Welcome back Reader!

Did it ever happen to you that after being away for a while, it's hard to get back into your routine?

This is part of what happened to me after my vacation, but this week I doubled down to try to fix this :)

So today let's reflect on the art I did this week! 🌿

Back to the Basics!

To be honest, since coming back from my recent trip to Japan, it has been hard to go back to my previous art rhythm. I was happy to sketch and doodle, but working on a big illustration seemed quite intimidating!

So this week I decided to go back to my roots, and practice gesture drawing again :)

This exercise is about drawing from a series of images in a very limited amount of time. How limited? less than a minute per picture in my case. Which is pretty intense, especially when doing dozens in a row.

I discovered this a few years ago, and I even followed a course on the subject. Since then it has become a staple of my practice!

But why spend so little time on each drawing? The goal here is to quickly capture the essence and especially movement. No time to overthink details or shading; a minute fly by extremely fast when you’re drawing!

Something unusual I did this time, however, is to not only draw figures but also landscapes.

You see, the website I use for gesture drawing also has a massive collection of free images, including urban and rural scenes. Landscapes are a big interest of mine, so why not give it a try!

In total, in one evening I’ve drawn 20 figures, 30 landscapes, over 7 A4 pages, both sides!

This was intense, but I’ve done so much because I enjoyed it. Limited time + a clear direction is a good combination to turn off my anxiety and just get myself to draw.

I now feel ready to come back to my regular illustrations!

Landscape illustration

And indeed, this weekend I felt right back on track! I completed this illustration in a little more than a day :)

This landscape is based on a picture from my trip, where we left the ropeway in Hakone to enjoy a short hike in the forest. Nobody else was there, so we were able to fully enjoy the fresh atmosphere (a nice change in this Japanese summer!).

As you can see, I didn’t go as detailed as I usually do; notice how the lines are bigger this time. This was on purpose!

For this nature scene, I wanted to aim for an imperfect, more expressive result. Not only to get my feet wet again with larger scale illustration, but also go along with the clutter of the forest.

And speaking of details, I realized something after this week of drawing:

One thing I love about making art is the opportunity to engage deeper with a subject. To discover at the scene for what it is instead of what my mind thinks it is.

What do I mean by this? Sometimes you assume things look a certain way, and it prevents you from looking at the truth you’re not expecting.

A simple example: I took this picture myself. I saw it many times before. I drew it 3 times in a row as I was refining the sketch.

And yet, it took me this long to realize that the root on the bottom left isn’t some disconnected element disappearing into the ground. It is actually the root of the tree, and you can trace it back perfectly!

My mind was too busy processing the clutter that it made wrong assumptions, instead of looking at this detail for what it was.

And this is an experience I’ve had with many other details in this image.

All that to say, it’s a precious opportunity for me to have art to appreciate reality further 🌿

Q: What would you want me to talk about?

Reader, I have a question for you!

You have been reading my newsletter, maybe for some time now, so I really value your opinion.

I always have plenty of ideas for this newsletter, but I now want to expand my writing further. Especially to my blog, to go deeper in non-time sensitive topics.

So my question for you this week is:

Which topic are interesting to you? What subject should I talk more or less about?

Please feel free to click on the reply button and answer this email directly. It’s always a joy when one of you respond :)

This is it for this week!

Thanks for following along in my journey. I'm looking forward to your response, and to meeting you again next week with more art 💛

Have a great day and a great rest of your week, and in the meantime,

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Take care,
- Nighten

This email is part of my art Newsletter. Invite a friend to join the club: https://club.nighten.fr​

PS: The new illustration has been added to the coloring page folder! You can download all of them right away by clicking here:

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