Jeremy Gooch, freelance illustrator

Today, I bring you an interview with Jeremy Gooch, an artist who has been using this site to practice as long as almost anyone. I hope his progress inspires you to keep working toward your artistic goals!

Check this out. This is some of Jeremy's old gesture work:

But here's his new stuff:

Inspired yet? Read on to learn more about Jeremy's art practice.

Introduce yourself briefly. Who are you? Where do you live, what do you do there, what do you love?

My name is Jeremy Gooch, and I am an artist and designer living in Austin Texas. I currently work in web design and do freelance illustration. I love the process of creating, in just about any capacity. Personally that usually revolves around the visual arts like drawing and painting.

What got you started with art?

My first serious taste of art came in sixth grade. A friend and I started working on a series of choose-your-own-adventure style comics. We would take spiral notebooks and fill them completely with our comics. They were pretty rudimentary at the time, and initially we started off with just 3 dimensional mazes. Perspective came pretty easily to me so mazes made the most sense. We would show them off in the cafeteria at school and I was surprised by the overwhelmingly positive responses I got from everyone. It was a little unreal how much everyone enjoyed them. Eventually we started experimenting more and using actual story lines and characters. From there on I was hooked.

How long have you been doing it? What educational background have you had in art, if any?

As I mentioned I’ve really been into creating art since the sixth grade. I’d enjoyed drawing in elementary school but it wasn’t until the sixth grade that I started to take it seriously. After that I was sure to take art class in school whenever I could, and eventually went to the Art Institute of Houston after high school.

Where would you like your art to be in the future?

This is difficult to say exactly. Personally, I would like to keep getting better a color/painting.

What have you struggled with most in your art? What helped or is helping?

The human form was my first major struggle, especially getting proportions right. Hands were something I identified early on as a weak point of mine, so I would just draw my own hands over and over again. Eventually, I started recognizing patterns in the proportions and could start bending those rules to draw different styles of hands.

The entire human form was a bit more difficult to get the hang of. Studying photographs as well as anatomy books and attending drawing workshops really helped out. They really got me comfortable in drawing quickly and working with gestures. I still struggle with the human form to this day, but I’m a lot more confident with each drawing.

What is your practice like?

In practice, I still prefer working on paper although I do some rough drawings digitally as well. I try to attend drawing workshops whenever I can, but tools like the one on https://line-of-action.com/ really help to supplement my practice. Basically, I try to draw as big and quick as I can. Charcoal is a medium I really like to work in when doing the quick gestures, because it forces me to be bold in my choices and not get too lost in the details.

How have you used the gesture drawing tools on this site?

I use the drawing tool on this site on my phone when I have some free time to squeeze in a quick drawing. I’ve also used it on my computer screen and also my television when I can sit down in front of it and have some room to spread out. I prefer to work larger, sopulling the site up on my television really helps.

What piece of advice would you give to other artists trying to strengthen their art skills?

Just keep drawing. Carrying around a sketchbook with you at all times will help with this. Also, have fun with the process and don’t be afraid to mess up. It’ll make it much easier to keep drawing if you’re having fun doing it.