Jeff: All right everybody, how you guys doing out
there? Really happy to be here talking a little bit
about the art of sketchbooking, what it means to me, show you some examples of some of my
past sketchbooks. If you don't know me, I have an atelier called
Watts Atelier of the Arts and we've had it for about, almost 30 years now. Started it very young. Stan was a wonderful student of mine for many
years and I’m happy to be doing this for him. For me, I’ve always thought of sketchbooking
almost as a diary and I’ve used it for many different purposes. It's a way to commit to memory information. For example, if you're studying anatomy of
animals or you're studying human anatomy, it's a great thing to just separate out a
sketchbook, at least I like to, where I only have it directly associated with that particular
subject. It helps me get my mind in the right space
when I’m doing that particular work and I always like to set my intentionality before
I do sketchbooking. What does that mean? It means I have a very specific reason when
I’m doing it. Sometimes it's simply to vent, sometimes it
might be to commit to memory a part of the body, like the shoulder girdle or a bone or
the pelvic section and I’ll go to very specific sources. I have another sketchbook that's donated entirely
to animals. I used to teach zoo drawing a lot. We would go draw actually from life, the live
animals, we would also study them academically in the classroom, then we'd go to the zoo. I have another one that is strictly idea generation
for comics, concepting visual development, figure inventions, creature inventions, character
inventions, things of that sort. I have another one that's more painting directed,
where it's just little comps and sketches in gouache and things of that sort around building
larger ideas for my more larger concepts for bigger painting efforts, correct? So, that being said, let's take a look in
here. Let's dive in here and see what we got. Everyone does quick sketchbooking differently,
some of the sketchbooks I like are Kim Jung Gi is awesome, the guy is a Phenom, Karl Kopinski,
people like that. Claire Wendling just is amazing, Frank Frazetta's
RefWorks is fantastic. Some of Phil Hale's, all the work in some
of his sketchbooks are pretty phenomenal, Neil Adams sketchbooks pretty great. There was a period there where everybody was
producing sketchbooks and when I go to the San Diego comic convention, I would always
pick up one or two of them, three of them, four of them and I would doodle from them. I might sketch from them, I’d come up with
ideas for different techniques I wanted to do, things of that sort. First one I’m gonna dive into here is my
- one that I’ve allocated specifically for anatomy. Notice it's a very nice sketchbook. It's a leather bound, makes you want to do
something nice in it when you just see the sketchbook itself. Before I knew it was going to be anatomy sketchbook,
I think I was sitting at the Portrait Convention and I was just sketching while I was listening
to a lecture, so that was a Bernini study. So, here's a little bit of graphite. There's a ballpoint pen in there as well,
just some torso work, stripping away different aspects of the torso, looking how the latissimus
works mechanically, looking at some of the rotator cuff information as well as a little
bit of the tricep. Now I go over here and I got some Hogarth,
okay? So this is Burne Hogarth, this is my interpretation
of him. It's not a direct lift because when I’m
doing this stuff, I want to commit to memory; insertions, origins, indications, how to indicate
certain aspects. Sometimes it's topographic information I’m
seeking and Hogarth in my opinion is very good at that. I’m not 100% entirely fond with his drawing
methodology. He's a little bit too whimsical for me, meaning
too many curves, not enough straights for me. So, the perfect blend really is Loomis and
he's kind of somewhere between Bridgeman and Hogarth kind of combined, but you can take
a lot out of these different artists. And again, let me get a pointer or something... You can see how I’m wrapping the lines topographically
trying to get a three-dimensional image impacted and basically memorized into my mind so that
I can use this in quick sketch life drawing, figure invention and whatnot. Just studying the scapula, very difficult
bone, very beautifully designed if there is such a thing with bones. I find them very interesting, every little
bevel, every little crease has an attachment aspect to it, some tendons, some ligament,
some muscle is going to attach. Again, we can see the latissimus as it wraps
up and attaches onto the humerus. The humerus is in a very first shortened position. We got some Frazetta arms here. Frank Frazetta, one of the you know, again,
I call him the Muhammad Ali of anatomy, right? He is one of the best and he is an embodiment
of George Bridgeman, in my opinion, better than Bridgeman in a lot of ways. So again, I’m using ballpoint pen freehand
here and I’m sketching with no laying lines. So again, you see that's a very direct approach
to drawing and it's one of the most difficult. So, when you're doing that kind of drawing,
it's good for your - everything from your hand development to your eye development. Here's just a close-up of an arm. Here's when I was actually developing the
more advanced Riley abstraction which is now kind of what Watts Atelier is known for is
the Reilly method or at least carrying on that lineage. I now call it kind of Watts Riley Method of
the Watts Carmel method. And this was me trying to figure out a more
advanced version of the abstraction than the one that was given to me when I was in school
which was quite rudimentary. These are actually more doodle sketches from
an anatomical medical sketchbook or a medical textbook which is really more for use with
surgeons and people of that sort, people going to med school and I like to do my more academic
work from things like that. A lot of times I label like teres major, teres
latissimus coming in, teres major coming underneath it, bicep, tricep, to kind of get an understanding. Some people might ask "why would you want
to know that much about anatomy?", because it really concretizes the understanding of
what you're doing and then when you're inventing it, there's just a believability that comes
into your sketches that would not normally be there if you were not that adept at the
deeper information. Okay, so here's a little bit of Bridgeman. Look at this beautiful kind of intertwining,
twisting kind of abstraction of deltoid into the tricep, back into the ridge muscles and
again, then exploring some of the Bridgeman but putting a little bit of Hogarth into it
and just looking at those concepts. Working on the pronation and supination of
the forearm. I know some of this maybe it's a little bit
boring, but we're just going to roll through it. That's kind of labeling everything, showing
how it twists, but even making an art out of the arrow. Rather than just doing some dumpy dorky arrow,
maybe put a little panache into it, you know? Studying the flexors and extensors of the
forearm, getting a little bit of Bridgeman coming in with the wedging of the large shapes
and for those of you who are really interested in my interpretation of Bridgeman, I will
be coming out with the Bridgeman book here. Remember, we just had it on Proko about a
month ago where I announced that coming. So you can see some of the sketches that aren't
in that book but I probably will print my sketchbooks down the road. Some little notes in there about wedging and
where things are wedging and where things are protruding. Again, that's very Bridgeman. This is just a clean indication of the scapula,
clavicle, chromium process area and just labeling everything and really trying to commit to
memory. I don't do a lot of drawings like that but
I do find them helpful from time to time. More Bridgeman showing the wedging, doing
it in ballpoint pen, very direct, okay? Some more teres minor, major, some Bridgeman,
some from other sources. Here's a comple - a splade where we've cut
the muscles and peeled them open. Very much like you were doing a dissection
showing the inner workings of the rotator cuff muscles which is one of the more complicated
areas of the body, in my opinion. A little pectoralis as it wedges and the deltoid
has been - the front head of the deltoid has been stripped away to show you a transparency
or a little x-ray of what's happening with the actual pectoralis muscle and how it twists
and shoves its way in there. And as you move your arm, it kind of untwists
itself and the latissimus works the same way. Here's some cool little non-photo blue Hogarth's
studies. Sometimes I like sketching with that prismacolor
or non-photo blue. Usually it's to prepare for inking, but I
like the way it handles on the paper. In here, I’m showing the subcutaneous bone
protrusions that actually you can palpitate or touch on the surface. Also with the rhythms and how those leg rhythms
kind of flow. Here's a kind of an interesting just cut wedge
version of lower leg. Here's me stripping away sartorius gracilis
and all the different quadricep muscles and where they attach. So, I’m trying to really get an understanding
of, if we flap those muscles open and we peel them back, what's underneath them, how deep
is it, where does it go to, how does it connect, okay? So again, those are just kind of interesting
little guys. Back to ballpoint pen, pes anserine tendon,
rectus abdominis. Here's some Sarah Simblet, she's pretty awesome
and she has a good book on anatomy, many of you probably know it but that's some of my
interpretations of a couple of drawings in there. You can see how kind of stringy and wiry these
muscles get in here. I had a surgeon at one point that wanted us
to do or offered us to do actual - go in and do an actual dissection. And it really, the body, it's muscles, if
you've seen that like, that muscle show that was passing around town years ago. The muscles are so stringy and they're so
sinewy. It's very difficult to even determine which
one's which. I find it easier to study from visible 3D
apps and things of that sort that we have access to now. You don't really need to go cut open cadavers
anymore. An unflexed arm, a flexed arm. What is the difference, how do they look,
what muscles activate when you actually clinch that wrist or you know, like really clench
that forearm, okay? These are cool pages. We're again showing some really beautiful
little graphite micron pen drawings. Also here's talking about the deltoid and
the complexities of the inner head - the middle head of the deltoid versus the rear head and
the front head which are quite simple. Here's some little invented muscle builders
flexing, something you might use for comics. Again, flexing arms. That somehow slipped in, not sure. Again, extensors, flexors. Here's me inventing some little figures over
here using Bridgeman concepts of wedging and concepts of rhythm, marrying a little bit
of the Riley method with Bridgeman which I find works absolutely phenomenally. Here's some more torsos and so, you know,
a lot of times I like to test myself with little invented pages, right? Pages where I’m really diving into what
do I remember from what I’ve studied. And that's the real litmus test, right? If you don't know it, you're not going to
be able to invent a believable figure. You're not going to be able to invent a page
of believable heads. These are little heads that are invented based
on Andrew Loomis's information, Fred Fixler's, Reilly information and Frank Riley and other
sources as well. So, every once in a while, you want to test
yourself with a little invention. So, I’m just gonna invent this big, I don't
know, Conan type character and I’m gonna exaggerate him a little bit and have some
fun with the muscles and skinny up the ankles and bulge out the calves, how far can I go
before it looks really cartoony and kind of cheesy... Here's some fingers and hands slipping in. There's not a lot of handwork in this. I almost feel like I could donate a whole
book just to hands and feet and probably will, although I don't have one at this moment but
not a bad idea. Here's another great little torso page, starting
with that non-photo blue, putting a little bit of brown prismacolor on top of it. It kind of has a nice look to it. And again, kind of a fun way to mix up your
studying so that you just start to not get bored. Using some Riley method and then also showing
some cylindrical mannequinizing mixed in there and some mechanical drawing around the clavicle. Dean Cornwell is another big influence of
mine and his sketch style is very much based on the Riley method but he draws very mechanically
and I’ve also been said that I do the same and there's probably no accident because I
have looked a lot at him. I really love the hand on this one. The way it kind of flows into this almost,
I don't know, very elegant little hand tendon explanation. The other one a little bit more clunky but
I like that one as well. Here's some beautiful little leg renderings
showing the side, back, inside calf area as well with the peroneus muscles and sartorius
and the gastrocnemius and all the you know, achilles tendon and all that kind of great
info. I don't use the terminology so much to impress
you, but to impress upon you the need to really understand this information from many different
angles. Some of it highly mechanical, some of it more
artistic, some of it more literal, some of it a little bit more invented. Because again, when it comes down to it, you
cannot know too much about anatomy. Anatomy is a linchpin, it is one of the main
areas of study that you will have to get a handle on. And here's some really wonderful little Frazetta
legs over here; the snow giants, can't remember these two, but I know the piece but I don't
know the name of the title of the actual piece but I do know the image as if it was burned
into my gray matter because I grew up studying and drawing from Frazetta. My dad's a huge fan. He exposed me to him probably at way too young
of an age. I think I was sketching from him in my five
six years old. My mom, I don't know where she was but apparently
didn't have an issue with me drawing naked people and hyper violent scenes [Laughter]. I think I turned out okay. But anyway, some cool stuff in here about
torsos. Here's a nice little page again showing combinations
of wedging, cross - cutting through the leg muscles and showing kind of a pie, you know,
kind of slotted cut view of it. And here's a nice little bending, twisting,
kind of like Stan's robo bean. Little guy concept. Again these are concepts we taught a long
time ago and he kind of ran with them and he's done a wonderful job of just expanding
on certain aspects of that. Diving into the abstraction and rhythmical
grid and how to tie it together from one side to the other. Arrows pointing to all the ways that I’m
kind of swinging around and looping around and interlocking these muscle masses into
very creative solutions. This one up here being very nice, I like that
one a lot. Some more torsos again, showing topographic
aspects as well as just really nice little invented back. Another Frazetta, Kubla Khan sketch from one
of his inks. Here's some torsos of Frazetta, Conan, a warrior
with ball and chain and then another Viking. Here's from one of his John Carter on Mars
or something, kind of a classic ink that I’ve converted and you can see me again drawing
with a combination of kind of a sepia wax pencil prismacolor and then putting some heavier
dark graphite work on top of it to accentuate it and make it just stylistically look kind
of cool. Again, I think all drawings are about making
things look cool. Now, look at the wedge aspect on this elbow
and how Dean Cornwell and mechanical this Frazetta is. I took Frazetta and Dean Cornwell, weld it
out and that's a really fun thing to do is explore various aspects of intermingling your
influences and that's one step closer to making it you. When you're starting to blend and you can't
even tell where the blending is coming from; is that some Frazetta, is that some Cornwell? What are we doing here? There's some Bridgeman where he talks about
distribution of weight and rhythm and I’m really exaggerating the rhythm here in a very
quick sketch style. Here's another one and again, it's my interpretation
of some of the early drawings in the Bridgeman book where he has some just really beautiful
distribution of weight drawings. So, I’m just having some fun exploring those
drawings in various aspects. Here's another one of his that I’ve interpreted. So, these are just my little interpretations
of his drawing, some of his drawings. These are not - these were actually warm-ups
for the Bridgeman book that I did but they never really made it in there. I think that's about it for that one. So, that's my anatomy sketchbook you guys. Hope you enjoyed that one. Let's just go through these. This is the one that was dedicated entirely
to life drawing mostly from the San Diego zoo. So, a lot of the drawings you're gonna see
in here, with the exception of maybe this anatomical one here, these were all done from
the zoo. The big cats, you know, tigers, they have
a pretty cool tiger enclosure. One of my distant relatives, if you look at
me, my brow ridge it's very similar to the great apes. One of my teachers used to call it the art
lobe. It was that funny forehead that I’ve got,
that Neanderthal forehead. It's a cool rhino sketch. Nice thing about rhinos, they don't move much,
they're usually pretty chill. This is actually from a book on horse anatomy
where I was actually getting in and studying a little bit more because I was preparing
to do a lot of western fine art painting and I really needed to bone up on my understanding,
thorough understanding of horses. Really beautiful little pencil sketch up here,
mostly just graphite. Over here you've got a little bit more of
the particulars down here and really studying the hoof area. The good old rear and the leg in general,
again, from the zoo, from life and there's no small feet. I mean, it's one thing to draw from photos,
it's another thing to draw when the thing's actually moving around. Just like life drawing the human figure, it's
where the rubber meets the road so to speak. There's not a lot you can hide behind when
it comes to sketchbooking from life. What I usually do is I have a method where
I let the animal come around to its position that's similar and then I’ll glue a part
of the body on, then I’ll go to another drawing. So, I’ll have a whole page of five or six
drawings going and I’ll just go to whatever drawing seems to be the angle that the animal's
at and I’ll glue another section of that drawing together. So, at the end of the day, I have a whole
page of cool sketches. That's the only way you can do it that I know
and you're gonna have to work a lot from visual memory. So, over here is a little bit of you know,
white prismacolor and also a general - white general chalk. This is a sepia with some chalk on top of
it. I always like to work in these semi-toned
sketch pads because it gives you that leeway of going in with the chalk on top of it and
hitting your accent lines. They have a baby the elephant, that was kind
of cool and a couple baby giraffes as well. Some of them were clunkier than others, but
again, these are honest sketches, I’m not tearing anything out, I’m leaving all my
drawings in. That was a good day of sketching. The rhinos for some reason, I have a tendency
to do really well with them and I think it's because they just stay so passive and they
allow me to really get in there. I always love drawing reptiles too because
those guys also will sit still for you for quite a while. I mean, you know, these guys will just sit
there for a freaking month. Here's some like okapia and gazelles. I’m not sure about these guys, they're a
little different, I can't remember their particular name. I love this little sketch though. I like the way the legs kind of melt together
and I like the freshness of it and I like how the ear rhythms, it's just nice, has a
good feel to it, very natural. This is a nice little page too, they had a
baby zebra. And I really love this little one up here
with the legs kind of awkwardly positioned, almost knock kneed and just a really, really,
really good. So, if you were a guy showing - if you were
say going I think for animation or you were going to try to go to Disney or try to go
to DreamWorks or one of those studios, having sketchbooks of this caliber, tons of them,
of all kinds of different stuff would be one of the staple areas of your portfolio that
you'd want to develop because it shows not only an incredible visual memory, but your
ability to invent, to manipulate, to work from life and you can't underestimate the
power of sketchbooks. When I went for - going to work for DreamWorks
for lead visual development, I got offered the job when I was in my mid-20s. I had a whole section of my portfolio that
was just sketchbooks and I had everything you could imagine in there. Look at these nice - some nice lion sketches. They nap sometimes and you can catch them
when they just sit there for, again, a half an hour or so. Normally what we do, the way I conduct this
class is we would study the animals first in the classroom and I would break them down
into rhythmical grid systems and people would study those grid systems. We'd talk about the rhythms and how to make
a Riley monkey, a Riley tiger. And we would pull those rhythms out of it
and then we would go to the zoo and we would go to that specific area of the zoo and just
draw those animals that day then we'd go back and the next week we'd go back in the studio
and the following week we'd go out and study you know, hoofed animals and whatever it was. So, it was a wonderful way to do the class. It was a 10-week class. I would do it probably once to twice a year,
usually when the kids weren't there. So, you'd go in the fall or the summer and
it was quite nice. So, I mean, we would sometimes have the whole
zoo to ourselves. Again, monkeys and gorillas, they have a really
good gorilla enclosure and chimp enclosure. And here's some of my chimpanzee sketches. This is a baby gorilla, I’m pretty sure
and you can see where the hands are very you know, very human-like but also very much like
a Phil Hale. And then of course, the orangutans, some of
the most intelligent creatures on the planet and so unfortunate that you have to keep them
in a pen because they really are too smart for it. Had some incredible experiences with these
particular animals where they'd come up to the glass, they would watch me, I would show
them the drawing, they'd put their hands over their face and shake their heads because they
definitely recognized their own drawing of themselves. It was really a phenomenal experience to work
in front of these guys. They're some of my favorites and I love that
little drawing right there. It really just captures - kind of sad in a
way, they're just bored you know, they're kind of stuck in these pens. That was more of an invented line or something
I was drawing. I always enjoyed how Frazetta did animals
and actually injected in human anatomy into the animal anatomy and kind of made it more
of a hybrid. There's a really cool bear. They have some brown bears there as well. This is actually more from a book on drawing
animals that - I can't remember the exact title of it but it very much has that Riley
feel to it. And a lot of times I would pick from that
book and I would show examples. It was probably a demonstration on flow and
rhythm and grace and really trying to get some activity into those sketches so that
they're not just stiff and boring. I always want to animate, just like you do
in gesture class. Now, this is a wonderful page, one of my faves. I really felt like I just nailed that. If I could sketch all the time like that from
life animals, I would just be thrilled. I like this one a lot too, it really captures
the way that animal - I think this is almost like a Mongolian camel or something, where
it's got a lot more fur down in the lower aspect than a normal like Egyptian camel. A beautiful cat sketch. Here we are over into those kind of cats and
it's just studying their movements and their anatomy. Very similar to what Frazetta - he was always
a big cat lover and a big animal lover in general and man, could he draw them, I’ll
tell you. Oh, here's another good one. My sketchbook is starting to fall apart. It's a good sign that's been seen some wear
and tear. Okay, some works, kind of cool, very Serengeti,
- draw. A cool little chimpanzee sketch that was like
kind of dopey looking but really, again, captures that cartoony version. Like say you're working on you know, some
Disney movie or something. But you need to know how to draw them accurately
in my opinion before you can cartoon them. Here's a nice little panther down here, I
love the panthers. There's a beautiful lion [-] here. Some gorillas and chimpanzees. Oh, these guys are fun [Laughter] they're
always swimming and you can sit down below and watch them dive into the water and then
swim back up. And they just do it in circles. So, every time it comes around, you can add
again, sketch part of them. And so, here's one of them diving in and they
sometimes will float in there and do funny things. See, this guy would keep looping around. So, this drawing was maybe done in five or
six - five different routes where he would come through and I would just add on the foot
and then he'd come through, I put the pelvic section on, then he'd come through and I would
do something more. Flamingos are cool, birds of prey. I always - kind of awesome. Here's an ink wash drawing with some gouache. More chimpanzees. I love that little sketch, always one of my
faves. Just the lost and found edges where the arm
bleeds into the leg and then the slight bow-leggedness of him and the atrophied legs versus the bigger
arms and forearms, very much - here's another great little one of the chimpanzees. Again, you can see they're some of my favorite
drawings and you can see that I really enjoy them. And this is a great gorilla, I really enjoyed
that little guy. They are very Drew Struzan almost. Okay, so I’m just going to run through these
a little quicker now because we could spend all week. Oh, that's a cute little guy, capyra or capybara. Oh, here's a great page; ballpoint pen, free
hand. Really felt like that one captured some great
calligraphy and indication. There's some more gazelles, akape. So anyway, that's pretty much my zoo drawing
and animal drawing sketchbook. Now let's get into figure invention. This is an old sketchbook. This one's very rarely seen. I used to have a hard time showing my sketchbooks
because I felt - not embarrassed by any means but just that they're kind of private to me. But I’ve gotten older, I’m in my 50 - I
just turned 50 and I’m just kind of over it, you know. I’m not worrying about much anymore. I’m just gonna show everybody everything
I know and it's good to go. These are some invented. I was working on a game park in Thailand and
they were repurposing the elephants there to try to utilize them because they don't
use them anymore for transportation or anything like that and they needed to figure something
out, so they were going to do this theme park and wanted to be kind of Conan, Frazetta-like
characters. So, here's some sketches I did invented before
that game or for that theme park, excuse me. This sketchbook goes all the way back to my
high school days, hard to believe. You know, every once in a while I go through
a phase where I really do a ton of it. It's usually where ideas are bubbling up in
me and I want to get them out and I want to prepare maybe for a whole year's worth of
work. So, I might sketch out a whole show. So some gallery comes to me and says "hey,
I want 30 paintings by next October" and I pick a theme and I maybe run it by them. "So you know, I’m thinking of going to Morocco
and I’m going to come back and I’m going to paint 30 paintings in Morocco. What do you guys think? Oh, we'd love to do a show like that. Okay, great". So then I have to go to Morocco and then I
retrieve the reference, so I have to go take photographs and sketches and sketchbooks and
go there. Then I come back and I need to generate from
all those photos which ones are the best for doing big paintings of because I might spend
20, 30, 40 hours on a painting, right? Maybe even longer. I don't want to just bumble into that thing,
so I go to my sketch pad and I start sketchbooking. And this is why it's so important for you
all to learn, if you want to be a great illustrator, you want to be a great concept or you want
to be a great fine artist, they're all the same thing, you need to be deeply rooted in
the fundamentals of anatomy, the fundamentals of perspective, the fundamentals of anatomy
of animals, of architecture, of tech, of everything and the sketchbooking is the cornerstone of
learning how to do that. So, it should always be part of your repertoire. It should be always part of your workout,
your visual workout so to speak, like going to the gym. You know, sometimes you work this, sometimes
you work that, but you go all the time religiously always, you don't ever stop. These were done in the early 90s and I graduated
high school in 1988. So, these were some of my sketches when I
was quite young and so, kind of fun to see these fronts halls, sketchy Nicolai Fechin. Just put that on there so it doesn't smear. Old Harley Davidson riders and a big Harley
Davidson guy, always have been, always own bikes, always ride. That's Mr. Harley Davidson himself back in
the - way back. Dad taught me how to sketch. Here's some invented figures, some little
compositional thumbnails, some photographs working on composition and architecture. It's very important to be able to draw architecture,
people, creatures, animals, everything. Sketchbooking is where you learn how to do
that in my opinion. It's one of your best ways to learn stuff,
memorize stuff, commit things to memory. This was the beginnings of a study for a heavy
metal cover and I was utilizing some of Frazetta’s concepts. This was an ink that I later did as a really
large ink that's one of my favorite inks I’ve ever done, but this was the first sketch,
first preliminary idea generation for that and then when you see the finish, you're able
to kind of see those two. Some more figure inventions. That was me just holding my hand out like
that and drawing it and trying to invent figures, trying to learn how to draw like Frazetta. I would draw from Frazetta and then I’d
make up my own figures and try to make them look like Frazetta and I would learn how his
calligraphy worked and I would start to think more like him and incorporate that into my
own sketches. That's a good way to learn how - learn from
somebody. I would pick like Claire Wendling and I’d
go through her sketchbooks. A heavy metal cover idea, and originally I
put another girl - a girl here on like a crucifix or something. It was kind of wild deal, with this guy popping
out of the top of a MechWarrior with a bow or something you know, it's like just a ridiculous
scene. Another Frazetta-esque. Guy about to get scalped and then the horse
is coming butt right at you. Oh, that's that one where the guy's popping
out of a MechWarrior that broke down with a bow and arrow. [Chuckles] That was kind of poetic. I’m just a [Inaudible], now he's stuck with
a bow. So again, when you sketchbooking, sketchbookings
are all the wanderings of your mind. Just things you're sketching, things you're
drawing, things you're thinking about and it's wonderful. That turned into a really fantastic
painting later, really cool. I always liked combining Harley's and Frazetta
and I used to go under the pen name Zook and I would do these really fun pieces that I
didn't want really intermixing with my fine art, so I just wanted to keep a pen name for
all the crazy stuff I was doing while I was doing some really highly conservative stuff. I just thought it was smart to separate the
two out and this was like Lord Karma or something. Some big Frazetta death evil type character. It ended up being a Frazetta or a heavy metal
cover. Some again Frazetta inspired inventions. Again, you can see they have Frazetta influence
but it's my own thing, you know. He never really did you know, these kind of
bikes and guys and stuff. So, I was really you know, heavily into concepting
and movie work and visual development. This is more again fine art generation, ideas
for kind of romantic paintings and then there's some - another Frazetta. That's another heavy metal idea for heavy
metal cover. That was another iteration of it with the
heavy metal kind of sketched in the back and it's called The Gypsy King. Yeah, this is a cool one. This was for a painting I ended up doing which
came out really nice and it was this kind of lava - a guy emerging from the lava, this
big demon type guy. And then this guy here you know, the thing
I loved about Frazetta, it was always some situation and scene that was completely helpless. I mean, this guy's got like a freaking little
lasso, he's going to try lasso this thing. Sorry, but I love that hand. Very Sargent. I love the very Frazetta torso. It very much has that Frazetta. Again, I was channeling him heavily during
this period in my life. So anyway, that's a cool one and I’m gonna
go through a couple more and I love working in methodology. Here's an invention concept sketchbook that
was a little more recent than the one you just saw. I love centaurs because I love horses and
I love people and what better thing than to try to intermix them. So, this kind of got you knowm, the with the
club and just the general composition of it. And I’m using actually just different kinds
of white marker and actually just correction you know, the tape that you use to correct
whiteout tape for writing and I found that to be a really wonderful way to create kind
of Adam Hughes, Heinrich Clay mixed with Frazetta, I don't know, mixed with a number of gestures
and I mean - but these are just I think really fun poetic drawings of centaurs. And then here's some just a little water world
type concept for some sketch. Aerial view of a straight down looking on
some you know, again, some little creatures and characters. I don't do a lot - I don't know as much architectural
stuff as I do people. People are my favorite. I can hold in most of the areas but I could
use probably more work on tech. Another zoo drawing, that's a good one. These are also from the San Diego zoo, I think
I had this sketchbook in the mix for a while too. Some nice gorilla sketches. Some cats, a bear, some gorillas and gouache
drawing from life. Lion anatomy study, very sculptural. Ah, more centaurs. I think some Claire Wendling in there maybe. Oh, this is one of my - these two pages are
fantastic. When you hit a good sketch page, you know
it. Here's John Buscema up here, old comic artist
from the 70s. Here's me and I don't know, either inventing
or partially inventing a T-Rex and here's kind of Alma Tadema little vignette down here and
these guys are about to just get completely eaten by this guy and they're just parading
along like nothing's going on. All these other fun stuff, Dean Cornwell vignette
down here. So, it's quite a smattering on that. There's a little bit of Paul Bonner in here,
he's a fave of mine as well. Just some more animal sketches. Another Paul Bonner. Figure invention. Some animals in motion, always fun. Again, you can see the rhythms and how they
carry through. This is a little invented piece. I think it was invented, I can't remember
where I got that one. A bunch of hyenas attacking a zebra, it's
kind of cool. Here's some little tech drawings from one
of my dad's classes I was taking. He was having us draw actors and stuff. He's very tech heavy. You can see I can do architecture and stuff,
I just don't do it as much but you must be able to do it all. And here's vignettes of city street scenes
and stuff and it's very important. And again, if you travel, nothing better than
bringing your sketchbook because you can sketch on the road anywhere and all you need is a
couple ballpoint pens and a couple pencils and you're good to go. This is why again, where I get my ideas. You know, there's this samurai type guy and
there's a dead dragons and then here you got this big dragon coming out of the back, not
happy about that. Here's some cool little figure inventions
and very lyrical people running ,tackling, standing. Just a little car sketch. Some more car sketches, freehand. That sketchbook. I’m gonna do one more and this is painted
sketchbook, and this is a sketchbook like say for example, if I’m trying to develop
my fine art pieces. Now, look at this one, this is a - actually
photo book and it's kind of nice. It's really beautifully leather bound. I like my sketchbooks to almost be like something
you could pass down to your kids or something. So, this is gouache of a ballpoint pen and
I’ll sketch out the idea for a painting and then I’ll paint it with gouache very
quickly. And I still consider it sketchbooking, right? It's sketching in paint and it's sketching
in ballpoint pen. Here's some cool scenes. This one ended up a very large oil painting
later and it's from a photo I took when I was traveling through Europe in one of the
cathedrals. I used to draw you know, paint a lot of gypsies
and here's like a gypsy by the beach that I did a photo shoot and then I would sketch
out my ideas and then I would find out which you know, pass this by Eric and some of the
other guys at school, "hey, which one do you like most? Oh, that's an awesome one, I dig that", and
then I would maybe take it to a further finish. Some of you have seen this painting. This was the first iteration of the Wiley
Irishman which I have hanging at our school now but it's a really beautiful painting done
in a very Fechin style and so, that's you know, some ideas there, some more gypsies
and ideas for paintings from photo shoots I’ve done. Eric's dad's a farrier, so I went out and
shot his dad and his friend out at their shop in East County where we grew up and I did
a bunch of big paintings of farriers. Here's where I used to live in the Caribbean. This is a boat yard that I would visit and
I would do drawings in ballpoint pen of the boats that were lifted up and being worked
on and I thought there was really a great target rich environment. This is a model we had at our school. Dad was a Charro, a Mexican cowboy and I would
have him dress up because I was very much influenced by Nicolai Fechin and I wanted
to paint him in a Fechinesque style. Those both came out to be awesome paints. Here's Ben, one of our teachers back when
he had a huge beard when he was in his late teens, early twenties and he looked like something
that - he looked like a guy that just walked out of late 1800s. He had a wonderful look to him and I did a
lot of paintings of him during that time. Landscape sketch from up in Laguna, California. So, these are ideas for paintings, right? This is my - I’m trying to think of there's
any other - there's one good one in here I thought was - well, they're all nice but there's
one that I think was quite - yeah, I’ll find it. Some ballpoint pen. Sometimes I would do a ballpoint pen sketch
and then I’ll just go and gouache right on top of it. And it's a shame to kind of cover up such
a nice sketch but again, these are ideas, they're not precious. Well, they are precious but they're done with
the intention of being a transitory step towards larger paintings that ended up being like
a six foot painting or something, like life-size. This is a cool one. So, this is like - this one will have the
sketch, the little iteration here so if you can pan back a little bit, you'll see this
is the pencil sketch for the idea and it's kind of a Dean Cornwell type. We've got all these farriers in here working
and they're obviously commissioning something. So you've got all these salted the earth individuals
and then you've got the posh uptight city slickers that are coming in. But look at these beautiful, look at that
little indication of the guy in the background and look at the light coming through and how
just juicy and lovely that sketches. Now, that's a sketch, right? That's a doodle and I think of that just like
sketchbooking, it's just sketchbooking with paint. And I like to do it sometimes with all kinds
of mediums but gouache is a wonderful sketch medium. So anyway, I think that's probably going to
do it for this one. I mean, I’ve got other you know, sketches
in here, again, very Fechinesque of Indian girls and my wife is an Indian. From a trip out to Taos, New Mexico when I
used to show out there. A ferrier working on a saddle. Another one of the farrier that later turned
into a really nice painting. I think I’m gonna leave you guys with that
because I could talk forever about this stuff, but I just wanted to show you a little bit
into some of my sketchbooks. They're not all of them, I’ve got tons of
them. So, sketchbooking, I hope you love it and
learn to love it as much as I have and if you really do enjoy it, pop over to Watts
Atelier and take our sketchbooking class. We've got one of them in the master program
that you take, it's like 40 a month and you can take with Eric, my dad and Lucas. And the inking, I do one as well. So, in Inking One, I do about six to eight
hours of ballpoint pen sketchbooking and I also have done a lot of streaming occasionally
of that class. So, hopefully we'll see in one of those. Thank you for taking the time to be with me
and to look at my sketchbook, it was an honor. And again, I’m Jeff Watts from Watts Atelier
of the Arts. All the best. Cheers.
