Pippo Gullotto, and other sketches

I wanted to publish a little tribute to my friend Pippo Gullotto (69), who I sketched today when I met him. I admit it’s not perfectly resembling him, but I was just standing with the sketchbook in my hands, and this is the best I could do. It does look like him… somehow! It’s just about 3 inches tall, so I didn’t have much room for details. He would looks just like Santa Claus dressed up in red.

I also sketched other people while I was there.

The rasta guy was completely smoked. He kept moving weirdly while some performers on the stage were testing instruments with microphones. Can you notice I shaded the left (lifted) foot of the top left guy? It’s not in shade, it was THAT dirty.

All in all, a productive sketching day. I also sketched a few people and a stand at the local market, in the morning:

Aug222015

Dancing Woman

A couple of days ago I got my first toned paper sketchbook. Yeah, I actually never tried toned paper before.
I obviously fell in love for it already 😀 Getting both darks and lights was a lot easier than I expected, and am pretty satisfied with my first sketch:
It’s nothing more than a couple of inches tall sketch I made out of an image of Wetcanvas’ Reference Image Library. A lot can be improved, especially because I used a 2b pencil for the darks and white colored pencil (Caran D’Ache Supracolor) for the lights. I’m pretty sure I can go better with some charcoal pencils.

Aug082015

Post Office Dudes

I had to go to the post office this morning. I took the chance to bring my sketchbook with me and try sketching out something. I spotted some interesting poses, although I always have trouble sketching people from life…when they move 🙂
I tried following James Gurney‘s advice on drawing subjects in motion, who actually suggests closing the eyes to freeze the last image you saw in your mind. It did work, to a certain extent, but I need to practice more.

Then, I spotted a very weird guy all of a sudden. He was kind of hunchback, wearing a reddish jacket and carrying a pink shoulder bag. He was totally odd. His grey-ish hair were long enough to reach the mid of his back, loosely tied in a messy ponytail. He was wearing some huge sunglasses and totally had the look of an old lady mixed with a rockstar of the 70s. I think he had lipsitck as well… or had just eaten some blueberries. I did a very quick sketch of him from the back (you can see it above), but he sadly left after a few minutes so I couldn’t really catch his face.
I don’t know whether his bag was heavy or what else, but he kept the right shoulder almost stuck to his cheek. A character.

After getting back home, I tried drawing him from memory. I’m pretty sure he didn’t exactly look like this, but the feeling is all there. That’s what would happen if my friend’s cousin’s grandma had some passion for rock. Still, he was a man…probably. The post office’s employee told him “We will have to bear you for another month.”. Odd! No idea what they were talking about, but it was worth writing that down.