Rapid Art

Published January 5th, 2009 at 9:49 pm in Imagery, Sketch with no comments
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The ability to see proportions, dimension, light, form, and texture – as well as having a good supply of patience – is paramount to creating well done realistic drawing – whether it’s part of a medical illustration or not. And it’s great if you can do it, but even more impressive is having the ability to percieve all those elements rapidly, without losing accuracy.

We’ll be doing surgical illustration later on this semester, and unlike freshman undergraduate drawing classes where 3 hours were given to meticulously establish proportions of still lifes, or even earlier this semester when project subjects were always on hand, speed will count. When we’re in the operating room, you can’t request a doctor to ‘hold that pose’, or stop mid-slice. And forget about aesthetic lighting to enhance form – that’ll have to come later. At the time, it’ll be glances and furious sketching. Although past illustrations can be researched for details or certain relationships, I’m a believer that any drawings from direct observation are invaluable.

In anticipation of this, I’m posting several images and links to great painting-a-day blogs and sketches, as much for personal inspiration as for you lucky readers. I’m not sure how long painting-a-day painters give themselves to finish the work, but it’s certainly short relative to typical oil painting time frames. The plan is do more rapid sketches myself, and level up in my observational skills.