Illustration: Acrobat de la rue 02

 The last acrobat drawing in a while unless something weird happens. Didn't get much in the way of references this summer. There are a few acrobatic acts I would love to draw but unless I can get acrobats to perform for me I don't think I'll see any of that in the wild as the free shows get shorter and less acrobatic as the years go on. 

Drawn in procreate, I added some tone to the pants for not real reason but I like how it looks. The curly hair was fun. 

Illustration: pride dansers

 The boy is from this year, he was marching with the black and white drawing dancer I posted not long ago. The Drag on stilts was from last year. I have been unable to decide what to do with her. I started as a colour, then though maybe a loose watercolour but couldn't get into it then made a detailed outline and that is where it stands now. 

Illustration: Fierté 2024 (1)

Pride was sort of a bust this year. The parade was cut in 2 by protestors which made it seem like it was only an hour long which made a huge part of the crowd leave early and not see the second half. On top of that the usual people coming late and just standing in front of those who have been there a coupe hours making it impossible to take photos or even see what is going really got to me. It's too bad, I might not go again. I like the march and I like to take photos of the dancing people for reference in drawings. There are not many chances for that. 

That said this was not from a great photos. he was off to the side and at first just walking with 2 other guys when he broke ahead and started dancing, twerking... getting the crowd going. He was also, like his pals covered in solid gold glitter paint which if know that I think explains the shading in this drawing. I wanted to use pen and ink, black and white only - no tones - like my older drawings on paper. It's an artistic challenge to simplify to two colours but since I use stipple to represent skin and this guy was ALL skin the cramping in my hand was constant! 

I am also including the sketch because I decided to not make a super detailed sketch as a guide for the inking but instead use it to see if I could keep the "aliveness" (is that a word?) of the pose by using something less rigid as a guide. 

Illustration: Hottie in Sunglasses

 

What else would I call this? This was from references of acrobats reshow this summer. I made it in Affinity Photo on iPad and desktop by saving the file I was drawing  with in Dropbox so I could open it on either and pick up where I left off. I worked really well and I can see me doing that with other work in the future. Though photo is still missing good colour blending options (Procreate has the same issue for me) it forces me to try other methods to get something I like. 

Illustration: gardien du temps_033

 

Another drawing of the same acrobat as my recent post but from behind. This one is a little better I think and has more depth to it. When doing the greyscale drawing before adding colour, I will usually blend between shades with the blur brush, but that isn't working on the iPad version of Affinity Photo for me. I did some of that by transferring it to the desktop for a couple hours then went back to the iPad. I hope to get some more drawings from this show, but not all of this one guy! 3 so far! 

illustration: Gardiens du temp 01

 

The free show at the park near me this year for Montréal Complement Cirque was really fun and amazing this year. I was finally able to get reference photos for more drawings, though maybe not too many as I have been going to these things for a very long time I am not coming across acts I haven't seen  many times before. 

This one came out well I thought, the challenge is the pose of course as it's so twisted. I'll likely do more of him and at leaast one in colour. 

Illustration: yoga pose

 

I have to admit this one makes me a little uncomfortable. I have not been able to find people to pose for me much, especially not acrobats or yoga practitioners who can do the sort of poses I love to draw. I have even put out ads looking for people but no one was interested.  I lended up searching through many videos online and took screen shots as reference material. I don't always use my own photos (my monster poster series is mostly from screen shots taken from the films) but I HATE not using my own photos! I know it is not exactly unknown to use the almost infinite image and video resources on the internet to find inspiration and references, but it doesn't sit all that well with me. That said, I went ahead and did anyway so I guess I was desperate enough to be OK with it for this one. 

Done in Krita, this is in keeping with my other yoga/acrobat stuff. Seriously... what exactly is the line between the two?In ant case it came together quickly once I decided I was doing it. I tried to keep out too much detail, though at full size you can see hair on his body that is invisible in smaller versions. I don't print my stuff as much as I used to, just costs too much, but I keep that in mind when I add details. 

My last drawing of the year? Quite possibly! 

Illustration: Model in profile

I have been itching paint something in colour again for a while in Krita. I finally got some time to over theist week or so. It took a longer time than normal to sketch it out... the fingers were a confusing mess but also what I thought made it more interesting. 

I did my current technique of a solid colour silohuette and then added blocks of colour for shading and highlights, getting more detailed each pass until it looked ready to blend the colours into more natural tones. This seems to make it go quicker, maybe because this approach lets me see problems before doing tons of details and having to redo them. 

The guy wasn't the best of people, to be honest, but he made a decent model. He knew what he was selling but made the mistake of thinking everyone was looking to buy it. 

Illustration: Louis swim trunks

 This was another from my now dwindling amount of old photo sessions I am using for drawing inspiration. It was done in 90s for a friend who wanted a career in adult films, so not all the rest of the photos are this family friendly. He was in a swimsuit so I thought it would be good for my athlete series of drawings. Why not? He was a very thin and very pale guy as I think you can see. I did not like the lighting in the photos it was was too harsh and the multiple lights were poorly positioned so I made up a better lighting set up in my head. The hands were a real problem with this one. I did several practice sketches just of the hands and when it came time to do them for real, it still didn't look right so I had to paint over them a few times each until I was happy enough with them.

Drawn in Krita and I used some brushes I hadn't thought of before which helped me make corrections much easier. This was a fast one, it only took about 8 hours of work which is pretty fast for me.

Illustration: Danseur Montréal Complément Cirque

 I isolated a dancer in a group from an old cirque presentation because, while the photo was pretty middle of the road, I thought that isolating a single figure would bring out the drama I saw on stage better. 

I used the New Krita 5.02 and was I happy with the update! Saving a project always took far too long and now it's rapid and doesn't slow down my work. While Procreate has been great on the iPad I missed the brushes in Krita and this took full advantage of them. I was able to mimic the pattern on the dress very closely - even the sparkly bits.

The dancer was male but the costumes were unisex robes with everyone wearing the same makeup so it it had a very androgynous feel to the dance number. I hope this gives that same feeling. I used to dread doing cloth when I started drawing and now it's something I seek out doing more of. 

Illustration: Shane

 

Made with Procreate. My first finished drawing of the new year. I learned a little more of the procreate basics, like how to set opacity and blending modes. I still don't like using smudge as a blending tool very much. it's hard to control and I am spoiled by the multiple blending options in Krita. Doing the freckles was a nice challenge to figure out. Another from an old photoshoot sitting in a folder on the desktop. 

Illustration: David dance o2

 This was different sort of challenge. The reference photo was a scan from a session I did almost 30 years ago of a print that had been damaged by water. The negative and the prints are long gone and the paper used was textured so while I loved the pose, it wasn't something I could use anywhere. So I thought turning it into an illustration wit Krita might be a good way to "resurrect it". 

Another challenge was that the reference was black and white and I wanted it to be colour. Luckily the dancer was a good friend and even rented my spare room for a time so I had other photos of him that showed off is skin tones to work from. 

The graphic element in the background seemed make him stand out more than just a solid colour would. 

Illustration: Paul torsion assise

 A bit of skin in my last 2 drawings I guess. This was from 20+ year old references as well and the quality was better than my recent diver references but still somewhat degraded. I had quite a few of them this time so I think I got more out of this one. You don't find many guys with muscles as defined as this. 

I did have to change the pose and some details slightly. This was mostly for clarity of the image. A few toes from the crossed over leg were really distracting and there was a hint of penis which is not something that I would normally hide but it took me some time to even know that was what it was. I also removed his tan line. To be honest it was pretty sexy looking but, again, distracting from the pose. I thought emphasis was on the shoulders and back, not his butt. 

Homme plié - dessin/drawing

Not being able to sleep much has it's advantages. I finished this drawing this morning and I am pretty happy with it overall. I did not just adjust the greyscale to produce colour this time and painted with colour as well, especially for adding additional red tone to the skin on the face to show the blood rushing to his head.