Introduction
October nears its end. This entry in my weekly series marks two months of consistent drawing and uploading to my blog! Another milestone I'm glad to have hit.
This week was a little tumultuous for me. More traveling, returning to my routines, trying to foster new routines. I'm proud to say that a brief hiatus from the quotidien has not led to me dropping every positive habit I've been trying to build.
In artistic news, I've gotten myself a wallet-sized sketchbook that I can whip out at any time. This need was punctuated by a work outing where I was surrounded by a bounty of natural beauty in the park, but left without any medium to capture it. Now I shall never be parted from the ability to sketch what I see.
I've been doodling quite consistently this week, but I haven't prioritized my usual level of study. Barely any gesture or value practice. That's okay, though. Not every week has to push me to the creative limit. Sometimes it's good to relax and enjoy letting my mind and body express themselves through sketching.
Making a habit of sketching
My job involves a lot of repetitive processes and waiting periods. This gives me a good excuse to whip out the sketchbook and pen a few doodles here and there. I'm trying to replace the incessant practice of opening up Reddit and doomscrolling with something that teaches me to observe and appreciate the beauty in everything.
I'll admit, it was pretty difficult at first. It's really hard for me to draw without a reference, and at times it felt like I was just drawing the same set of objects over and over again. I didn't have a direction to take my art. Eventually, I came across this video by Sketchbook Skool on YouTube.
He had some great advice about being a little more intentional with my sketches: draw inspiration from magazines and advertisements to practice composition and to understand design; try to emulate the layouts of popular periodicals and capture subjects that you find interesting. It took me a little while to understand what he meant, but the ideas were beginning to take root in my mind.
Animals are a subject I never tire of emulating. They have so much variety and wondrous organic shapes. They're expressive and full of personality. And you don't have to pin the proportions down exactly as you do with human anatomy.
Beary medley
While looking for more references to draw from, I found an image of a polar bear that I quite liked. I looked up polar bears on Wikipedia and found that the entire Ursidae genus only has eight extant species currently known. So, I got to work.
The first couple of bears I worked on were the pagophilic polar bear and the beloved giant panda. The 3x5 sketchbook is a little cramped, so I ended up cutting out the informational blurb in the next few bear drawings.
The proportions weren't always perfect, but without the capacity to undo or erase, I had to press forward. I also found it quite difficult to get proper shading and hatching in with ballpoint. That's something I really want to work on, but that I find I have no real understanding of at the moment.
After the first couple of bears, I felt I needed to dedicate more space to each of these wonderful creatures. I started using full pages for each. Granted, they're not very large pages to begin with.
I was a little surprised at how many but also how few bear species there were. It was more than I knew of, and yet less than I'd hoped for. I've probably seen most of these bears with my own eyes at some point (although I hope to never encounter a polar bear).
The sloth bear might be my favorite of the bunch. I saw quite a few of them on a trip to the Bannerughatta National Park Safari while I was in Bangalore. They're quite cute and hirsute creatures. Many of them are lazing around in plain sight.
The spectacled bear or the Andean bear is one that I'd not really known about before embarking on this little journey through the bear-i-verse. I assume they're named so because of the facial fur patterns they have, giving a few of them the appearance of wearing glasses.
Conclusion (and extra sketches)
When I sat down to write this article, I felt like I didn't really do quite a lot of drawing this week. Now I can see I probably drew more than I usually do in a week. I'm proud of myself. Two months doesn't seem like much, but it's real consistency in my eyes. This is becoming something of a passion for me, and that's all I've ever wanted from a hobby.
Have a decadent week!
