I'm Moving......

Since it seems that I've used up my quota of photos from Blogspot's free service, and I'm way too cheap to pay to upgrade, I'm moving to Facebook. If you'd like to continue following, please feel free to visit me at http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151166603948651.445494.578493650&type=1. Thanks so much for sticking with me for all this time... I hope to see you there.... :-D

 yesterday someone was reading an actual BOOK on the train. :-O

And today this gent was sketching. Well, he was drawing a page full of y's. Then an abstract flower. Then he got off the train.

Rumbling along on the train gives you some odd but cool lines...

Five minutes. Two faces. Top one....not so sure. Bottom one...not TOO bad.

I decided to take my H pencil today and sketch a furry to see how that'd work. No eraser, no grid, in a couple of hours. This is Clementine Marie Adame who has about the most beautiful brown eyes you'd ever see, along with a great happy puppy grin (that happens to be slightly askew due to a cleft palate, but doesn't detract from her beauty one tiny bit).

Today I took a step back to remember where I was almost two whole years ago. When it took me several days, a grid, an entire pack of pencils from 8B to 6H pencils, stiff lines, an eraser, and a lot of stepping back to measure several times just to get one portrait done. Today? MAYBE a couple hours, no grid, one 2B pencil, loose lines, and NO ERASER... and this is why I practice EVERY. DAY.

Nobody wanted to stick around long enough, so I just did bits and pieces of randoms. :-)

fun with lines. :-)

not much today, but a little bit is better than nothing. :-)

Today on the train I held my pen loosely, and once I put it on the paper it didn't come off.Each one one solid line, and a LOT of staring at the humans instead of the paper. Fun fun! :-D

:) Three Threes

Hm.... sometimes that profile can be kind of stiff....

I was a bit slow today...

More three minute-ers....

....yup....

10-30-2012....a busy night, I'd sketched on the train, but wasn't able to add them in....so here they are....

10-31-2012And back to the three minut-ers. It was a crowded day on the train....with, oddly enough, no one facing me...

Practice practice practice...

April and Marni and Brian and Mike, oh my! :-D These three minute-ers are really helping me loosen up.

It wound up being all ladies today. But still oh so different. :-)

Four Three minute practices. I had fun today. It always seems like that first one is the practice for the practice. :-D

Only two sketches tonight. Four minutes. My computer was running slow, so I gave up waiting for it to catch up and let me sketch more.

The several unfinished ones I like better than the finished ones...

Not too many people holding still today. WOW. Finally I got a quick one in of a guy who was bouncing between watching people, reading his phone, and staring off into space.

Just a couple three minute-ers tonight. Between the debate and getting the Sadie back to her owners I was a wee bit busy. But I did manage to get a few done. :-)

Four three minute-ers and one dog paw.

Tonight I relaxed  a bit. Stopped, took a real look at them, then jumped in and gave it a try. Three  minutes. And an evening full of fun. And practice. :-)

These wound up being three-and-a-half-minute-ers. All but one mostly finished. the picturing thing is starting to work better for me, I think. :)

Down the train aisle, through the gaps of arms and bags akimbo, I spy with my brown eyes....something to draw....

This one started out as a not-so-favorite. I absolutely realized what I was doing wrong.I was too mental in trying to get it to look like people. That happens sometimes. That's when things slow down and it starts getting stiff and I want someone to come up behind me and give me a good head slap. My favorite times are when I STOP thinking, and cut off the communication between my brain and hand and let my hand do all the work. But it DID start growing on me the more I did. Some cool, some sucky.... such is life. And practice. :-)

For some reason I love this one. No verbal explanation, I just do. :)

The train was crowded today. Let me re-state that. The train was VERY crowded today. Beyond the norm. While I was sketching this I was getting constantly battered by a woman's overly large handbag. These two didn't know each other, but just happened to sit down right in front of me. So they were fair game. :-)

If you want to see yourself badly drawn in three minutes and under, you might want to keep an eye out on these sketches. When I'm not on the train with my pen and pad, I'm scrolling through my friends list on Facebook, closing my eyes, and clicking blindly to find my next victim. Good luck if you can actually tell if it's you or not though. ;-)

More three minute-ers. Bit more finished, bit easier, maybe better with more practice...

Three minutes is still kicking my butt. :-) But I like the challenge....

Three minutes, two ALMOST finished, three notsomuch. I kept wanting to slow down to catch their features more exactly. Bad Cyndi!  :-O

I thought the lady down at the bottom...(the last to be drawn) was very interesting. Now it seems like the hardest part of sketching someone is getting their lips. Hm. We'll have to work on that. ;-)

She started out smooth on the nose... you can tell I was at a train stop. Then she started getting kinda shaky as we sped off. Not that I mind it. More an observation. :-D

Yup. It's a Monday morning on the train.... catching some Z's....

 Today I tried my hand at three minute sketching. Gonna have to speed my lines up. I barely made it through two faces, and one...well...I'd use the excuse that my cat got in the way (which he DID)...but naaah. My fault. Just time to practice speedier moves... ;-)

 Yesterday I was off...at a wedding... so of course I wasn't able to get on the laptop and upload the sketches I did while AT the wedding... whoops. So anyway, here you go... yesterday's sketches...

And a full one from yesterday... one of my more used subjects....my mom...

Three more four minute-ers. I didn't finish the top one, but hey, I still like the way it was going. :-)

Sleepy train peeps...younger and older...

Today I felt stiff. Like I was trying too hard to not try. Therefore....it looks like I took a step backward in progression. But we live and learn. ;-) The top right corner was my first, and more concentrated, and cleanest. I decided I was trying to be too careful and loosened up... the middle three are my effort to do so.. with varied "meh" results. The bottom right was the last, and probably my favorite of all of them...feeling the least focused on "trying" and just more "doing" :-)

A regal looking guy minding his own business on the train....

more four minutes...yeah....some I'm not so crazy about, some are not too bad at all... :-)

I cut it off to four minutes this time. The upper right was the first one... ran outta time. Whoops. :)

Four More

This five minute thing is a good tool for making yourself lay the line and quit thinking about it too hard. Go with the gut, put it in, and it'll feel right. :-)

Three circles and a line. In the past I'd added in some details roughly in pencil to get features' sizes but in the past few days I've given it up. Now I sketch three circles. One for the approximate area of the face, one for the depth of the skull, and one for the nose. Then a curved line bisecting the front of the face to help me with the direction the face is pointing. The rest is up to the pen and any hiccups that may occur on the train as it lurches to and fro or rides smoothly into the next station. It's a bit more fun, I have to say.... :)