Blast from the Past: I used to draw news as a warm-up.

I am moving my studio and a lot of stuff gets one more look before joining the recycling bin - change is hard but also interesting and sometimes fun.

For some time I used to do my morning drawing warm-up by drawing news. It was a quick way to get some hand-eye coordination with a spice of fresh happenings from around the world. I stopped this practice at the end of 2016. But here are a few sketches from the several books titled "Summer 2016". There are many portraits of presidential candidates, but lots of things I have forgotten about by now.  I wonder where and how are some of these people. Then I remember that I should be packing and move on.  

Sketchbook #115: Bits and pieces

These are little things that accumulate in my sketchbook. There are days when I know what I want to draw and days when I just open a book and... if I don't start right away - I might never start - so I take first thing in front of me and start moving my pen - be that a tree trunk or a broken light switch. Or - if I managed to clean my table so much there is nothing there - I open up the news (that's the one about the death of Koko the gorilla) and draw - the trick is not to read too much - just glance, close and draw from memory. I drew that branch with tulip tree from memory too I believe - it was still on my table but by accident, I left a book on top of it so it became flat - hence this is my memory of how the now flat branch looked like the day before :)

Sketchbook #102: Pieces Everyday Life

I am continuing posting some sketches from December here... Another tooth was lost, news were drawn to digest them, room decorated for all kinds of winter holidays we celebrated and visit to doctor with elderly relative.

my news digest: Jan. 27, 2009

my news digest: Jan. 27, 2009, originally uploaded by apple-pine.

Halloween drawings

Halloween drawings, originally uploaded by apple-pine.

From the News and from life: costume time! :)

My News Digest

News DIgest, originally uploaded by apple-pine.

I am working on continuing news digest - it's a warm-up activity that starts my day in the right way :) But some news are not as interesting as other things in my sketchbook (I think) so I rarely scan them to post here :) This tennis player won match with Roger Federer a few days after I drew this - just as I predicted here :) - so I decided to scan it :)

Staedtler brush pen in my Moleskine.

The Guardian Unlimited

Drawing from the Guardian - this is one of the new coaches in soccer I think ;)

news digest

who will be next?

Another News Digest

Reading book reviews in NY Times and looking for a better image of Gertrude Stein online, then drawing it. This was done a few weeks ago - I am working on post with more current drawing ;)

News Digest

NY Times articles - about one of the superior court judges (above) and about Vows (below)

News Digest

Article in NY times (I am still catching up on my sketchbooks - so it was a little while ago). Discussion about lethal injection as a death penalty. This person did not reject his sentence - but he did not want to go via lethal injection. The article did not say (perhaps, journalist did not ask?) which way he wanted to go though.

Rainy day

Rainy day prompted lazy mom to take little one to the toys store :) Bottom right - from the article about orchestra in the Guardian.

Distant Zoo

Zoological Society of London recently published a whole bunch of historical photos. Since Zoo is always an interesting subject for me - I indulged in drawing many images from photos - consider this my news digest :) If you click on any of the images below you will see larger version and in some cases - note about the photo.


Image above inspired me to find an old photo which was taken in the zoo when I had a chance to play with a little lion and a couple of bears. Bears won, by the way ;)

Illustration Friday: excess

My News Digest: NYTimes

Articel about the little rock nine

My News Digest: more Nixon faces :)

It's a coincident. But Nixon's face popped up two days in a row in the newspapers - so I did another take on him... I think first one was better though.

My News Digest and Flowers

I've been working on getting more sketching in my day and also on developing a warming-up daily routine - you know - to get some rough lines out of your system before you start working on main things? So while re-visiting Danny Gregory's CREATIVE LICENSE, THE: GIVING YOURSELF PERMISSION TO BE THE ARTIST YOU TRULY ARE I found a passage about Tommy Kane who starts his day by making one drawing about news he reads in new york times.
I read a few online newspapers - so why not make my news digestion more creative and productive time? And I am giving it a try for a while. Actually I started over a month ago - I am just a little behind on posts here :)


And here are some occupants of my patio :)