Mastering Markers

Alright, this will be a lengthy post, I only started with a few, then I kept remembering more drawings that I had that dealt with markers so it grew.

Sketching for a month straight can get somewhat boring. Granted, it helps you very much, especially when the sketching is done straight from observation, but sometimes a little color helps. I had a couple color pens in NY that helped, but soon I got my hands on a set of prismacolor markers. They're supposed to be the best around. I don't know much about that because I'm not a marker afficianado. They are a way to add color to sketches and drawings without breaking out paints. Colored pencils aren't really my thing either. I haven't done much with them and I ended up being so busy in NY that I didn't have as much time as I would've liked using them.

I started small with a few drawings at the botanical gardens. I've never been a big fan of landscapes or just pictures of nature but it never hurts to use some things you aren't very comfortable with. I ended up with a pretty nice set of little drawings for the day. Most of these were done in pencil on site and then I colored them in back at the loft.

One of my favorite places in NYC is the Museum of Natural History. I've always loved animals and this is a perfect place to draw them because of the models. It's almost like having a live animal pose for you, without the threat of trampling, mauling, or death. As with the botanical gardens, I used pencil while I was there and filled in the color later from memory.

The biggest thing with drawing from life is that you'll have to make sacrifices with color. Unless you have a huge set of markers, you won't be able to match colors perfectly. Which is fine for me because I love messing around with unnatural colors. For most of these I didn't stray too far but I think once I get better at actually drawing with the markers, I'll experiment with those.

I've only done four larger drawings with the markers. The first was the view from the loft into DUMBO. The sun made awesome colors which didn't really translate to the drawing but it was more for practice than anything. It was mainly an experiment of filling in color. Should I use crosshatch? Should I use solid bands of color? Do different textures work?

Being so close to the waters and a brand new park they built by the Brooklyn Bride, we spent a lot of time there. I was always fascinated with the water and old docks and random logs in the water, I sketched them several times and eventually made a drawing of one old dock. They have taken all the top boards off of it so it's a collection of these logs poking out of the water, they were so fascinating for reasons I still can't explain.

Recently I drew a picture of Walt from Breaking Bad. This is a phenomenal show and I often draw whatever happens to be fresh in my mind. I watched a lot of Breaking Bad last month so I sat down and threw this on paper to see if I could learn anything. I tried coloring the back of thicker paper and letting the marker bleed through to fill in his skin, hoping that would add more of a blended feel and not just solid chunks of color. For the most part, it worked, but there is definite tweeking to be done.

Probably my most successful piece with markers was this drawing of the singer from Passion Pit. This was also done with some colored pens, which helped with the line work and they were also colors that I didn't have with the markers. I think using a mix of lines and chunks of colors really helped in this one. Too often with this markers I try to cover up everything with color instead of merely suggesting it.

Using the markers are much easier because there is very little set up. There are drawbacks in color range and blending, but for adding color to sketches they do just fine. They are great for intense, graphic images that focus more on shapes and themes rather than ability to recreate real life.