Pause and Draw: The Lady Vanishes

There are all sorts of fun challenges and themes to practice drawing and painting. I've been working on a Draw-A-Thousand-Heads challenge for over a year now (around 830!) and really enjoy the habit. If you're new to the blog, there's not much to it. Draw one thousand heads and get better! I've noticed it allows me to experiment more since I'm not necessarily trying to brainstorm a specific story or idea. It's a fun activity that helps me practice drawing more consistently. I've heard of some other methods from fellow students and illustrator friends and decided to start implementing them. For this week, it's Pause and Draw! I found out about this from fun posts I'd see from Matthew Sargent, a friend from Columbia College days. Basically, watch a movie and every so often pause and draw. This also connects with another method I've heard about of speed painting based on film screenshots/stills. There's a cool blog where some Academy of Art grad students are sharing their speed paints. Another awesome animator lady out of the Academy, Sarah Barrie Fenton, is doing this on her blog (and tumblr), too. It's a good quick studies habit. This helps with studying lighting, composition, characters, and also drawing or painting quickly to keep the energy going. Time for me to start stretching those drawing and painting muscles more often!

Today I decided to watch Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. I really enjoy Hitchcock's dramatic lighting, compositions, and story-telling. I've also been meaning to watch more since I've only seen a few: Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds. There's a lot more to watch. So two birds, one stone! I gave myself a 10-15 minute time limit for each and opted for good ol' pencil and pen.

It was really fun! If anyone has some Hitchcock priorities for me, please leave a comment! I picked this one since it was the first I came across on Netflix that I hadn't seen yet. I'm going to aim for doing the Pause and Draw and tv/film speed paints at least twice a week. I'll either share them here or on my Facebook page.