books about a skill doesn't help you:
Both of these are related to Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development - you can most easily learn things that are related to what you already know. Without a body of practice at a skill, reading up on it can sometimes turn into armchair quarterbacking and doesn't help you (and can sometimes even hurt you); with a body of practice, it turns into something closer to an athlete watching game footage to improve their own game.
So! Onward with the drawing. Hopefully some of the drawing theory will stick this time.
More sketches after Ken Goldman's "Drawing Hands and Feet". Generally, when I do construction lines in pencil, then ink it, then erase the lines, it usually comes out much better than when I draw freehand ink. This should not be surprising, but it is something that I need to come back to again and again, given that I am trying to squeeze a new drawing practice into an already packed day.
-the Centaur
Again from the Goldman book, this time the frontispiece.
-the Centaur
If you want to get better at drawing, you really need to treat it like any other skill, and practice ahead of your performance. We may learn by doing, but you don't get enough learning time or variety just from actually performing the task. Basketball players need to cross-train in addition to shooting hoops - not just play games. Chess masters practice with coaches. Writers scribble in their notebooks. And artists sketch.
My horse drawing book was too big to fit in my bookbag, so today's exercise is from the cover of Drawing Hands and Feet by Ken Goldman.
-the Centaur
More practice from Foster's book. I was shy on time, so I didn't start with the proportions diagram, but with the parts diagram, and therefore the proportions of my parts are a bit off. But, it's a step.
-the Centaur
Well, logically speaking, if I want to "plan for success" in my art, and I've drawn a centauress with some hooves that I don't like, I should focus on getting better at drawing hooves. From Foster's "Drawing Horses" book, sketched in my little "One Trick Pony" sketchbook.
-the Centaur
P.S. I am totes going back and renaming the last art post "a second pony trick".
Let's see you do that, ChatGPT / DALL-E! Wait, what happens if we try it?
Ha-ha! Three strikes, you're out! (ChatGPT tried and failed three times to generate this image). DALL-E may be a better renderer than me, but it isn't better at imagining the things that I want to imagine.
No plans on giving up drawing soon.
-the Centaur
P.S. This is Porsche the Centaur again, this time with construction lines drawn in pencil, later erased. The upside-down nature made it hard to get the hooves right, and I didn't want to re-draw it, so it could have come out better. But! It went much faster practicing in the smaller "One Trick Pony" notebook. Onward!
Porsche the Centaur. The joke is, I spent some time organizing my drawing materials, collecting books of exercises to work through, and finding appropriate materials - and she's drawn in a sketchbook which was made from a children's graphic novel called "One Trick Pony".
Quick sketch of Ruby Sunday from "The Church on Ruby Road".
Extra challenging as I am just freehanding this and not using construction lines. Bleh.
-the Centaur
Drawn from a paused frame of "The Church on Ruby Road", the first full episode of the 15th Doctor.
-the Centaur
P.S. I apparently was wrong: I thought I had kept up Drawing Every Day for 103 days in 2021, but actually it was 205 days that started in late, late 2020, with a brief spurt in 2023. So this is the third time I've tried it! Best of luck Dr. Francis on beating your past winning streak.
Wow! 2023. What the hell? Seems like Blade Runner was just yesterday. But it was actually pre-pandemic! But in the real world, it's a "new year", as most Americans mark it, so it's time for New Year's Resolutions.
Or is it? As far as I recall, the science of New Year's Resolutions - whether it works or not to set new goals at the start of the new year - is decidedly mixed, and a brief check seems to confirm that.
But New Year's Aspirations, yes, I have those. For one, I'd like to start blogging every day. For another, it would be great to resume drawing every day. And Wednesday, my wife and I are going to buy bicycles.
For this year, though, I plan to edit my fourth Dakota Frost novel, SPECTRAL IRON, in the hope it breaks the logjam of the eight (8!) unedited novel drafts sitting on my hard drive, and to make progress on several other creative projects, at work and in life. To get started on that ... I'm now going to get back to work.
Onward!
-the Centaur
Pictured: an aspiration made real: the hand-me-down "comfy chair" from Francis Produce, which I have kept for 25+ years, now turned into a reading nook in my new library. That nook is filled with artwork and standees and books and novels and comic books, and in that comfy space there I have actually, like, started to read books again and stuff after years of and years of stunted fiction reading, post-grad-school.
Day 206, a sketch of Montgomery Scott from Star Trek:
How ddid I do? Still can't seem to draw a correctly tilted head, and face to hair proportions continue to be off:
Day 207, Nyota Uhura:
Umn, well, it is the same person, sort of, but she's looking down, and the original, up:
So, no real way to make these line up, but it isn't totally terrible:
Day 208, Hikaru Sulu:
Again, more or less the same person, but I made him look down, and what happened to his chin?
Overall comparison cannot be made to line up:
Day 209, Pavel Chekhov. I don't have the original reference on this computer, but I'm sure a comparison would be equally terrible to all the others, if not worsee.
Drawing every day, posting when i get to it.
-the Centaur
The back of Cinnamon Frost, after a painting by my wife. Drawing every day, even if I wasn't posting.
-the Centaur 
Day 203: Damnit, Jim, I'm a sketch, not a headshot!
Let's see how I did:
Huh ... not entirely terrible, though it needed stretching horizontally.
What about Day 204? A quick sketch of Dakota Frost:
Day 205 apparently hasn't been cleaned up, so we'll return to that.
Drawing every day, posting when I get to it.
-the Centaur
