Spotlight Sunday - Ted Gordon

Spotlight Sunday is a series of interviews designed to introduce and highlight Chicago Urban Sketchers individually.  Now that our chapter has reached nearly 500 members it has become more of a challenge to meet every member in person and have a conversation.  These posts concentrate on individuals and speak in their own words and sketches.

Interview by Andrew Banks
Spotlight on Ted Gordon: 3D Character Animator, Urban Sketcher, Plein Air Painter

Hi Ted, thanks so much for taking the time to talk and to tell our group a little bit about yourself!

How did you first hear about the Urban Sketchers community and what made you decide to join Urban Sketching Chicago?

My friend Ginny, a member of my early-morning sketching & plein air group, recommended USK Chicago to me. She was correct, it was right up my alley!

Did you sketch before finding USk Chicago?  If so, when did you start sketching?

Yes, as a kid, I was very interested in drawing, comic books, science fiction & fantasy illustration, computers - all that stuff predicted my future career. Life Drawing was my favorite part of art school - where I could see my skills increasing dramatically. Sketching outside of sessions keeps me in practice. My favorite artists have done a lot of sketching ‘in the wild’. I’ve been following their example.

Can you tell us a little bit about your career as an animator?  Does urban sketching ever have an impact on your day job?  If so, how?

I have been working as a 3D Character Animator in the games industry since 1999. I use a combination of animation skills and specialized software, including 3DS Max, Maya, and Motionbuilder, to create the motion for people, monsters, animals, and robots for video games.

I believe an artist’s career is as much about what is done outside of work hours to become a better artist as it is about what is done in the studio. I like to draw on the bus, I have a weekly plein air group, I do life drawing & life sculpture, and I like to go out and explore areas with my camera. Most recently, I explored Chinatown before people filled the sidewalks for the day. I work on portrait & house portrait commissions during my lunch hour and I make my plein air paintings available for sale on my site.

I highly respect the Disney Animators that established my industry’s Principles and actively practiced life drawing and plein air painting as part of their job. They are my role models. That, and my love for drawing, painting, & animation, motivate me. Building my skills of observation, through practice like Urban Sketching, makes me a better animator & artist.

You are also a member of the Plein Air Painters of Chicago group and many of your urban sketches can also be considered plein air paintings.  There is real neat crossover between our two groups, and we’ve personally talked about this before.  In your experience, what distinguishes urban sketching from plein air painting, and, having been a member of both groups, are there any specific skills or lessons you have learned from one group that can apply to the other?

I’ve written a Tuesday Tips and Tricks blog entry about this, so it is easy to answer. :) In my opinion, the differences boil down to three things: Time, Narrative, and Style. While both are created on-location, and in a single session, an Urban Sketch can be created in minutes, while a plein air piece could take all day to complete. Urban Sketching, with its journalistic roots, is often more literally narrative - even including text in the images. Finally, Urban Sketching can be more experimental with style. To the contrarian reader, I’d have you point me to a plein air painting with a cartoon-style character in it! :)

Both groups are about direct observation, drawing and painting on-location. I find them more similar than different. I suspect that my own work will organically combine elements of each the more I do of both!

Is there a specific subject matter you are particularly drawn to or inspired to sketch?

I like to do portrait & house portrait commissions. When I’m out and about, I am attracted to figures and architecture ‘in the wild’ too.

What inspires me tends to be the unusual, the well-lit & appealing. It’s that moment on a train, when I see an intriguing character. It’s when I spot a tree, exploding full of color from back-lit light. It’s when I find rusty old controls on a conservatory pipe. Those moments, I think, “Oh yeah, that’s getting drawn!”

What is your favorite medium to sketch with?

I’ve been carrying a fountain pen, a ballpoint & watercolors. For precision and speed, I prefer ballpoint. For even faster, but looser, I prefer the fountain pen. If I have more time, I like to add watercolor washes.

Are there any Urban Sketchers who inspire your own work?

I’m a big Don Colley fan. He shows what a life of regular practice can do. His videos, sketching in ink were so exciting to find. I love the variety of work that USK Chicago and the international group share. Everyone has inspirational work in them.

You will also be an instructor at this year’s Chicago Sketch Seminar for the second year in a row.  What are you most looking forward to about this year’s Seminar?

I’m looking forward to seeing all the new sketches my students will make, the new location, and the other instructors’ classes!

Do you have any websites, blogs or social media accounts where people can see more of your work?

I sure do!

You can follow me here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/motionimpossible/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tedsimages

Please contact me through http://www.tedgordonart.com/contact/ to inquire about commissioning original portraits & house portraits.

You may order prints of my work at: http://www.tedgordonart.com/order-prints/

You can find examples of my animation here: www.MotionImpossible.com Also, visit a Dave&Busters, movie theater, or amusement park near you and play Jurassic Park Arcade! I loved animating those dinosaurs!

Ditch Your Eraser

USk Chicago: Tuesday Tips & Tricks by Ted Gordon

What’s the fastest way to improve your drawing?

Ditch your eraser.

How can I get a decent image of my pencil sketch online?

While you are at it, ditch your pencil; draw in ink.

GOING ERASERLESS:
The more you do something, the better you get at it. When you are studying what something looks like and practicing rendering it, you are improving your drawing ability. When you are erasing those marks, you are practicing erasing, not drawing. Don’t worry about stray marks, just keep drawing.

Another way I like to put this:

Everyone has thousands of terrible drawings in them. The sooner you get them out, the better. Erasing will only slow you down.

INK:
Committing to eraser-free drawing is easier, if you draw with something difficult to erase.

A huge benefit of drawing in ink is that it photographs well! You don’t have to sharpen an ink drawing, adjust its contrast or do anything! If you do, it handles those adjustments much more simply and clearly than a graphite drawing.

Create cleaner drawings. Ink, compared to graphite, stays where it’s put and doesn't need fixative applied to make that happen. It’s less likely to smudge and, depending on which ink you use, can be more or less waterproof.

Draw with Confidence!

If you are nervous about abandoning your eraser, you may be surprised how drawing with ink can make your marks more bold - in more ways than one.

Using a pen encourages you to be more deliberate. That creates a cleaner, more elegant line, in my opinion.

Conversely, if that ‘tightens you up’, go nuts. Put all those lines down there. As long as you are looking and drawing, you are improving.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I highly recommend drawing without your eraser, if you haven’t. You’ll notice that many Urban Sketchers are drawing in ink already. My recommendation comes from the advice of greater artists that have preceded us as well as my own experience, seeing this improve my drawing and the drawings of my students.

You can see my Urban Sketches and Plein Air Paintings here: http://www.tedgordonart.com/ http://instagram.com/motionimpossible

What do you think? Have you experimented with leaving your eraser out of the picture? What other reasons do you like to draw without your eraser, or in ink?

How Urban Sketching and Plein Air Painting Compare and Contrast

TUESDAY TIPS & TRICKS, by Ted Gordon

How are the Urban Sketchers and Plein Air Painting movements related?

As an artist with a hand in both and with our upcoming combined show, the Urban Sketchers Chicago Holiday Showcase, with Featured Guests, Plein Air Painters of Chicago 11/21-12/13/2015, let’s examine similarities and differences.

HISTORY

Technology had something to do with the formation of both. Plein Air means "in the open air" or simply, “outdoors.” The technological advance of paint in tubes allowed artists in the mid 1800s to explore nature and capture the effects of sunlight in the moment. Urban Sketchers is about drawing on location, in a supportive, global community. The internet was key to its formation and is integral to the global sharing aspect.

Plein Air: Elephant Vigil at Showmen's Rest, A Plein Air painting in a limited palette of Richeson casein

SIMILARITIES

Both groups create images on location, in the moment.

With some exceptions, the size of our drawings and paintings tend to be small, for reasons of both portability and time.

We travel with our materials. Watermedia (watercolor, gouache, and casein) and digital tools are used in either. Of all of these, watercolor is the most popular crossover medium in my experience.

We’re both interested in capturing the Truth of a place and time, exploring the world around us.

Fountain of the Muses, Rio De Janeiro, in Winsor & Newton watercolor

DIFFERENCES

There are exceptions to all of these items, however, in general, the differences tend to be about time and materials. Plein Air Painting tends to take much more time per image and is painted with paint or pastels. Urban Sketches can be created in much less time and may use any material.

Urban Sketches tend to be even smaller than a typical plein air painting. When you consider that an Urban Sketch might be drawn on a pocket-sized sketchbook while waiting in line, as opposed to being created on an easel set up for several hours, you can understand why.

Urban Sketches, without question, can also be drawn indoors. Cafes, museums, and concert venues are all typical Urban Sketchers venues. Exceptions prove how similar these efforts are. In both Plein Air Painting and Urban Sketchers, the world is our studio.

Based in its journalistic roots, Urban Sketchers aims to tell the story of our surroundings. Urban Sketches are far more likely to contain text within the work than in a Plein Air painting.

The story of a Plein Air painting can be much less literally narrative. For instance, the story could be about what the sunlight is doing during your painting or how intensely blue that boat is.

Plein Air is almost always done on an easel. Urban Sketching sometimes is, but often isn’t, for mobility and quickness.

While Plein Air paintings are made with paint or pastels, Urban Sketchers draw with any kind of media and wildly individual styles. Plein Air styles, while they can be quite varied, aren’t as divergent as the Urban Sketchers styles can be, in my opinion.

Urban Sketchers tends to be more casual, mobile, and quick. Urban Sketchers’ subjects are more likely to have a person or an action as the subject. In contrast, plein air paintings often take much more time to complete and are more likely to contain natural environmental or architectural subjects.

Plein Air painters are more likely to edit an environment for aesthetic purposes. A tree might move or wires might be omitted without feeling that the truth of the place had been compromised in plein air.

Lindberg Park, painted in Winsor & Newton watercolor on location. Are these Plein Air or Urban Sketches? Yes!

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I think that some of the differences are superficial, while others are very strong. Which you are doing at a given time may have more to do with your equipment and intention than anything else. There are definitely times when the lines are blurred. To be clear, I don't make a value judgement between the two and there's no reason you can't do each in the same day.

For artists that like to experiment, I encourage you to try both!

You can see more of my work, Urban Sketches and Plein Air Paintings here:

http://www.tedgordonart.com/

http://instagram.com/motionimpossible

What do you think? In what other ways are Urban Sketchers and Plein Air Painting similar or different?