The beauty (and burden) of art is that it’s subjective. Whether or not art is “good” depends entirely on the person viewing it. This allows for a wide range of styles and techniques to have a place in the art world, for better or worse.

If I remember correctly, I was introduced to manga in college when a friend showed me Fist of the North Star (you’re already dead!). I always liked drawing cartoons as a kid, so I was instantly attracted to the drawing style.

These are a couple of drawings I did based on tutorials by Mark Crilley. His youtube channel has the best manga tutorials I’ve seen so far.

When I told a friend of mine I wanted to get back into art, he recommended I get the book Drawing Course by Charles Bargue and Jean-Léon Gérôme. The book contains almost 200 lithographic plates used in the 1860′s to teach art students to draw in a traditional, representational manner. The student is to copy all of the plates in succession, ultimately preparing her to draw from life. Of course, I’m far too impatient for that so I draw from various sources, although I think it would behoove me to do all of the plates at some point.

Interesting that the lines in the Drawing Course copy aren’t far off from the manga drawings. The premise and basic anatomy are the same, but the manga allows for the simplification or exaggeration of various features to achieve a particular effect.

I think I’m starting to remember how to draw. I hadn’t really drawn anything in years when I decided I wanted to get back to it. Though my sketches still need plenty of work, they are starting to resemble what I’m drawing – a step in the right direction.

In this series, I focused on still life, getting the image on the page quickly, and not using an eraser. The idea is to be less dependent on erasing so that perhaps the lines will be a bit more accurate in the first place. Also, just as I’ve done with collaging, I have a habit of committing to lines that are wrong by drawing them in too darkly, when it’s a better idea to draw lightly until I’m sure a line is where it should be.

I need to get better at conveying the weight and dimension of an object so it doesn’t look like it’s floating in space.

I have a little bit of a thing for plastic bags in paintings. It amazes me how they can be made to look shiny…

This is why an eraser has been my best friend.