Giant-Sized Daily Sketches

My new sketchbook's a heckuvalot bigger than my old one, which I find gives me a lot more room to experiment. I take more space drawing people, or I build a scene slowly over a couple of days. It's been rewarding thus far.

5.15.10 - One of the reasons I've been trying to learn to draw is so I can adapt some of my poetry to art. I've had this idea for a little while, pretty much ever since I first picked up the Flight series of graphic novels (which are awesome, by the way, and you should check them out from your local library NOW).

I didn't really do a whole lot of "poety" drawing in this picture - it's more just the setting. And it's not even a particularly GOOD example of the setting. The piano, of course, is completely out of proportion to the rest of the scene.

Another discrepancy: the woman who actually sang when I felt inspired to write the poem was a lot smaller than this. But I think I'm happy with what I've drawn.

To give you an idea of where I hope to go with the whole drawing thing, here's the original poem that inspired this sketch:

UN BEL DI, VEDREMO

she sings, cradled in the arm of the piano,
an ironwork of gulls hanging just over
her head, wings spread as though in flight.
If I close my eyes, I see

a long, thin sash of clouds draped over
the neck of the sky, mirrored in
the water below. There she stands by the sea,
and the white birds wing about and cry.

When I open my eyes, I see her eyes deeper
than I can imagine them – she watches the back wall
as if it were a horizon. The iron gulls
fly forever, always coming

but never arriving. If freed from their welding
at this moment, they could fly to the clear,
clean glass windows and break through,
wing off into the air, ride on the backs

of wind currents and come to rest in exotic
locations all over the world. They could send postcards
from Auckland, Tokyo, Calcutta. But if
they are like me, they would rather

alight on the sofa where I sit, or the backs of
dining-room chairs, and listen as the girl’s song hangs
like wisps of cloud drifting towards those sails
just now coming to this side of the horizon.

And here's a bonus:

5.22.10-5.24.10 - Here's just a goofy character sketch I did a coupla three times. Each time, I tried to make the character a bit more "crazed" in appearance.

I had meant to make the third little guy there just hunched up on himself. I should have drawn the shoulders up higher towards his ears; that way, he wouldn't look like a little boy. Although, I have to say, I think I actually LIKE him as a little boy more.

Oh, and the hair here? TONS of fun to draw.