sketchbook drawing – Guy Sparger

Posted on February 5, 2017November 14, 2019 by sparger

Spider Baby Is Totally Legit (((I got new pens!)))…

I recently bought some new marker pens. Now I’m busy rediscovering felt tip markers 🙂 This spider baby is my first example:

I drew the lines of this perfectly reasonable illustration with a Parker ballpoint and Micron technical pens. Color was added with Tombow markers.

I haven’t worked with art markers since the early 90’s. I almost always draw in a sketchbook and I use both sides of each page. Technical, drafting pens, pencil and cheap ballpoint pens are my usual tools because they don’t bleed through the paper.

I recently discovered these new (to me) dual tip markers by Tombow. They’re pretty nice and not too expensive compared to other art markers. Most importantly to me, they don’t bleed through.

I drew this color burst as a test. The paper was heavily saturated with layers of ink but the opposite side of the page remained pristine …totally impressed.

I run a tight pen and pencil drawer:

I’m not associated with or paid by Tombow for this endorsement. In fact, this isn’t a real endorsement; it’s just me going on about some pens I like. You might hate these pens. If you want to try them here’s an Amazon link for your convenience: http://a.co/2qcIgqL

Posted on July 18, 2016 by sparger

Gorillas In The Smoke

Here’s something new. A detail from a rough sketch. I’m currently developing this into a much more detailed print design. It’s a piece about power and control …and it has a smoking gorilla. Conceptually I’m still working on the subtext so for now, here’s a drawing to look at 🙂

Posted on July 9, 2016July 9, 2016 by sparger

Flappy Birds

Once I was harried by hawks. Yeah, that’s a thing. It was nighttime and I was sitting on the edge of some scrub flats watching distant lightning. Most hawks are solitary predators but Harris hawks are known to hunt in packs. They also seem very territorial. I didn’t know any of this the night one swooped out of the desert darkness and right up in my face …startling! I hollered and he flapped off but a second giant flappy bird came diving in so I sprung up from the dirt berm I was seated on. I came to my feet flailing and flapping, still hollering. Hawks are freakin’ FAST! I’m in full-on bushman warrior mode now. My eyes are tracking the circling silhouettes against the almost moonless sky. I see there’s three of them as the third is taking his turn dive bombing me. I jerk sideways throwing up my arms to seem as huge as possible while I hit ’em with my best war howl. Right about then a lightning bolt flashed in the distance directly behind the unintimidated, angry flapper. A perfect sliver of crescent moon completed the scene like an illustrated adventure story. Despite my panic, I thought it all looked really cheesy in a 70’s rock album, Frank Frazetta sort of way. I also thought, it’s the future so why don’t I have a cyborg camera eye? It all happened so fast, a photo would have come out blurry anyway. Later I thought about making a painting but I don’t have that kind of time. It was freaky, I had to document the event somehow. I settled on this quick pen drawing; a bushman’s gotta keep steppin’ :/

Posted on July 9, 2016 by sparger

Anthropology, Man

Rummaging around looking for something that totally isn’t this; I found a really old notebook. It’s a little black book I toted around in the latter part of the 1980’s. We were too hard for iPads or smartphones …and they hadn’t been invented yet. I scanned some doodles from it. Some of these were amidst notes from a college anthropological studies class.

I guess I forgot the burnt umber?