Day 150: A Quick Miyazaki Sketch Study

Today I felt like trying to learn a bit from one of the masters again.  Hayao Miyazaki is one of the people I admire most and his skill with watercolours just blows me away.  Somehow he manages to make things look so simple and yet intricate, detailed and beautiful all at the same time.  I decided to take a shot at one of his sketches again. 

This one wasn’t really a proper watercolour painting like the previous one I tried to copy.  I’ll probably get around to attempting another one of those at some point.  Today’s study was just one of his quick little sketches though.  I really liked the shadows on it though so I wanted to give it a shot.  It’s really interesting to study someone’s quick sketch as opposed to a fully developed painting.  I think you learn more about the process itself rather than how to draw anything in particular.

I guess that doesn’t make much sense.  What I mean is that there are some obvious flaws in a quick sketch.  It’s not something that anyone spent a lot of time trying to develop so there are places where it doesn’t necessarily obey the standard rules.  Something about it though still works.  That’s why it still looks good and appealing and why it’s so easy to look past all of the faults.  I think seeing those faults and then studying what it is that makes it work and what you like about it can be really helpful.  You’re not learning how to draw something but you are learning more about what you do and don’t like and what things are important to focus on and what things don’t necessarily have to look perfect.  It’s an interesting experience.

As for my study itself, I’m definitely off on the colours.  I think next time I do one of these I should spend the time actually mixing colours on the palette though.  I kind of like the way I’ve developed for doing things in general but it’s harder to achieve a specific effect that way.  It’s also a bit messier than I intended but I think I still did okay at getting the basic impression across.