Sketchbook 37 - Index of Time

Sketchbook 37 - Index of Time from Graham Smith on Vimeo.

Sketchbook 37 - Index of Time: strange creature's imagined from earth's primordial past were drawn with a brush pen over the course of a week, one right after another, stream of consciousness style. Each drawing riffing off the one before, until an evolution appeared, little collections of botanicals, fauna, cultural elements and inventions.... the Index of Time.

Often, I advise aspiring artists to try new things and experiment in their sketchbooks, like in this video for Sketchbook 38 - try new things. But this time, I decided to follow a theme through the entire book, which is kind of a "new thing" for me! Whichever direction you try next - keep drawing!

Made with: Kuratake Brush Pen, glossy paper, iMovie. Music by Cranston. Illustrations and Video by Graham Smith 2015 ©

Thanks for stopping by - G.

Pen and ink portrait time lapse video

Pen & Ink portrait - timelapse from Graham Smith on Vimeo.

A 2 minute time lapse video of the creation of a pen and ink portrait form start to finish.

I'm lucky to illustrate the 20 Questions interview feature in Worth Magazine each issue. Sometimes I film myself drawing. Over time, I've streamlined the inking process, see if you can see how I "cheat" when inking portraits on a deadline.

Wonder Women: portraits for Hemisphere's magazine

I finally got to draw the real Wonder Women. They are 5 of the brightest young women in the tech industry and have all made real innovations in their fields, while founding their own companies. Here is a quick introduction:      Read the original article here.

Meredith Perry. Company: uBeam

“I’ve always had a crazy interest in science,” she says. “One thing I do is ask questions about everything, kind of obsessively.” Perry carries a notebook around with her, in which she keeps tabs on things that, in her opinion, need fixing. “I keep asking questions until I find the answer,” she says. “If I stumble across a problem, I’m going to solve it.”

Hannah Chung. Company Sproutel,

"Jerry looks like a Care Bear who has had his “tummy symbol” upgraded to a sleek, interactive screen. But before you dismiss him as just another high-tech distraction, note his most important feature: Jerry has type 1 diabetes, which makes him uniquely qualified to educate, entertain and comfort young patients.

Jerry was created by Hannah Chung, who teamed with fellow Northwestern alum Aaron Horowitz to found Sproutel, a startup devoted to inventing toys for kids with chronic illnesses. Diabetes proved a particular challenge: Children are often diagnosed between the ages of three and seven, when it’s difficult to master complex, critical concepts like carb counting. “We saw that these kids had plush animals and dolls,” Chung says, “and they were pricking their fingers, giving them insulin,” without any real idea of what they were actually doing."

Jessica O. Matthews. Company Uncharted Play

The easiest way to get someone to change,” says Jessica O. Matthews, co-founder and CEO of socially conscious sports gear startup Uncharted Play, “is to make it seem like they’re not changing at all.” For proof, look no further than her company’s offerings, which include the Soccket, a soccer ball that converts kicks into electric energy that powers a small LED lamp that is inserted into the ball.

Jessica Scorpio. Company: Getaround

There are a billion cars on the planet, and most sit idle 22 hours a day,” Jessica Scorpio says. It’s a staggering statistic and one that Scorpio mentions as the inspiration for her revolutionary peer-to-peer car-sharing service, Getaround.

Samantha John. Company Hopscotch

When Samantha John started building websites as a senior at Columbia University, she quickly realized that, like any language, computer programming was best learned at a young age. But how do you entice kids to code? Her app, Hopscotch, which she debuted last spring with partner Jocelyn Leavitt, turns programming into an intuitive building-block system, in which chunks of pre-written code can be combined to animate characters and have them react to stimuli in their virtual world. Think of it as Lego for the video game set.

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Author Erin Brady, Nicholas DeRenzo and Chris Wright Illustration Graham Smith, for Hemishphere's Magazine.

Decorative patterned whale - illustration process

Blue Smoke whale - illustration process from Graham Smith on Vimeo.

Peek behind the scenes, in this illustration process video, while illustrator Graham Smith draws a whale full of decorative patterns, using a Lamy fountain pen and a Micron marker.

This whale illustration is part of the visual assets for a Blue Smoke Sushi Restaurant branding campaign, art directed by Hollis Brand Culture.

I'll post some photos next month, when the restaurant opens, and we can see the final product!

John Pritzker for Worth Magazine

Drawing billionaire John Pritzker for Worth Magazine, in good ol' pen and ink.

Drawing Caruso - pen and ink tips

Caruso for Worth Magazine by Graham Smith

Drawing Caruso from Graham Smith on Vimeo.

I'm super lucky to illustrate the 20 Questions interview portrait for Worth Magazine, Art Directed by Valerie Sebring. 

Always trying to improve the illustration process, I've tried many different ways to ink these portraits.

I've inked directly over the blue pencil sketch in Drawing Petra Nemcova - a totally traditional approach, used a light box to draw the ink over a blue pencil sketch in Inking Duncan Quinn- adding a common studio technique, and inked on vellum in Beer for Data, trying to switch up the medium. 

This time, I try a new trick-of-the-trade, printing the pencil sketch on watercolor paper, and inking over that. It works really well, so I thought I'd share the technique with my inky friends on the interwebs. You can see a quick example in the video Drawing Caruso.

The funny thing is, all these techniques result in the same look, an inked portrait over a blue line sketch. There are so many ways to achieve the same effect.

Do you have any tricks-of-the-trade you'd like to share? Let me know in the comments below.

Ink detail - 140lb cold pressed watercolor paper

Pencil sketch on Strathmore paper

Pencil sketch detail

G.

Draw something everyday!

Mellody Hobson portrait

Mellody Hobson is president of Ariel, an investment firm that manages over $3 billion in assets, and is one of the largest African American-owned money management companies in the United States, AND she's the chairman of Dreamworks Animation, AND she just married George Lucas. Dang!

Portrait for Worth Magazine. AD Valerie Sebring. Pen and ink, on 140lb cold pressed watercolor paper.

Make Day of the Dead masks

the recycle of life from Graham Smith on Vimeo.

Learn how to make Day of the Dead tributes, by recycling cardboard with a bit of paint, a touch of ink, and a bunch of imagination in this short video, the recycle of life.

You'll need: cardboard, white paint, india ink, a wide brush, a smaller round brush, and something to cut cardboard with.

Discarded cardboard is reborn and given a new life through your imagination. The decorative tributes are enjoyed for a day, then burned, because life is short and precious, and sometimes we need to be reminded to appreciate things, then let them go. The recycle of life.


the recycle of life (teaser) from Graham Smith on Vimeo.

I'll be at the Oceanside Museum of Art helping Art After Dark party goers make recycled Day of the Dead masks, this Friday, November 1st. I'll be assisted by The Art Elephant, Miss Chantelle Lamoreaux. Stop by to say hi, have a drink, and let's make art together! See you on Friday!

Make a Day of the Dead Mask

Make a Calaca Costume

Read about the Event.

Drawing a Haunted House

Haunted House for Boston Globe from Graham Smith on Vimeo.

Houses that are hundreds of years old must have at least a few ghost roaming around, thought the owner of this 350 year old shaker, so she called a number of psychics to discover the otherworldly forces floating about.

Art Director Ryan Huddle called me to illustrate this fun topic for the Boston Globe. It was fun to draw, and to bring this illustration to life using fall colors. So, I made a little video while I was working.

Haunted House for Boston Globe: Graham Smith

Haunted House (detail): Graham Smith

How to Illustrate a War Story

Beer for Data - Illustration Process from Graham Smith on Vimeo.

"It was a dark time in a long, drawn-out war. Afghanistan was festering with resentment. The Pentagon brass were desperate. It was the kind of last-ditch moment when authorities start throwing an era’s weirdest ideas at its most hopeless bureaucratic mistakes."

Pacific Standard hired me to illustrate an article about the war in Afghanistan, and a bunch of "Burners" lead by Dr. David Warner, the called the Synergy Strike Force. They succeeded in trying to "hack the war", only miles from the treacherous Tora Bora Mountains, from the only bar in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

This story begins in Wartime Afghanistan, with a few smart guys building schools and installing solar generators. It ends with the burning of Koran's at Bagram Airforce base by US soldiers, and the riots that erupted afterwards.

Once stateside, the story is returns to another burning, a bittersweet ceremony where the Burning Man's Temple was razed, deep in Nevada's Black Rock desert. Goodbyes were said to those lost in the war.

Their story, by Brian Calvert is heroic and amazing. Read the Article.

Illustrating a reality based series about the war is a great responsibility, and a super fun project!

But where to start? How do you know what to draw? What is the illustration process?

Research: Illustrations are based on written descriptions from the article, and reference photos culled from the interwebs. It is helpful to research the objects in a reality based illustration. I read the manuscript and highlight the descriptive passages, then list all the objects to be illustrated, and Google them.

Ideas: Draw thumbnails: The goal is to put your thoughts on paper, and to generate ideas by letting facts, graphic themes, and subconscious ideas link from one little drawing to the next - evolving as they go. This is a really fun part of the process, where any idea, no matter what, gets drawn in a little box.

Edit: The best thumbnails are enlarged, and refined into bigger pencil sketches. They are reviewed by the art and editorial staff, and placed into temporary layouts to get a sense of how the illustrations will live inside the design.

Refine: Sketches are usually developed with anything handy, and fast. In this case, graphite. The rough pencil sketches are used as a guide for the more carefully done ink drawing.

Draw: On approval, the chosen sketch is redrawn with ink on a separate piece of translucent vellum or paper. A quill pen, and india ink are used to draw each illustration.

Finish: Color, and mono-printed textures are are added digitally in Photoshop, as is the final  resizing, and preparation for printing. The final print ready, Photoshop files are delivered via internet.

While I'm drawing, I'm also filming.

An iPhone camera captures time-lapse footage while attached to a overhead desk lamp. Between each drawing, I reposition my low end DSLR, (Canon T4i /650D) to film a different angle, setting the exposure, and depth of field, before resuming to draw. The footage is knocked together in iMovie.

Drawing the CEO of Audi

Drawing Scott Keogh from Graham Smith on Vimeo.

Scott Keogh, CEO Audi America. Worth Magazine. 

Art Director: Valerie Sebring. Illustrator: Graham Smith

Drawing Petra Nĕmcová

Drawing Petra Nĕmcová from Graham Smith on Vimeo.

I illustrated the stunning Czech entrepreneur and model, Petra Nĕmcová for Worth magazine's 20 Questions interview. I setup my camera to film the drawing process, cranked up the studio sound system with some old time Ska, and sharpened up a blue pencil. It's time to draw a supermodel!

Take a peek inside the studio, while I get down to some drawing and filming.

The sketch phase is where all the real drawing is done, where the mistakes are made, then improved. The facial structure is figured out in this step, the dark areas are planned, and how the lines follow the planes of the subject's face are decided. The blue pencil gets a real workout in the sketch phase.

Ink: Inking is a performance, the pencil sketch is the rehearsal.

I like to follow the sketch closely to maintain the likeness, but a degree of spontaneity is required for the line to have life. There is a balance to be negotiated. So, with a strong underdrawing in place, I can free skate over the sketch, reinterpreting it in ink. That way, I don't have to figure out what things looks like, only how to finesse what's already in the sketch.

Interpretation is the key, not slavishly tracing. Inking is a balance between craft, and pure drawing.

Petra Nĕmcová was injured in Thailand during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and has since founded BE THE LIGHT, New York by Petra Nemcova a home decór lifestyle brand. 

Drawing: Petra's portrait was illustrated on Strathmore 140 lb cold press watercolor paper, using a Hunt's 513ef quill pen and india ink, and sketched on 80lb Strathmore drawing paper, using a General's Color-Tex Lt Blue pencil. 

Video: shot on iPhone 4S, and Canon 650D, with a 50mm f1.8 lens. I put it together in iMovie. Timelapse with Stop Motion Recorder. Music: Cut Manno by Prince Buster.

"The Craftsmen Series" - Graham Smith

"The goal is to get your professional work and your personal work as close together as you can, to be happy." Graham Smith

I illustrate packaging for the Blue Moon Expressionist Collection - so, the crew from Complex Media dropped by to talk about craftsmanship, and the creative processes involved in creating the Blue Moon artwork.

Creating artwork for a national brand like Blue Moon is a collaborative process, where artists work together toward a common goal for the benefit of their client. Ideas and strategies to achieve those goals flow between many people, before the artist begins making all those ideas into one visual presentation.

To communicate many ideas quickly, the artist provides pencil sketches, so everyone on the team can see a concrete version of how the artist has decided to put all the ideas and strategies together, so they can deliver their input. This is a very social part of the process, where communicating between people is key.

Pencil sketches get revised and tweaked to match the overall plan, and eventually the artist is set loose to actually create the finished artwork - which, in my case is a many step process.

Agencies expect the artist to have the ability to edit every aspect of the work to meet the clients plans. And that's where the artists craftsmanship comes into play. A good craftsman will have understanding and control over all the aspects of the creative process. The art has to look good, but it also has to to created in such a way to be editable, on message, and most of all, on schedule.

I do many extra steps in creating artwork for a national brand, compared to the spontaneous nature of my personal work.

How does craftsmanship play a role in your work?

Pencil sketch: Blue Moon Rounder label

Final inking: Blue Moon Short Straw Farmhouse Red label

Final inking: Rounder label

Color proofs: Short Straw point of sale posters.

My desk at the end of a great project.

For the art nerds: Generals layout pencils, Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencil, tracing paper, quill pen 513ef nib, india ink, Strathmore drawing paper, Loew-Cornwell brush #8 round, flat 1 inch brush, and all the stuff you see in the photo above.

- G.

Grace Hightower Di Nero

I'll never forget thinking, if this portrait of Grace Hightower, for Worth Magazine doesn't come out right, I could get whacked! Not only is Grace Hightower drop dead gorgeous and fun to draw, she is a socialite, a philanthropist, and is married to the actor, Robert Di Nero. I illustrated 2 versions, just to be on the safe side.

"Are you looking at me?" 

"Ummm, I was looking at your wife.... Oh! That's worse, isn't it?"

For the art nerds:  These ink portraits are illustrated at about twice the size they print. I use an old school quill pen, with a #99 nib and a EF 513 nib, a generals non repro blue pencil. Sometimes I fill in details with my trusty Lamy Safari fountain pen. The india ink I use is general purpose stuff, nothing fancy. If I remember correctly, these were drawn on Strathmore drawing paper, which has a bit of a yellowish tone that must be color corrected in Photoshop.

G.

Pen doodle video

Sketchbook 35 - ink sketch from Graham Smith on Vimeo.

Here's a quick pen doodle from Sketchbook 35.

I drew it with a Lamy Safari fountain pen in a small homemade sketchbook at our Wednesday night hangout, Sketchbook Sessions. I prepare the Strathmore 50 pound sketch paper by washing it with a thin mixture of acrylic paint and water, which gives it a nice textural tone, and a crisp surface to ink on.

Pen and ink portraits

MARKS: Volume One

MARKS: Volume One

Size: 8.75" x 12.25"
Price: $25
Pages: 48. Full color
Signed.

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I just finished designing "MARKS Volume One"- a 48 page, hard cover art book, containing a collection of life drawings, illustrations, and sketchbook experiments I have created over the last 2 years.

Graham Smith's MARKS Volume One, contains private life drawings, sketchbook experiments, and includes examples of my professional illustration work. The common thread throughout the work are my expressive mark making techniques, regardless of the media. I'm in love with the line! MARKS Vol. One, is my love letter to drawing the figure.

Graham Smith's marks Vol. 1 - book trailer from Graham Smith on Vimeo.



The infamous, Alberto Ruiz noticed my life drawings last Comic Con, and being a sucker for old school figure drawing, offered to publish a small run of them. He gave me 2 months to design a book, and deliver it to Xupuy Edicionés, his publishing company in Quito, Ecuador.

The Process:

I learned a lot about making a book. The biggest technical hurdle was improving the way I photograph artwork. After of years of fiddling around, I asked a professional to trouble shoot my DIY photo studio. Long story short, with some simple photography gear, common sense, and some fancy photographic diffusion plastic, an artist can photograph their artwork in-house.

To design the book, Xupuy Edcionés provides 2 Photoshop templates, 1 for a single page, and another for a 2 page spread. It is the artists job to fill those 48 pages with the best they have. Carte Blanche. Alberto Ruiz, the publisher,  takes care of the rest, supervising the books design, production and printing, in order to be "The Best Publisher of Essential Eye Candy The World Has Ever Known!"

How do you find the time to draw stuff?

A little bit at a time. Once a week, I'd venture out of my studio to brush up on my life drawing for a 3 hour session. Every week I would draw a few more, until I had a little pile going. After a couple years, the pile was pretty big.  I selected a few of my favorite drawings to put in the book. It's amazing what you can accomplish in only 3 hours per week!

I love drawing in my sketchbook, everyday. I even make my own sketchbooks, now. Inside their pages is where I invent color combinations, draw from my imagination, collect notes, and do drawing experiments. No one ever sees those sketchbooks, so I sorted through and a few, and selected some painting and drawing experiments to show you, in the book. Here is a sneak peak!

Want to see more?

Video:   Unboxing:   The night a giant pallet of boxes arrived.

Video:   Book Signing Party:     Friends, models, artists, beer and music.

Review:

Got an autographed copy of "Mark", what a collection of best work done by famous artist Graham Smith! All drawings, either in BW charcoal or colorful mixed medias, are carefully structured and rendered/painted. I saw how Graham drew figures in studio. He always wanted to have a good drawing angle and composition. Sometime he had to change his seat frequently in order to find a better angle. Besides all nice layouts, his line quality is what a professional artist should learn and master. Very dynamic and full of energy.The book contains figure drawings and illustrations in various styles that are inspirational to young artists for thinking outside of the box. The last, but not least, is the anatomy knowledge showed in the book. Graham fully controlled every inch of his figure drawings and demonstrated how anatomy knowledge should be used to depict muscle shapes, body rhythms, and figure poses. This is a five-star book an artist must have! 

Dr. Wei Xu  - Writer, Teacher, Scientist, Mathematician, Artist