Horse 515 - Happy Peeps

I'm fiddling with proprietary settings on the scanner at work because it's pretty well similar to the one at home and I've decided that the best way to attack which settings work the best is purely on a hit-and-miss basis. I figure that part of the skill in using the medium is to be trained by the medium to a degree; painters will have at least a feel of how paint works on a canvas and sculptors can actually feel what works with their raw materials, so this by my mind is only fair.

When actually drawing things, I worked out that it might be best to step away from the brink to a degree. I could render things so that they look brilliant on paper, but then when it's time to scan them in, all I get is undefined dark patches. Sam and Fuzzy has a guide on their website and it's a reasonable discourse on both the advantages and limitations of a pure black/white system. I could of course draw the whole thing on a drawing tablet, but this would mean that I would need to buy one of them and although the results do look more polished, I don't think that they necessarily retain a sense of grit - I don't know, things on a drawing table just don't feel organic.

So then, these three doodles were more an exercise in not what I could add but what I could take away from a drawing. Could I convey coyness? How about being smug? What about just being generally happy? I think I achieved something by taking stuff away.

Also, there's an interesting habit that's crept in. I don't know why but of the last 60 or so scribbles I've made in my little notebook (made from the same 120gsm paper as a process diary), people are inheriting little antennae in their hair. I can't explain this, but something about it makes me feel a little bit more satisfied to see the odd errant hair lazily and defiantly standing proud for no reason.

Mind you to produce just these three, I've probably scribbled about 100 odd faces/hands/eyes.

Wastebin full of paper,
Clever rhymes, see you later.