Draw Jerel Draw

When it’s time to change…

 Well, I’ve been mulling this decision over for a long time now, and am finally making it. I am discontinuing the Weekly Whirly exercise. I thought about postponing this announcement until next week, and doing one more Whirly, but I feel that’s been the mental process for a about a month now, and for two of those weeks I didn’t have time to do one. Which leads to the reasons behind the decision. I’d say first and foremost is that I feel I’ve learned what I needed to learn from drawing them. I look back at the last year of weekly drawings and I can clearly see significant improvement, and that makes me very happy! Seeing improvement is one of the best feeling one can get as an image maker. When I started the project I had almost no experience drawing with felt tip artists pens. I know it’s a bit backward, but I had almost never drawn with them, when I started doing ink drawings and comics I went straight to brush, I was just immediately drawn the the physical qualities of black ink, and the brush was the most visceral tool and the mark-making with the brush seemed to have the most connection to that visceral quality. I noticed a couple of leaning in those drawings though. Firstly, I was getting really into small details, something that brush ink doesn’t lend itself well too, and second, I had more and more desire to work freehand and without pencils to guide me.  Like so many things, the best way to get better at freehand drawing was to practice practice practice. (just to be completely clear, in most of the whirly drawings I didn’t do freehand pen.) And while I did some with the brush ink sans graphite planning, the limitation of having to be at the drawing table definitely slowed me down. So I got in the habit of carrying around a Fabercastel felt tip and small sketchbook. One of the first things I drew was a funny little helicopter.

I have to say I was maybe a bit snooty about pens when I was doing all that work with brushes, but now that I’ve spent some real time with them, I really like them. I enjoy the speed at which I can draw with them, the way I can zip or wander across the page. With a brush you have to be very conscious of your positioning. The angle of the brush, the angle of the paper, the tilt, how the bristles are hitting the page. True you can do a lot with that, but you gotta be ready for it, and sometimes you just want to cruise and draw something cool. I also found that I could get some nice variety in the marks. I started out using of those super small 0.01 or 0.03 size pens (in Fabercastel nomenclature they are the F or SX sizes), before long I when up to the large gauges because I discovered that a light touch with a larger pen I could actually get a thinner line if I needed it. Now I’ve moved on to using Copic pens and have primarily stuck to the larger, 0.3 and 0.7 sizes. Man, I am totally digressing. I started this article to talk about whirlies and the future and now I’m talking about brushes and pens, sheesh. Time to get back on track.

The other big reason that I’m discontinuing the weekly series is time. It’s the constant battle, the most precious commodity, the one thing that you can never get back once you’ve spent it. In a perfect world I would have time to do one of these every week, absolutely, without a doubt. They are fun, and I’ve got a whole lot more flying around in my head! Unfortunately they can sometimes take several hours. Actually, they often take several hours because I get lost in them, you wouldn’t believe how long I spend pushing colors back and forth in those final stages. I’m not complaining or anything, but it’s true, they consume time. And I got projects ta do! Projects that you’ll probably be interested in. Projects worth doing. Projects I’ve been neglecting because I just couldn’t seem to find the time to work on them. Hmmmm. Okay, number one project on that list for you: Junker. Guess what, it’s a comic based on the weekly whirly drawings. I’m in script and concept phase, have been for some time, but I am super excited about it. I’ve been building this world copter by copter this year, and I’ve been doing a lot of research on the golden age of flight, historical fliers, and the like. I’ve also got a kids book in the works, that one is commissioned so I can’t say to much about it, but I should be finishing the art in March or April and it could come out by the end of 2013. I’ve also some plans for One Android: Stories, can’t go into to much detail on this yet, but I’ve got some ideas, so some of you fans of those books need not fret, there is more happening.

So with all those projects, and my newly habitual weekly bursts of sharing, I am planning to keep posting every Wednesday. It’s good to have a schedule, helps keep momentum.  So be sure to check back, I’ll be posting more concept art, status updates, sketches, doodles, comic strips, and probably some finished art as it comes along. Annnnd you never know, there just might another whirly or two headed your way.

Whale in the Machine- Ink pen (no pencil)