Exactly, NibCrom! I really like beetles and I saw a few collections of them (as well as plenty of live ones) in Ecuador. It gave me the idea to make some paintings of them to practice with my new paints and decorate my room in my new apartment. I still want to make more.
I just finished a painting, 1 foot by 2 feet. I used my old craft paints on this one again because it is pretty big.
I will take a photo in the sunlight tomorrow, or maybe see if I can scan it.
Cute painting. I also like the bugs that you posted earlier.
The portraits you posted are my favorite, though. I think you have some serious potential if you continue in the direction you're going. Keep experimenting with colors on the face and I think that they'll continue to be interesting.
Thanks Blackula! That's very encouraging because painting people is what I want to do. I'm going to be experimenting a lot in these coming months actually, because I have to make more work for an exhibit I get to have in the Spring!
Psilyn, thank you so much. If you want to try traditional mediums you should! They are a lot of fun and you can use whatever you have laying around. After all, if you want to get better all you need to do is practice.
I scanned the dodo, but photoshop shrunk my pictures. Here are some bits a little larger, anyway:
Also I have more of these guys:
My plan for the beetles is to go to the fabric store and take pictures of some of the patterns, then pencil fabric pattern with colored pencil faintly in the background, a different one for each beetle. Do you guys think that sounds okay or would it be too busy? I want to make the images seem more.. homey? When I look at the beetles I have little personalities in my mind for them but I know that mostly everyone else just probably looks and sees a bug, so I thought this would be a way for me to give the paintings more personality. What do you think?
Oh, yeah you're totally right about the contrast. I never really thought about that. Maybe even for quick things like this I should try to make little thumbnails to lay out simple values and make sure I'm thinking about that. Does that sound like it would help?
I like the hard shine, nearly metallic, texture you've got in this one
some facial elements seem misaligned though- the farther nostril seems the most obvious to me
Okay, I finally hauled myself to a scanner. There have been stretches of time where I didn't draw, but now I'm trying to do the drawing every day thing again. Here is what I have done since the last time I posted anything:
This man is constantly sneezing so he wears a long scarf that he uses as a handkerchief. He looks like something would Tam draw so I'm worried that Tam did draw him and I saw it and forgot.
and a bunch of tutorial drawing:
I downloaded Loomis finally, though I haven't gotten far at all in it.
Gist figure drawing (practicing with posemaniacs)
Vilppu stuff (again, posemaniacs)
I am hoping to paint something this coming weekend!
First time I've seen this thread, and when I got to the bottom of the First page I was sad
but then I saw there were 8 more pages and I got happy in my pants
I'm in love with your paintings. Please keep drawing everyday so I can continue to be amazed!!!
Compared to the one I did some months ago
With this one I tried a few things. I tried to have more contrast, and initially I put down the shapes that were very dark versus very light to try to make it more accurate. I went more slowly and tried to have my pencil strokes follow the form (which was very hard, and I sometimes forgot). I will post my reference when I get home.
I think it is better than my last one, but what do you think? What did I improve, what didn't I improve? What should I focus on next time?
Yes, I posted from the library scanner so I didn't have my ref bookmark, and I just got home. Here it is:
The bust is a little walleyed and has a kind of bulgy neck, which are two things that always looked wrong to me when I looked at my drawing, but I made it as true as I could to the photo. I may have accidentally made him extra walleyed and extra bulgy since that was on my mind, though.
MustangArbiter of Unpopular OpinionsRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
The bulgy neck is a result of not tapering from the cheek to the jaw enough.
Sucks when a minor mistake like that can throw the drawing that far off.
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NappuccinoSurveyor of Things and StuffRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
the curve of the his right (our left) eyebrow is wrong. You have more like... flat line where his is more angled.
its a bit hard for me to eyeball it but i want to say you made his head a bit too wide from the start. The dark values also seem like they gave you trouble as he looks kinda poofy in your sketch instead of having the flat shades of the statue.
And like Mustang saids, his right (our left) jawbone seems like it goes too far out further adding to the poofy effect.
Yeah, unfortunately the shape of his head is definitely off. It's quite frustrating because I tried to be so careful the entire time, but then as soon as I scanned it and had the two images next to each other on the monitor it was immediately obvious. I guess that's something to work on, but it was kind of sad that it was so much easier to see the difference when it was two images on a screen compared with a piece of paper next to the screen. Maybe I will try to fix it up a little.
I have been doing some more casual things in the past few days.
Thanks folks! Yeah, I know studies are good and I like doing them, but I do like just sitting down and making something without worrying too much sometimes.
I want to make a more polished, better version of this when I am not exhausted after a terrible day.
Love the birds, honored to have it in my house! Hope you get the one I mailed you soon!
That squid is fantastic.
I know what you mean about just doing and not worrying, I am going to doodle more for that very reason. For me it is the best way to learn new stuff that I can apply it when doing "serious" work. I would rather not experiment on something I need to finish and polish, but it is no big deal on a scrap piece of paper.
Posts
Thanks a lot, Tynic! I appreciate encouragement, too, not just advice
I made another beetle:
and botp the other beetle:
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
I love the tree with the girl under it (or the girl with the tree over her) and also the violin with the exposed wood. It's super neat.
Hey guys you'll never be able to guess what kind of insect I painted last night!
Wait for it-
A beetle
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
Are these paintings in the same vain as those pinned up butterflies in glass cases?
I just finished a painting, 1 foot by 2 feet. I used my old craft paints on this one again because it is pretty big.
I will take a photo in the sunlight tomorrow, or maybe see if I can scan it.
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
The portraits you posted are my favorite, though. I think you have some serious potential if you continue in the direction you're going. Keep experimenting with colors on the face and I think that they'll continue to be interesting.
Psilyn, thank you so much. If you want to try traditional mediums you should! They are a lot of fun and you can use whatever you have laying around. After all, if you want to get better all you need to do is practice.
I scanned the dodo, but photoshop shrunk my pictures. Here are some bits a little larger, anyway:
Also I have more of these guys:
My plan for the beetles is to go to the fabric store and take pictures of some of the patterns, then pencil fabric pattern with colored pencil faintly in the background, a different one for each beetle. Do you guys think that sounds okay or would it be too busy? I want to make the images seem more.. homey? When I look at the beetles I have little personalities in my mind for them but I know that mostly everyone else just probably looks and sees a bug, so I thought this would be a way for me to give the paintings more personality. What do you think?
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
the beetles are really great and I like the fabric idea
Just a little thing from tonight,
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
I also made another lady.
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
I like the hard shine, nearly metallic, texture you've got in this one
some facial elements seem misaligned though- the farther nostril seems the most obvious to me
This man is constantly sneezing so he wears a long scarf that he uses as a handkerchief. He looks like something would Tam draw so I'm worried that Tam did draw him and I saw it and forgot.
and a bunch of tutorial drawing:
I downloaded Loomis finally, though I haven't gotten far at all in it.
Gist figure drawing (practicing with posemaniacs)
Vilppu stuff (again, posemaniacs)
I am hoping to paint something this coming weekend!
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
Those are some great figure drawings. Very expressive. Who's method are you using there? Gist?
but then I saw there were 8 more pages and I got happy in my pants
I'm in love with your paintings. Please keep drawing everyday so I can continue to be amazed!!!
Compared to the one I did some months ago
With this one I tried a few things. I tried to have more contrast, and initially I put down the shapes that were very dark versus very light to try to make it more accurate. I went more slowly and tried to have my pencil strokes follow the form (which was very hard, and I sometimes forgot). I will post my reference when I get home.
I think it is better than my last one, but what do you think? What did I improve, what didn't I improve? What should I focus on next time?
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
The bust is a little walleyed and has a kind of bulgy neck, which are two things that always looked wrong to me when I looked at my drawing, but I made it as true as I could to the photo. I may have accidentally made him extra walleyed and extra bulgy since that was on my mind, though.
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
Sucks when a minor mistake like that can throw the drawing that far off.
its a bit hard for me to eyeball it but i want to say you made his head a bit too wide from the start. The dark values also seem like they gave you trouble as he looks kinda poofy in your sketch instead of having the flat shades of the statue.
And like Mustang saids, his right (our left) jawbone seems like it goes too far out further adding to the poofy effect.
I have been doing some more casual things in the past few days.
This is what I made for brokecracker:
Larger:
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
I want to make a more polished, better version of this when I am not exhausted after a terrible day.
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
That squid is fantastic.
I know what you mean about just doing and not worrying, I am going to doodle more for that very reason. For me it is the best way to learn new stuff that I can apply it when doing "serious" work. I would rather not experiment on something I need to finish and polish, but it is no big deal on a scrap piece of paper.
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
the profile
the beach
the looking out the window