Phil's Doodles

I had this great idea for a political cartoon featuring Zimbabwe's infamous leader, Robert Mugabe. Unfortunately, while I was sketching out the idea I got a bit carried away and almost a couple of hours later I had created this. I'm not going to bother doing a critique on it for two reasons: 1) It was never meant to exist. It was supposed to be a quick ten minute sketch to base a cartoon on and to be honest I actually quite like it (even if the subject is a scumbag). 2) I'm trying to be more positive about my art work in the future. I've realised that my negative attitude to my work has been responsible for my lack of creative output.

I suppose this is the first doodle or sketch of 2008. I've not been too productive on the artistic front due to a number of things. I'm hoping to get this under control and be playing with my ballpoint pens more. I was making a shopping list (so I didn't buy a bunch of stuff I didn't really need) when I got sidetracked and doodled this guy at the bottom of it. Then I finished the list and went shopping. It's funny when creativity hits you. :) This was done with a crappy generic ballpoint that I'd picked up somewhere. It wasn't a very nice pen to write with, let alone draw with. Ah well. I didn't really notice when I was doodling.

Sometimes, not matter how hard I try I draw an image so unbelievably awful that I feel like destroying it. This image was one of those. I've posted it because I believe that I should keep all the bad drawings - and learn from them. First of all - I'm not very good at portraits in any medium so I didn't expect this to be brilliant. The end result was more dissapointing than I expected it to be however. The subject was a friend of mine. I accept the fact that I made a fair few mistakes with this one - and it's to be expected when I'm drawing in pen anyway. It's a permanent medium and therefore unforgiving when I make drastic mistakes. One of the mistakes in this one I tried to cover up but just ended up making it worse (hint - look for a particularly dark area). Here's my critique (so you know why I hate it): Proportion: The eyes are slightly too large Proportion: The nose isn't wide enough Proportion: Because the nose wasn't right, the mouth isn't

Still in the mood to draw things with my crayola roller ball I thought I'd tackle that most hairy and long-necked of birds; the ostrich. This was drawn on slightly better quality paper than the cat in the previous post but the pen was the same. Now, if only I had a 0.25mm pen... ;)

I had a spare 90 minutes and wanted to try the challenge of drawing a furry animal. I've never drawn a cat before and a good friend of mine is kitty-crazy so I thought I'd give it a go. This was drawn using a 0.7mm Crayola Pro Liquid Ink Roller. It's a nice pen - very smooth flow and good black ink but it's a bit wide to draw with really. A 0.5mm would have been better. I'm quite pleased with the end result. It's not perfect but for my first kitty I think it's OK. :)