Points of Stress: Showing Movement In The Figure

Points of Stress and Movement in Inanimate Objects

In drawing from life or from a realistic subject, you want to capture the subjects essential character; what is the essence of an apple that makes us read it as an apple? In the figure, the best way to describe movement is to accentuate or exaggerate points of stress.

Anything that's flexible has movement. Every fold of drapery suggests how the drapery is resisting and surrendering to gravity. A force meets another force and there's a fold. Gravity acts as another force and there's a dip in the fold, or part of the cloth rests on a surface or another fold, generating more folds from that contact point. Each point where these forces meet is a stress point. 

Here's a drapery study by DaVinci:

Here, I've tried to illustrate in the same drawing where the points of stress are, and how those points of stress effect one another:

Points of Stress In The Figure

Drapery is a complex subject, but I just want you to get a sense of how something essentially inanimate can be dynamic. Here's a gesture drawing I did from the live model, about a 5 minute study: 

Here I've tried to illustrate the points of stress. The arrows represent the movement towards these points.  Think of a point of stress as that point when a branch is about to break, or a car is about to crash--it's those points of tension before the finish of the action that demonstrate movement, even if that movement has no ultimate destination. Bones don't have to be about to break to show the tension of the muscles or the distribution of weight.

Here's another figure, also a 5 minute study:

The arrow at the center is the center of gravity. Points of stress are all about either resisting, or surrendering to gravity. Points at rest surrender to gravity. Points of tension imply a resistance to gravity. Both points at rest and points of tension are stress points, points that, if given emphasis, describe the most movement in a figure, but the points at rest are just as important as the points of stress. The rest points give us a sense of weight and substance. The stress points give us a sense of suppleness and texture. 

Texture and dynamism in portraits

To get a sense of an object or figure's texture, there has to be a force playing against it. We can't tell visually if a rubber ball is very hard or very soft, or very heavy, or very light unless we see how weight or gravity acts against it (though light too, is a significant force at play in describing texture, but that's another subject altogether). In the same way, the muscles act against the flesh. If there's no points of tension in a figure, the figure will not look dynamic. It will tend to look stiff and inanimate. Even in a portrait, tension and release of tension describe expression, even if that expression is a placid one. There are still points at rest that can be emphasized. Lines on a face, relaxed or tensed describe how flexible the face is. Elderly and wrinkled faces show gravity, how the skin is softer and less elastic, but this is all expressed through stress points.  Here are some longer studies from life:

The portrait is of my dad, but the rest of these drawings are from one of my favorite models who models for us at The Davis Figure Drawing Group, Steve Savage.  A really dynamic and great model! Thanks for reading.

"The Longest Winter" for Cricket Magazine

This month's Cricket Magazine features a story called "The Longest Winter" by Pamela D. Guaci, with illustrations by me! The story is about two Inuit brothers who go on a seal hunt. In this one the younger brother dreams that he's a seal, struggling to get through to the surface:

This one shows the distance between the two brothers:

They bond through the hunt, imagining their father, who had recently died, smiling over them. 

Like the last piece I did for Cricket, these required a lot of reference. The first challenge was to try to draw a harp seal. Unfortunately there weren't many pictures of swimming harp seals on the web. Here was one of the few I was able to find:

But it wasn't quite enough to really get a sense of what they looked like in motion. So I found more reference for a seal that looked similar who lived in a warmer climate, the monk seal.

So I found pictures of monk seals, watched videos on Youtube, added a little blubber, and whoola! I had a harp seal! For my Inuit reference I watched everything from the classic documentary Nanook of the North:

To this pretty horrible Anthony Quinn movie:

But these were Inuits from Greenland, and I was drawing Alaskan Inuits. So I did eventually find more authentic reference for my Inuits, and took a few photos using the timer on my camera for some of the harder poses:

I also had a student of mine do a few poses, but ultimately, I only use photos to get a general sense of the pose. When I draw directly from the photo my drawings tend to look a little stiff, so I try to reinvent the figure in the drawing.

These were the sketches I submitted to Cricket:

The art director, Karen Kahn wanted me to make sure the horizon faded out as it met the sky in the second image, something I could resolve in the color stage, and for the third, she wanted the hole in the ice to be smaller and more of an uneven shape. She also wanted me to show the tool made out of a bone and feather that the boy uses in the story. These changes were easy enough to make, and they were happy with my solutions.

Not long ago, I received an e-mail from the author, curious about how I had handled the story. I sent her the images and was gratified to hear that she was very pleased with them. So hopefully I got most of the details right! And here's the magazine, with a great cover by Heidi Younger:

Breakthrough Contest Winners Announced!

I thought there may be interest in this:

 The Breakthrough Contest Has Broken Cover!

For the past year, Richard Solomon and staff worked on creating the first ever Breakthrough Contest. The idea took shape while brainstorming last winter. All artists appreciate how hard it is to break through and succeed as a professional illustrator in today’s market; this is why we named the contest  “Breakthrough”. We wanted to reach young artists and as such the rules stated that the entrant must be under 35 years old with less than 5 years professional experience from anywhere in the world.

The goal was to create a contest that would produce long term benefits for the winner since every young artist’s greatest concern is to have a successful career. Unlike other competitions which simply offer a cash prize or a scholarship, we have gone a step further. The winner would be brought to New York City, have their portfolio shown to top art/creative directors, be given the constructive criticism and advice by the industry’s top pros to succeed as a professional illustrator, and receive a cash prize.

In March of 2011, we opened the contest to submissions. Soon thereafter, we began to receive a diverse collection of portfolios from artists all over the world. We were soon flooded with an amazing number of very talented young contestants. At the end of 3 months, we closed the contest to submissions and began judging. Our panel consisted of 20 art/creative directors and top illustrators who scored the submissions online based on skill, professionalism, and potential commercial viability.

We can now proudly announce the winner: Michal Dziekan, a 26 year old illustrator from Warsaw, Poland; a true diamond in the rough. Since 2009 Michal has been working as a freelance illustrator on book covers, editorial/advertising illustration, t-shirt/character designs, and animation. You can see more of his work on his website michaldziekan.com. We look forward to bringing Michal to NYC in late October, introduce him to many art/design directors, and award him his prize.

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Using Your Time Wisely, or Why Never to Say, "But I Didn't Have Enough Time!"

The Pomodoro Technique

Illustrator's and freelancers often struggle with time management. It's particularly difficult to manage your time when you have an inconsistent workflow. I recently started using a time management technique called the "Pomodoro Technique." It's very simple: Set a timer for 25 minutes. After the timer goes off, set the time again for a five minute break. Then set the timer again for another 25 minutes, then another five minute break. Each 25 minute interval is one Pomodoro. After four Pomodoros you give yourself a longer break, Maybe fifteen minutes, or break for lunch. Then start again.

I'm finding this helps me in a number of key ways: for one, it cuts back on my internet use significantly. I like to use the internet. In fact I love to use the internet. But I often waste a lot of time just checking in with Facebook, or Google+, or checking my e-mail. Or someone posts something on one of the social networking sites and I spend entirely too long chasing links. Well that's something better left to one of my long breaks. And the checking in stuff I can do during my short breaks. But I'm also finding that I want to do all this obsessive checking-in less when I know I have only a short time to do it. Often I'd rather spend the time eating a snack, or getting my studio for a change of scene.

These 25 minute intervals are deceptively short, but it's a good kind of deceptive. It's the perfect way to fool myself into keeping focused, knowing that there's a break right around the corner. I find this makes me a lot more productive than when I do long marathons of uninterrupted work, at least, as far as drawing is concerned. Drawing is the one activity where I really have to push myself to keep going. Writing, I can do for hours. Inking, coloring, I have no problem sustaining. But keeping up my drawing stamina can often be difficult. This technique has proven to be a great solution. 's made me rethink: what is a an 8 hour work day? What's a 10 hour work day? How can it best be spent? As a freelancer and work-at-home artist, when I'm working on self-motivated projects there sometimes aren't set, external deadlines, so I'm forced to structure my day in a meaningful way. It's easy to get distracted. It's easy to fool yourself into thinking you've put in more time than you have.

To make the most of your work day, you need to have a way to account for your time, especially when those distractions can be such compelling ones, like the internet. Many of us don't have that incredible focus that allows us to work hours on end--I do for certain tasks, but not for all of them, particularly drawing, since I find it most demanding. I envy people who have that kind of relentless endurance, but I'm not one of them. You don't have to be one of them either. Everyone has their own working method and pace, but it all comes down to how you manage your time. Not having that endurance doesn't make you a lesser artist, but if you don't, you need to discover what will help you to stay on task.

So I need tools to keep me motivated. Audio books are incredibly helpful, especially fun ones. Right now I'm listening to a lot of Sarah Dessen, my current favorite young adult author. If a book requires too much of my attention, it only makes it harder to keep focused, but when it's an enjoyable and easily engaging book, it gives me one more reason to look forward to working. Since I only listen to audio books while working, this can be a big motivator.

The other ritual I have is putting on my shoes. This may seem odd, but putting on my shoes is a cue for me that I'm officially working. Working at home, I don't have to put on my shoes. I could work in my boxer shorts if I wanted to. But maybe it's like the way Mister Rogers takes off his dress shoes and puts on his sneakers at the beginning of every show--the shoes somehow affect my attitude. Don't ask me why. Whatever ritual you have that does this for you--a cup of coffee, a shower, seize on it. Work is ritual, and in working at home, you need to separate what you do with the rest of your time, and work. When work time easily flows into every other task at home, it's easier to be just kind of working sometimes, or preoccupied with the idea that you should be working. I haven't fully masters this skill, but the Pomodoro technique has helped. So what's your cue to start working? Starting can sometimes be the hardest part.

Which brings me back to the Pomodoro technique. If you need to at first, or if other responsibilities require it, maybe 10 minutes of sustained activity and then a five minute break will work better for you. Not all of us have the luxury of a full, uninterrupted work day. So if your time is divided, how can you maximize the time you do have? How can you make it more focused? How can you give yourself a cue that now is work mode, and that all other distractions have to fall to the wayside? Take your work time seriously.

But even if it's drawing in front of the TV, there's value in having small goals, for example: I'm going to finish this drawing at the end of this TV show. If all you have are small snatches of time, take advantage of them, which again, means, take them seriously. Making small goals and achieving them helps to give you the small satisfactions required to go to the next step. 

But I Didn't Have Enough Time! 

It's bad enough to give this as an excuse as a student, but never give this as an excuse as a professional, even if it's simply a workshop. If you need a deadline extension, ask for it, but never excuse the quality of your work because you "didn't have enough time." Of course, sometimes you won't have as much time as you would like, in which case, your fundamental craft comes into play, your ability to give something polish, to pay attention to every part of the image. You may not have time to give the piece the level of rigor that you would like, but you do have a fundamental responsibility as a professional to make sure it's polished. The words, "I didn't have enough time" simply indicate to an editor or art director that you aren't ready. Every piece should have this fundamental polish, which is why it's so important to maximize the time you have. So give yourself the tools you need, whatever they might be! Time management is as important a part of your craft as any other skill. 

--Jed Alexander

"Eagle's Trial" for Cricket Magazine

So now that the magazine is out, I'm finally able to post the work I did for Cricket Magazine.

Cricket is one of the few children's magazines still being published nationally. Carus is the parent company that publishes a number of other children's magazines as well, such as Ladybug, Babybug, Appleseeds and Cobblestone. They're pretty much the last word in Children's literary magazines. The other children's magazines like National Geographic Kids, Boys Life, American Girl and Ranger Rick tend to be more non-fiction oriented, and then there's HIghlights, but otherwise, Carus is the only game in town, and Cricket is their flagship title, so it's an honor to be included in the magazine and one step closer to doing children's books and children's lit for me.

What a Good Art Director Will Do

I was also privileged to have an excellent art director in Karen Kohn. A good art director can compel you to make better images, and Karen definitely pushed me to be better.

With too much art direction you end up questioning every decision, second guessing yourself as you try to guess what will please the art director. This generally results in a poorer image. A good art director will steer you in the right direction, helping you hone in on the objective of the image, but will also trust you to do what you do best, because this is why they hired you in the first place. Because they trust that you know what you're doing.

Eagle's Trial

The story was called, "Eagle's Trial" and was written by Gillian Anderson. It's a fictional story about a starving eagle who comes across a dead goose carcass floating in a lake in British Columbia and rows it to shore with his wings, based on something that the author actually witnessed. It's told from the point of view of the eagle.

In this first image the eagle sees some gulls going after a mostly picked clean salmon carcass (there are a lot of carcasses in this story), and as the Eagle descends on the salmon, the gulls scatter. In the original sketch, for some reason I drew ducks instead of gulls, but that was easily fixed. Here's the finish:



I've done other wildlife images, but I tried to pay particular attention to accuracy is these, since the object was in part, to educate.

One thing I discovered as I drew the eagle was how a wing operates in flight, the way the wing whips through the air similar to the way you might snap a beach blanket in the air before you lay it down on the ground, a sort of rippling effect, rather than an up and down paddling motion, and I tried to reflect this in the way that I drew the wing in profile.

I chose a dramatic angle with cropping akin to the cropping you might see in nature photography, suggesting both a kind of claustrophobia, and a world outside the edges of the image. I highly recommend looking at photography, especially journalistic photography, to inspire more compelling cropping of your images, so that you don't end up always arranging the elements of your picture as though they're food on a plate. Imaginative cropping can make your images feel more alive and dynamic.

And here's the second illustration:



How Do You Effectively Use Photo Reference to Draw An Image From Your Imagination?

This one was the most challenging, and it was an image that the art director specifically requested me to draw: the eagle rowing the goose carcass through the water. As you might imagine, there was nothing in the way of photo reference available for this sort of thing, so I had to conjure up the image from my imagination, and this posed a number of interesting challenges. One challenge was that the part of the goose that was visible above the water would be hard to identify, and it seemed like, no matter how I drew it, it always ended up looking like a frozen turkey.

The other challenge was to show some kind of movement, that the eagle was treading through, rather than drifting through the water.

So first I decided to do a cutaway to show the rest of the goose under the water so that there would be no mistaking that it was a goose. I used lots of photo reference in general, but the image that inspired the cutaway was from a photo taken by a diver or snorkeler that showed where the water met the surface. Using what I was able to gather about Eagle anatomy from photos and animal anatomy illustrations, I was able to visualize how the wing might look treading through the water, and I used images of oars being dragged through the water to get an idea of what a rowing motion would do to the surface of the water. From these images of oars, I was also able to discover the way a pattern of drips would trail from the part of the oar that had emerged from the water, an effect I also added to the wing.

Then I looked at images of swimmers to get a sense of what they looked like under the water when they were in motion, and the way the air was released in the form of bubbles from hair and clothing, since I imagined that a certain amount of air would be caught in the goose's feathers.

This was my first sketch as originally submitted:



Since this was a line drawing rather than a tonal rendering, I did it in blue and red to more clearly delineate background and foreground elements.

The art director liked my approach here, but asked me to make the eagle less plump since the eagle was supposed to be starving, and asked me to make the head a little more raised and expressive, since the eagle is supposed to be struggling. In redrawing the head, I also found some good reference for waterlogged eagles which was really helpful.



And here's the second sketch after I turned the ducks into geese, slimmed the eagle down a little, and added a little more tail, all suggestions from the art director that improved the image:



As I've described before, the drawing was done in ink and brush and crow quill for the background and water elements, and the color was done with scanned in watercolor textures that were added using the photoshop clone tool. I also use a a coarse pastel-style photoshop brush for highlights and more natural edges.

And here's how the images ended up looking in the magazine:





I was really pleased with the how the color turned out.

They ended up bleeding both images all the way to the edge, which is something I hadn't anticipated or made an accommodation for. Ordinarily you want to add a quarter of an inch on the bleed edge, but I lucked out here, because for some reason the crop was really tight and I lost very little of the edge of the image. I don't know how they managed it, but I guess they knew what they were doing.

And a beautiful cover by Ron Tanovitz:



As you can see, it's a pretty classy magazine. Not your typical kids magazine. There's a real sense of care and overall vision for the magazine that you don't always see, again, reflecting Karen Kohn's excellent art direction.

--Jed Alexander

ILLUSTRATION UPDATES WITH PROCESS

*** the images are all cropped on the right, so to view the full image, you have to click on the individual thumbnails. Sorry for the inconvenience guys.

This was a full page illustration for XXL Magazine.  It was for an article that talked about the history of the Illuminati in American culture and Hip-Hop.  Where it originates from?  How does it allegedly play a role in American society?  When did it become a factor in hip hop.  In 1996, Tupac released his album Killuminati dispelling the many rumors of the Illuminati that existed in Hip Hop.

This illustration went through quite a few revisions.  Below are the first three sketches I submitted.

Kanye West is known for gesturing the Illuminati symbol with his hands so I wanted to show him spying on Tupac. 

I was shooting for a comic book cover look in my second sketch. The white owl is usually associated with the Illuminati cult and the Cyclops is representing the seeing eye generally found on the pyramid.

The third sketch was supposed to be an alternate cover of Tupac's Killuminati album.

The first sketch was the direction the editors wanted to go but I was asked to do further tweaking based on that approach.

I tried to toss out a few ideas I had floating in my head, but the fourth idea was definitely my favorite. I really wanted to do a more painterly approach for this illustration and a completely different composition. 

I also did a value study of the last sketch to push this idea. Luckily the art director felt the same about this drawing and I was asked to do more tweaking of the image. The editors felt I should make the main figure Tupac since there's mention of him in the article, especially the release of Killuminati.

I initially added some plants around the figure to suggest fear and isolation but was asked to change it to flames as they appear in most illuminati images above and around the pyramid. 

The image below was a full page illustration for Military Officer Magazine. It's a continuation of the Super Hero series which has been on halt for a while. This time it was for an article that talked about the many new changes to our tax programs in 2011. 

This piece was extremely fun to ink. I was going with a more traditional comic book style and tried hard to give the lines a more natural look while still using the Wacom tablet.

The selected concept was in reference to H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds. The inked image below was another concept I might finish for myself another time as I'm somewhat happy with the overall composition and perspective. With this alternate concept , I wanted to give the hero an actual nemesis that could portray the taxes rather than having him always battling papers and numbers. Since this might essentially take away from the reading too much, we decided to go with the idea above.

The last idea was referencing Atlas from Greek Mythology. At first, I thought this was a good way to show tension and struggle with the weight, but it simply didn't work well for this article and was compositionally very weak.

Lastly, I wanted to create a Super Hero character that would be used for all future articles since this is an ongoing series. Giving the publication its own character would create more consistency since the images are usually linked to tax related articles. I have not received any feedback about the reuse of this particular design, but maybe it is too boring showing the same figure flying around every time. Either way, I want to thank Jill for keeping this series going and allowing me to be experimental with my work.

Thanks for stopping by guys, 

-Tin

Illustrating a Still-Life

In the last couple of months I've been working with an amazing editor named Abigail Samoan to create interior illustrations for a YA book for Tricycle Press about a boy who writes letters to his dead father, and how his father eventually starts writing back from purgatory. It's a great book, but unfortunately, just a few weeks ago, Tricycle Press was shuttered by Random House. The fate of the book is still in question. It may end up going to another imprint at Random House, and that editor may or may not decide to use me as an illustrator. They may decide to use no illustrations at all. It's been a long frustrating ride, but Abigail has been very encouraging and positive about the work I've done and I've really enjoyed being involved. I wish nothing but the best for Abigail and really hope that I can have the privilege of working with her again wherever she ends up.

Strangely enough, this is the second time this has happened! Shortly after I did the piece I did for Nickelodeon Magazine for Chris Duffy, Nick Mag was given the kibosh. A great art director, a great magazine, but at least I got my picture in under the wire and it did eventually see print. we'll see what happens with this one.

At any rate, here's one of the few illustrations for the book that I actually took to a finish. The original idea was for me to just do the drawings described as being drawn by the two protagonists in the book, but I thought it would add something to draw the images in context, in the spaces where they were drawn.

I don't know when exactly the last time was that I tried to do a still life from my imagination. Drawing a still-life from a photo, no problem. Drawing a still life from life, also no big deal, drawing a still life from your imagination? Just like a miniature landscape, you have to find a horizon line.



In the finish I used reference to get the details right and I cropped-in considerably, and there was a temptation to show EVERYTHING since I had done all that pretty perspective (check out that elipse!), a temptation best fought.

Here's the drawing. I had reference for the napkin, but drawing straight from the photo wasn't working out. I ended up idealizing the shape to give it more napkin-ness. I also took out the napkin holder--what that box was supposed to be--since it wasn't reading, cropped.



And the finish:



he idea is that the dad is in purgatory, and he's scrawled the face of this hideous looking wraith-like woman onto a envelope with coffee and a napkin. It isn't quite 100% plausible that the guy could paint something like this with a napkin, but you got to make things look just a little better than they would ordinarily to make it read and to get the point across. I did the face in ink wash and foreshortened it with the photoshop perspective tool which is really only good for foreshortening flat objects. The rest was done with watercolor and gouache textures cloned in on photoshop, line art done with a brush. Really pleased with that napkin!

We'll see what happens. I'd really love to illustrate the book.