Sketchbook 2

My main objective with these sketches was to practice drawing the human form in a looser way. The figure closest to the middle with NO written by her head is how I have typically drawn the female human form. The figures around her with the word YES written by them are a lot closer to how I would like to paint humans going forward.

I particularly liked this figure in the corner, I liked her disjointed limbs, wirey fingers, and the varying tones on her skin. I also initially gave her lined hair (similar to her fingers), but then went over the lines with spontaneous drips of water colour, in the end I decided that I prefered the effect of the dripping water colour over the painted lines.

I thought that this figure looked like a sloth (was definitley the arms and her nose).

I liked these figure because they look like they are moving, they are faceless as I am still figuring out how I want to depict faces within my painting.

I was very excited about this little sun- He was initialy entirely yellow but I didn’t like the face that I had painted on him so I went over it with a pinch of blue paint, which then turned green, and then I painted this very loose blue face ontop. This happy accident really helped me understand the influence that informal sketcbook paintings can have on finished art works. For intsance, I liked this sun so much that I have made a mental note to be sure to replicate it in one of my future paintings.

Palm trees seem to be a staple symbol often depicted in tradional African folk art, and Asafo Flag appliques, they are also often present in Albert Lubaki’s paintings, and I for one enjoy both looking at them and painting them.

I painted another loose little monkey, I was pleased to find that my hands and mind could easily replicate this style.

I painted another mermaid, this time flat and on her side with the top of her arms melted into her sides. Much like the palm trees, through my research I found that depicting mermaids in this way (flat and on their side) was very common within traditional African folk art such as Asafo Flags.