Hear No Evil November 8, 2008

On Thursday, I left my sketchbook sitting on the scanner at work, so no drawing. Then Friday, I just didn’t get around to drawing. Today, though—sixteen sketches. Albeit small, sloppy ones.

I’m working with three classmates on a video project, and this week we had to draw storyboards for our piece. The guys wrote a script on Thursday, while I had a prior engagement. Today we split the script up into four chunks, and each of us drew the panels for one section. My first four panels are above; the rest are on Flickr: pages 2, 3, 4. The whole storyboard is in this PDF.

The gist of the story is that this guy (ML, aka Male Lead) discovers that his headphones allow him to hear other people’s thoughts—but only negative ones.

Next week, we’re somehow going to try to shoot this thing, in the subway.

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Orange November 25, 2007

Somebody dropped his or her orange onto the subway tracks. Bummer.

A case in point November 14, 2007

Yesterday, when I posted that drawing of various strangers’ feet, Jerry Waese commented at Flickr, “next time do ears.” I replied that

The problem with ears is that they’re attached to people’s heads. I’d have to look at a bunch of strangers’ heads, and they’d think I was staring at them (which I would be), and they’d get freaked out / annoyed / hostile. . . .

Everybody wants to be anonymous on the subway.

Today, because of poor planning, I was stuck drawing feet again; and the train was pretty crowded, so I was drawing the woman directly in front of me. She didn’t notice for a while, because she was reading. But eventually she did, at a point when I was staring very intently at her shoes, and she began to fidget. Finally, at a stop where the train emptied out a bit, she got up and walked down the car. Not to get off, just to change seats.

I was not dressed like a scary person. I was wearing a black and white flowered dress, red clogs, black leather jacket, pink scarf, iPod. Doesn’t matter. People don’t like being drawn around here.

Feets

People on the train were not cooperating this evening. They all kept moving their feet.

Do not hold doors November 12, 2007

The woman reflected in the door across from me.

Herringbone November 10, 2007

So, remember how I said that choosing a subject who won’t move is the hard part of drawing on the subway? Yeah. Yesterday’s model, who’d looked like he was really devoted to this subway pole, dove for a seat when I’d barely had a chance to get started. How rude! So I had to occupy myself for the rest of the ride somehow . . .

This guy wasn’t actually wearing a herringbone coat, but the man sitting next to me on my morning train ride had been. I’d considered drawing that guy for a moment but was at a bad angle; also, I was hoping I’d find something over the course of the day that ould fit into the Illustration Friday theme of “scale.” I didn’t. So then in the evening, I decided to get my herringbone fix anyway.

I filled in about half of the herringbone at home.

Rockabilly Businessman November 8, 2007

I thought this man’s hair—very nearly approaching a pompadour—was a bit unusual for a guy wearing a suit. Rock on!

more subway people November 7, 2007

I started with the woman’s hands, because she was sleeping and wasn’t likely to move. But then I figured I needed to fill in some part of the train behind her, so then the pole, and then the guy behind the pole, who kept moving his goddamn newspaper.

Newspaper readers—feh. They’re always moving.

I scrawled in the feet of the guy behind him as the train was pulling in at my stop.

Winter White Hat November 2, 2007

So, because today’s Illustration Friday theme is “Hats,” on the subway this morning I looked for a person wearing one. Not difficult—half the men in New York wear baseball caps. But this guy, though layered very thoroughly in turtleneck, sweater, and puff coat, was wearing a brilliant white piqué cap. So summery! Or, if you prefer, winter white.

And, of course, he had on sunglasses, although he was underground and reading a newspaper.

I didn’t have a good seat today, and he kept moving his head from one side to the other as he turned the pages of his newspaper (another reason to fold up your newspaper as you read, people!), which is why his hat obeys no known conventions of two-dimensional representation. At least, that is my story, and I am sticking to it.

A busy morning November 1, 2007

I had this brilliant idea that for DrawMo! 2007, instead of doing most of my drawings between midnight and 1 am, I would get it out of the way at the start of each day. Ha! This morning my inbox was full of last-minute DrawMo! correspondence, so I dealt with that instead of sketching my bowl of oatmeal. Aren’t you grateful?

Instead, then, I pledged that if I could get a decent seat on the train, I would draw en route. And because I left the house so late, I did get a whole corner to myself. But I couldn’t bring myself to draw any of my fellow passengers, so I turned my gaze upward and drew a spot where a vertical post meets the ceiling. Thrilling!

Hey, baby steps. Baby steps.