The Dude Abides

If asked to draw the Dude, one abides.

When Art Director Craig Edwards at Miller-McCune, asked me to draw illustrate Jeff Bridges as "the Dude" from the cult classic The Big Lebowski, I put on my bowling shirt, opened a sassparilla and began to draw the scene where the Dude talks to the Cowboy in the bowling alley.
 

Using a #8 round brush, I inked this one at about double the print size. But, I got startled and dripped ink on my drawing when two guys suddenly busted into my studio. They demanded money and urinated on the rug! I had to Photoshop the drip marks off my illustration. Nothing could save the rug. Afterwards, I painted a nice chalky blue around the Dude's portrait. It kind of tied the whole illustration together.

Deconstructing "the Dude" for Miller-McCune magazine. AD: Craig Edwards. Illustration: Graham Smith

- G

Life Drawing Workshop: muscular male

John Bruno seated: Graham Smith

It's fun drawing the muscular male. Figuring out all that geometry while keeping a natural gesture is the trick. It's easy to get caught up in all the details and lose track of the drawing as a whole. That's why short poses practice is so helpful.

To give your drawings a natural flow, first capture the pose's gesture, then conform the muscle geometry to the gesture drawing.

Robert: twist and lean

Robert: seated in chair

Robert: thinking deeply

Ian: lunging sword

Ian: resting sword 2

Ian: kneeling sword 3

Ian: sit with sword

Sherman: double block

Sherman: twist

Sherman: crawl

Sherman: meditates

These drawings are 18" x 24" on 50lb Strathmore sketch paper and were created with 6B graphite stick or colored pencils, as demo's at the Sony Life Drawing Workshop. The color drawing of John Bruno was done at the San Diego Life Drawing Meetup Group long pose session. Colored pencil over raw sienna acrylic wash.

G.

Life Drawing Workshop: Black Swan with AK-47

Dzu Nguyen, concept artist, gave a quick drawing demonstration at last nights Life Drawing Workshop at Sony. We set the model, Meegin, up in her "Black Swan with AK-47" pose, and Dzu Nguyen began to demonstrate how he begins to draw a figure from life.

Planning the drawing's composition, measuring and pre-visualizing were emphasized before making your first mark on the paper.

The first decision is weather the orient your paper vertically or horizontally. The next, is to make a small, light mark where you want the top of the drawing to be, and another where you want the bottom of the drawing to be.

Dzu warned not to rush into the drawing, and that a slow and methodical approach will actually save you time (and frustration) over the course of drawing a long pose.

The key is to constantly re-measure your drawing based on the head size, to keep things in proportion, and to constantly re-check your drawing's plumb lines, to keep things in the right position.

After the short demo, all the artists stoked to give Dzu's classic/hybrid lay-in style a try, and they all began their 100 minute drawings of the girl with black feathered wings, combat boots and a machine gun. By the end of the workshop they had each created a great drawing.

However, everyone seemed to agree that drawing an AK-47, and matching it perfectly to a model's position, ain't as easy as it sounds!

Between helping the artists with their drawings, I began a quick lay-in of the Black Swan, myself, using Dzu's technique. I found his strict emphasis on measurement very helpful. You can see in the drawing above, how far I got in about 40 minutes.

Do the artists out there have any favorite tips on life drawings to share? How do you like to begin your life drawings?

G.