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InkTober – Week One
In my last post I mentioned I was taking part in InkTober. I wanted to use the whole month to challenge aspects of my drawing and creativity. For that reason I placed the following limitations for each drawing I have done and will continue to do for the rest of October:
1/ Complete each drawing within an 1 hour – This is to improve my speed at drawing, and become more decisive and fluid with my mark making on the page. I hope this will help me to be more rapid when hired for illustration commissions. Also I wanted to make the whole 31 day challenge doable… sparing an hour of my day is more than doable.
2/ Each drawing will be based around a particular figure, posture, and perspective – To improve my anatomy drawing further and also be willing to make bad drawing and learn from them.
Improving Your Artwork with the right Questions…
Hey there sports fans! And/or art fans. I’ve been locked away the past few weeks working on a few things, mainly a new series of illustrations of the tennis Big Four. For those that don’t know The Big Four are top tennis players Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray.
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Some of you may have seen versions of Djokovic and Nadal which is where the idea for this series began. As I posted them around on different sites a lot of people were requesting that I do the other two and create a series of the four.
The popularity inspired the idea to do my first art launch of limited edition prints. With that in mind I decided each illustration will need to be worthy of print.
As it has been a long while since I originally created the illustration of Nadal I thought he needed freshening up. I noticed a lot of flaws in the original design and I thought it would be helpful to share a bit of the process I go through when analysing and improving my artwork.
25 Drawings for Your Pleasure/Displeasure…
I realised I’ve got a lot of drawings hidden away in various sketch books so I thought I’d compile a few of my favourites and share them with you, along with a few words about them i.e, what was going through my head, what I like/don’t like about them. FYI I also have a lot of crap drawings in my sketchbooks but no one needs to see those.
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I’ve simply taken photos of them to show them in their raw, untouched state. A lot were done in cafes, simply because I love coffee and I love to draw in the warm ambience of a nice cafe: the sounds, the various conversations you overhear, the weird characters you notice – they all have stories.
A couple of these you may have already seen if you follow my instagram, but you can probably see more detail with these larger versions:
I was on a Saturday mission to have coffee and get supplies all within two hours so I wouldn’t have to pay an extra tram fare (hey, we’re all on a budget sometimes). The top image is what I completed in that time, I later filled in the rest at home, as I already got the basics I needed. I was really inspired by the lighting in the cafe and wanted to focus on pretty much using large areas of black.
Novak “The Djoker” Djokovic
Tennis is one of the sports I grew up with. When I was younger my dad worked as a tennis coach and would regularly take my sister and me down to the local courts on weekends to play.
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Although I don’t really play much any more I still like to watch, and I have immense respect for professional tennis players. It’s one of the few sports where the mental aspect of the game is just as vital as the physical aspect.
I’m a big fan of Novak Djokovic. The man is a great role model and sports personality for various reasons.
Live Painting & New Challenges
I was recently hired through my agency The Drawing Arm to do a spot of live painting for the perfume brand Jo Malone London. It was hands down the nicest smelling job I’ve ever had.
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This was a job where I had to step out of my comfort zone, literally and figuratively. Three days of live painting in a large department store. I’d never done this before, and wasn’t sure what to expect…
The job involved painting London landmarks on Jo Malone perfume boxes which were available for customers to buy over the Mother’s Day weekend. When I arrived I was directed to a cosy little table at one side of the department, covered in a mountain of boxes.
Background Designs à la Japanese Anime
Welcome back! In my previous post I mentioned I was hired to produce some background and character designs for an animation studio — the wonderful London based Picnic Studio. It was a bitter-sweet job, a dream opportunity that got snatched away too soon, though through no fault of the studio I must say!
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The studio had been hired by a big sports brand to produce an animated TV advert in the style of a black and white Japanese anime. They had seen my work* and liked my style, asking if I’d be interested in producing character designs and backgrounds for the animation.
Attached in there email was a PDF file explaining the style they were going for along with visual references to Akira and Katsuhiro Otomo, at which point I started to salivate.
YES MAN
It sounded like a big responsibility, but it was an opportunity to produce work in such a wonderful style and with the potential prospects the job could bring it was too much to turn down. I also felt flattered that they sought me out and consider me to undertake what would be a big contribution to the look of the whole animation.
With pretty much most jobs offers that sound good to me I will always tell the client “Sure, I can do that for you, no problem.” I feel confident enough at this stage in my career, with the success of past jobs and the creative challenges I’ve faced that if I just say “Yes” I can find a way to get it done.
In the early days I used to over-think things and question my abilities; “Am I good enough to produce what they’re asking for?”. But my past successes have taught me to stop that sort of thinking, now I just slap myself and say “C’mon man! You’ve done it before, you can do it again! And you’re even better now than the “you” that did it before!”
A few from Instagram
As I only really post my sketches through instagram I thought I’d chuck a few on here.
Enjoy?
New picture book project…
For the next few months I’ll be working on the illustrations for a picture book written by my friend which I’m really excited to be working on.
Below I’ve posted the outlines for pages 1-3 of the book.
I’ll be posting regular updates as I create them here on my site and also on my Behance page.
Conversatial “Clean You”
Another new Conversatial?! Yes. I’ve already explained what Conversatial IS (see two posts below), check it out if you haven’t already.
“I just want to clean you.”
I wasn’t sure where to go with this Conversation snippet. Sometimes an idea for an image comes straight to mind and other times I need to brainstorm a bit.
Instagram – Hit me up , YO!
Hey Ladies and Gentlemen! Just thought I’d let you know I’m now on Instagram under the name ainsleyknott. I’ve started using it exclusively to show sketches that I do on the go, mainly because it’s quick and easy but also because I think it helps get over the need to be perfect and polish everything off.
I may post the odd one or two which I really like here on the site, but I like the idea of having a separate vault, so to speak, for all my sketches. Here are some to whet your appetite. AND they’ll only get better over time!
Maybe.
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