Drawing Blind

Sometimes, I like to challenge myself and do some different things with my art. This summer, I did a lot of plein aire painting. Just recently, I wanted to challenge myself to come up with drawings that did not rely on models or photo reference. That really made my brain work. It's almost like drawing blind. At least, it felt like it. The drawings are more cartoonish compared to my actual style and I'm not sure what I think of that. Perhaps it's my way of taking baby steps to more complicated drawings. Or maybe, that's just how I visualize without reference. I had to use many "rules" of art to create some sense of realism in these drawings without reference: shadow, light source, overlapping, proportion, etc. I can only hope that practicing these techniques from memory further enhances my skills when I DO use reference. And perhaps there's a place for both these styles to coexist. We'll see.

I'm going to call this one, "Mortimer Watches Ant Dance."



This one, I'm calling "Fizzard."