{"id":4508,"date":"2026-07-22T09:55:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T13:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/?p=4508"},"modified":"2026-07-22T10:08:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T14:08:32","slug":"sketch-of-the-week-clownification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2026\/07\/sketch-of-the-week-clownification\/","title":{"rendered":"clownification i (Sketch of the Week for Week 29 of 2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-medium\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"300\" height=\"276\" src=\"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_4964-300x276.jpeg\" alt=\"pencil sketch of a terrified and appalled young woman, but she's also a clown\" class=\"wp-image-4509\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_4964-300x276.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_4964-1024x943.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_4964-768x708.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_4964-1536x1415.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_4964-1200x1106.jpeg 1200w, https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_4964.jpeg 1857w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Long story, but I got a notion into my head to start taking a stab (ha!) at &#8220;clownification&#8221; this week: picking a normal reference photo, sketching it &#8220;straight&#8221; for 5 to 10 minutes, and then taking the next 5 to 10 minutes to &#8220;clownify&#8221; it. This is an admittedly weird as hell thing to do, but I&#8217;m gonna suggest it as an exercise: There is something about drawing what you see, and then adding to it things that you don&#8217;t see but know how they would look applied to that form, which really helps you improve your sense of the contours of the underlying model and how it all pieces together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>BONUS CLOWN: My son really liked the &#8220;vibes&#8221; on this sketch:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-medium\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"300\" height=\"286\" src=\"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_4972-300x286.jpeg\" alt=\"A sketch of Willem Dafoe, clownified.\" class=\"wp-image-4510\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_4972-300x286.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_4972-1024x978.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_4972-768x733.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_4972-1536x1467.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_4972-2048x1956.jpeg 2048w, https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_4972-1200x1146.jpeg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I sorta felt like it was cheating, as the initial reference pic was of Willem Dafoe and was already hella creepy with no further effort from me:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-medium\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/WillemDafoe-ee653c63c0c44dc2ea8c0e7e6ab42e6a-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of Willem Dafoe looking the creepy.\" class=\"wp-image-4511\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/WillemDafoe-ee653c63c0c44dc2ea8c0e7e6ab42e6a-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/WillemDafoe-ee653c63c0c44dc2ea8c0e7e6ab42e6a-681x1024.jpg 681w, https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/WillemDafoe-ee653c63c0c44dc2ea8c0e7e6ab42e6a.jpg 738w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 199px) 85vw, 199px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Long story, but I got a notion into my head to start taking a stab (ha!) at &#8220;clownification&#8221; this week: picking a normal reference photo, sketching it &#8220;straight&#8221; for 5 to 10 minutes, and then taking the next 5 to 10 minutes to &#8220;clownify&#8221; it. This is an admittedly weird as hell thing to do, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2026\/07\/sketch-of-the-week-clownification\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;clownification i (Sketch of the Week for Week 29 of 2026)&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_share_on_mastodon":"1"},"categories":[1021,1022],"tags":[113,1211,941,1026,904,572,1025,1024],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/a2mi.social\/@dave0\/116964020083768373","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4508"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4508"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4513,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4508\/revisions\/4513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}