My first live drawing session

I've been drawing more than twenty years, but last week I drew the first time in a live session. It was a brainstorming-kind-of-workshop to generate new ideas and point of views for the future pedagogy. I sat randomly in different groups and listened the discussion trying to visualize either groups' thoughts as they were pointed out... or even better, produce new interpretations and points of view or even question their thoughts. In other words, with my drawings I tried to feed groups' thinking even further - give them nice gentle kicks in an illustrated form.

I was pretty nervous before the new experience and I even gave myself a permission to do some sketching, but in the end I drew everything without sketching. What helped me to get into nice work flow, was that I managed to lower the bar of my self critique.

Of course, when I look those drawings now, I get tempted to do some redrawing here and there, but I try to remember the different function they served.

I got a feeling that people in the workshop liked what I did, but what's more difficult to say is how much added value my work managed to produce. Actually I think it's not just what I do and draw, but also how the participants of the workshop can utilize visual stimulus in their thinking.

So, can visualization offer more than just nice entertaining for workshops, seminars or conferences? Hard to say for sure, but personally I believe in visualization. I say YES!

Werewolf - Happy Halloween

Here's some bestial terror and horror for Halloween, a werewolf I did for Sketch Dailies some days ago.

Ahti - the god of water in Finnish mythology

I tried out an exercise that I gave to my students... and I believe I learned a great deal. I hope the exercise was also useful for my students.

Raven Mocker - Evil being of Cherokee mythology

Just another interesting character for Sketch Dailies. Mythologies seem to be an endless source for wicked creatures. I'd gladly skip meeting Raven Mocker face to face.

I made this with my favourite toys - Wacom Intuos Stylus and Procreat app. Here's a couple of wip screen shots.

Venom - Supervillain

Here's yet another character I made for Sketch Dailies. Doing these daily challenges is not only fun, but it's also a pleasant excuse to keep drawing more than I would otherwise do.

Also I frequently run into characters that I haven't heard of before, like this one - Venom. As far as I got it right, it's somehow related to the Spiderman. I may have seen it before, but I had no idea of its' name. Anyway, now I'm one superhero wiser... only, it's not a good guy, but it's actually mentioned to be a supervillain... So now I also know that there's such a category as "super" for villains also.

I drew this with my favourite combination - iPad Air + Wacom Intuos Stylus + Procreate app. Here's a couple of wip screen shots.

Sketching space gladiators in a battle

Couple of days ago I gave my students a task to design two characters - enemies with each other. At the moment my schedule seems to allow me to make that task with them. So I started to sketch an idea of two space gladiators.

As I didn't have a very clear vision what the characters should look like and not having done this kind of creatures that much before, I found it very hard to come up with anything nice.

When I couldn't come up with a decent composition easily, I used Illustrator to build it with simple shapes. My idea is that the other one is having a scifi-kind-of-blast-cannon to stun it's enemy and the other one is using the same tactic as a viviparous lizard - dropping its tail to bluff the enemy. And that tail being very showy, kind of like the peacock has.

After I found a decent composition I started to build up the characters and their details in Photoshop.

Only at this phase I started to fit in more gladiator props.

Looking forward to finish this... if my other projects just allow me to do it.

Superman - tricot covered flying object

Usually when I feel an urge to draw just something without having any specific topic I end up drawing something that I've seen others drawing a lot, like superheroes, viking warriors, robots, monsters... the list is endless. Well at least I draw something instead of using 2 years trying to come up with extremely original...

Anyway, here's the Superman. In the end I think I had more dynamic postures in the sketches than in the final piece.

In the coloured version I tried to find a colouring method that would fit with a soft and greasy line work. I guess I failed to do that, because the outline sort of lost the vivid feeling it had before colouring. I believe it needs more subtle colours. That kind of line work needs air to breath. So I still need to work on that. Otherwise I'm quite happy. I believe I found some things that can be useful in future.

Princess Leia

Another semi-experimental piece I did for Sketch Dailies.

Hockey goalie - Jussi Markkanen, SaiPa

While Finland is sweating in a heatwave, it's easy to forget that there's only one month to the start of new ice hockey season. In order to cool myself a little bit, I did a player portrait of Jussi Markkanen - the magical goalie of my favourite hockey team. I could have picked him anyway, but in fact I chose a player whom the fans of SaiPa voted for the player of the season 2013-14. I hope to see him glueing the bucks in the way he did last season. Go Jussi, go SaiPa!

... and couple of close ups.

Nike - goddess of victory in Greek mythology

Trying some new thing with a late Sketch Dailies piece.

Andrea Pirlo - an artist of the football fields

If I should name the most elegant football player, that would be Andrea Pirlo of Juventus. And furthermore, he's not only elegant but also a real artist on the field. I've heard someone say: "Plays like a god, looks like Jesus". Forza Juve!

... some close ups.

Petteri Koponen - ready for basketball world cup 2014

As the football world cup in Brazil is now behind, it's basketball's turn. I believe that the finnish basketball fans are already looking forward the Basketball World Cup in Spain as it's the first time that the finnish national team managed to make its way to the tournament. Oh, and it's certainly a rare chance also for the players.

Petteri Koponen is one of the key players of the team. Here's a player portrait I made as a Photoshop practice.

... and some close ups.

Batman playing rock-paper-scissors with Flash

Sketch dailies had a Batman-day.

Alexander Stubb - sporty politician

Here's another piece with a technique I've been playing around recently. This time I managed to skip soccer figures and instead portrayed Alexander Stubb, the new prime minister of Finland. If being fit makes a good politician we shouldn't worry a bit. Alexander is famous of exercising like a professional athlete.

Luis Suarez - from Transylvania (?)

How about some garlic Mr Suarez?

Wayne Rooney finally scored in World Cup 2014

Some soccer again... Being - without a doubt - a great player, it has been almost like a bad luck spell that Wayne Rooney hasn't scored a single goal in World Cup Finals... until a couple of days ago against Uruguay. Unfortunately there's not going to be a lot of chances for more in this WC as England didn't make it to the second round.

Rooney's robust character is very tasty for a player portrait.

... and some close ups.

Zlatan - the real king of Sweden

While waiting today's World Cup 2014 matches I practiced a little bit of my Photoshop skills. It's not that there weren't enough of great players kicking a "brazuca", but still... it would have been so nice to see the magical Zlatan Ibrahimovic with the other superstars. I'm sorry Carl XVI Gustaf, but Zlatan is then real king of Sweden. Too bad they didn't make it to the games.

Here are some close ups.

Viking and a raven

During the previous months I've been so fascinated drawing with iPad/ProCreate app that I have done only very little with Mac/Photoshop... until my previous post. Now I continued experimenting things on Photoshop. I guess I was after some sort of a painterly kind of collage technique. Anyway, I ended up combining both drawn elements with details from photos. Here's a viking for Sketch Dailies.

Soccer time

FIFA World Cup 2014 started yesterday in Brazil. A little bit of honey for all the soccer lovers for a month or so. I may not be the biggest fan, but gonna watch some games for sure. Today I had some time to play around with Photoshop and surprisingly ended up doing some soccer figures.

Wolverine slicing a watermelon

If I only were the Wolverine, I'm sure I'd easily come up with thousands of objects to slice - a watermelon holding the first place.