Hay y’all

Me and a lady friend went picking apples for some fall festivities this past weekend, and I figured I might as well make an art opportunity out of it. So I decided to do a study of the apples.

It’s been really interesting because I’ve been doing many more portraits lately. But I started this whole new series, or practice, of observational work by drawing objects, and the way you approach drawing a human is just so different from the way you approach drawing an object. The focus is different.

Portraiture is also, by nature, much more humbling than drawing an object. So it felt nice to do this apple study and feel somewhat relieved from the anxiety I sometimes get when I’m trying to capture someone’s likeness and wondering whether I’m going to make them look like a monster. If that makes sense.

So anyway, here’s my apple study. Trying to get a little festive with it. Trying to keep consistent.

One thing I’ve noticed is that I’m really good at digging into the details and making a whole two-hour study. But one thing I really want to mess with is: how do I do a 15-minute color study? How do I do a 30-minute color study? I can do a 15-minute line drawing, but how do I do a 15-minute color study and still produce a good result?

And I think that ties into this whole idea of style. For whatever reason, I feel like I’m going to find my style through observational work and through quicker studies, because you have to make quicker decisions. You don’t have time to overthink every little thing.

Another thing that’s really interesting is watching the line disappear.

I grew up as a cartoonist, so I’m always thinking about representing form through line. But now we’re talking about representing form through value and color. And with this study in particular, I’m trying to let the line disappear.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy.