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looking for guidance
mantidor
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Well, after lurking a little around here I finally gathered enough courage to show my stuff, so here I go! I'm not an artist, not even an art student, just engineer, but I've always been drawing my own inner world since I can remember, and even if I don't make an actual career out of it I do really want to get better, and I know I have a long road ahead. So here are some actual doodles, not at all like the cool stuff you people have, I barely think of lighting for starters, or even composition. Perspective is a still a new word for me. But I'm starting reading the basics and trying new things. However I still feel I need the kind of direction books and theory can't give.
Brutal criticism of course very welcomed. These are old, but recent stuff isn't much different. I've been thinking of buying one of those fancy and expensive wacom tablets, but I'm not very sure it would be the right decision for a complete newbie like me, specially with those prices. Still, it seems much more accesible than real tools, I attempted using charcoal but results weren't what I was expecting.
Brutal criticism of course very welcomed. These are old, but recent stuff isn't much different. I've been thinking of buying one of those fancy and expensive wacom tablets, but I'm not very sure it would be the right decision for a complete newbie like me, specially with those prices. Still, it seems much more accesible than real tools, I attempted using charcoal but results weren't what I was expecting.
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BTW, your avatar takes me back, waaaaaaaay back. I used to read Condorito when I was a kid!
I guess my main problem right now is my fear of going beyond just doodles, I start with a concept that I like and I focus a lot on the things I already know how to do well, but when I have to draw the things I'm not too good at I leave them without many details, and just stop there. This next piece is basically the most "complete" (so to speak) thing I've ever done, and this was like more than 10 years ago back in high school. Now that I think about it this is the closest I've been to coloring my stuff.
So I think it would be better to try to explain with pictures what I think is still wrong in my work and the kind of advice I'm asking, so I apologize in advance, this might be long, I only have my cellphone camera, my english likes to fail me when I try to write art-related words, and as the electronic engineer I am I practiced almost exclusively while taking notes at class, and now at work, (thank goodness my employers tolerate it), so the drawings are filled with ecuations everywhere, I tried to crop them to clean them up a bit.
When I was starting my drawings were somewhat influenced by egyptian art, specially the almost exclusive profile perspective, like this for example.
Trying to go beyond that was painful when I put an effort into it, but eventually, I really don't know how, I started to add a little perspective. I even tried some more complex stuff like clothing and the results while not perfect were kind of ok. Originally I had far more complex clothing in my head, but my hand seemed to disagree, so it was left like this.
Also I got kind of expert at bird and bat wings, but I can't for the life of me draw them when they are supposed to be retracted.
Also I try lighting only by randomly drawing lots of lines, for now.
All this however can get better with more practice and more reading, (and I plan to bother you people with my progress constantly
I tried to do some clay models to aid me, but well, clay isn't a friendly material and sculpting itself is also pretty hard.
So, in summary, I have a couple questions:
First, what is the best way to deal with things that are only in your head? I still think modeling is the best choice, but maybe I picked the wrong material, is anything better than clay to make models? or should I try to draw real objects first to gain practice?
Second, as I mentioned in the op I'm looking around for tablets, and I saw some time ago here the obnoxiously sexy Cintiq 12X tablet and fell in love. The price tag makes me cry, but if anything this would encourage me more to practice more often, when I say I'm serious about going beyond doodles I mean it, but are these tablets good for someone just starting or its better to wait and gain experience? all I know is that for sure I will own one in my lifetime.
Thanks a lot for your patience and time!
Even if you're not ultimately interested in drawing people, for the purposes of learning you're probably going to want to do a lot of it. Post some sketches of people, or animals or locations, and you'll get more in-depth critiques.
EDIT: Aaack, I missed your big post while I was posting! About tablets: I have a small wacom tablet, which is great for coloring and cleaning up drawings that I've scanned, but I almost always prefer drawing on paper. Other people love the tablet and never go back. It's a personal thing. Mine was only like $100, so it doesn't necessarily have to be a huge investment.
When you draw on lined paper, any sense of curvature gets lost because every other line going across tells the eye that "this object is flat." It'll also be good to draw without having to work around your class notes :P
Like Karen said- start drawing from life. Draw people and draw objects and learn from there. It might be boring at first but the lessons you learn are invaluable and, if you're lucky, you'll already have those lessons learnt from your doodles and you can move on to other things. The important thing is that you either a) know what you need to work on b) have confidence you already know those things.
- Don't be afraid to use references if you're not sure what something is supposed to look like. Nobody can conjure a perfect representation of something (or in the case of imaginary things and beings, something akin to) without first being familiar with the subject. I'd advise you to collect images of subjects that interest or inspire you, so you may borrow elements to use in your drawings. DeviantArt.com is a good place to start, they have a pretty extensive collection of stock images in their resource section.
- Observe your surroundings. Notice the things which compose your environment - and I don't mean just taking note of the fact that there are trees along side the road, look at the root structure or the leaves and compile a mental library of images.
- Challenge yourself. If you never break out of your comfort zone, you'll never improve. If you still don't feel confident doing something, try it again until you do. This is one piece of advice that took me a while to grasp, and I still have trouble doing it.
Also, I advise you check out the questions thread. In particular, take note of the Loomis books in the download section; they're great starting point for one looking to learn anatomy. Also, I can't recommend Betty Edward's 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain' enough. As strange as it may sound, it was this book which taught me how to actually see - at least, in the artistic sense.You definitely have talent, now all you have to do is develop it.
One exercise from the book that I think is the biggest eye-opener for people is to take a famous painting like the Mona Lisa and try to make a drawn copy of it; then to take that picture and turn it upside down and copy it again. Most of the time your upside down copy will look far better!
Betty Edwards describes it much better than I can. See if you can find that book and devote some time to it.
See, whenever I say that, people just call me ungrateful for not being appreciative of their sage advice -_-. Despite the basic truth of it, it's tiresome when the answer to every artistic question is "you need to draw a lot more from life." Really now? I never would have guessed that! I never would have guessed that my drawing problems could perhaps be solved simply by the act of drawing more.
I also agree with the recommendation to practice shading-- now that you've said it, I can't believe I didn't notice it before. The linework is the strong point, add some shading in there and they'll start to look really nice.
I have tried drawing from real life, but I was honestly afraid, the results weren't good as expected, and I felt like it was a step back. I realize now that is an important first step. As I mentioned I tried charcoal and used one of those little wooden mannequins as a guide with not very good results, but I'm going to keep practicing that, and animals, for now. The human figure is a big step and I have never felt it was something aesthetically pleasing, which I'm sure many of you will find absurd, and I really can't blame you, I do have some issues
I'll check both books, I'm a leftie so maybe I'm already at an advantage with the right brain thing
Thanks again, I'll try to keep updating.
Edit: if you have trouble drawing the figure, you lack understanding of one of many appliances in drawings. And therefore all your other drawings will therefore suffer in turn.
So does everything else. Drawing from life helps with everything. Which we know. Which is the point.
You could tell almost every single person who's ever lifted a pencil that drawing from life would help them greatly, and you would be right. In other news, breathing oxygen is also a good idea.
Since I am not, generally speaking, an ass, I will answer your question.
The problem with suggesting drawing from life is that it's such basic, blanket advice that it applies to everyone-- except for those few who already draw from life religiously, most of whom are sufficiently skilled that they probably aren't asking for help in a venue like this. However, since it's right, no one's in a position to argue with you. I've seen way too many critiques that go like this:
Artist: How's my drawing?
Critic: Sucks. You need to draw from life more.
Artist: Okay, working on it. Is there anything more specific you can give me? Like, an individual response to my style? What would you personally like to see more/less of? Is there something that you know is technically anatomically incorrect, but it's consistent throughout my drawings and thus might be a sign of my developing style (for example, the way Gabe draws arms in PA?) A response to choice of subject matter? Speculation about the potential context, i.e. purpose of the work, that informs your expectations?
Critic: STFU. What is this shit where you expect me to think? DRAW FROM LIFE.
I do apologize for being prickly about it, but honestly, when you've seen the above transpire enough times, it can start to piss you off. I'm not saying that this is what YOU, personally, are doing, but some people get off on feeling like great art critics just because they tell everyone they need to do more life drawing. It's disingenuine, and more importantly, not helpful.
I'm going to draw from life today because my boyfriend has promised that he will get naked. But that's neither here nor there.
You're saying that you need to post drawings that are ambitious enough that they encompass many different techniques, not just doodles or "here's the one thing I draw all the time that I'm really good at." Life drawing is one way to do that, but by no means the only way.
I am quite confident that every single one of my weaknesses shows in my comic pages, despite the fact that they are not from life. Please, argue with me about that one ^_~.
Sure, but I'm pretty confident that if he were to post drawings of complete forms, people or perhaps animals as they exist in nature, whether or not they were from life (sorry for talking about you like you're not here, mantidor!), there would be more there to critique. It doesn't mean that drawing from life is by any means a bad idea, it just means it's not the only way.
We can agree to disagree, but can you understand at all why this might bother me? 'Draw from Life' is like a place where thinking stops. People say it, and then it quells discussion. I don't like any repeated meme that does that.
No, the act of drawing from life is not where thinking stops at all-- SAYING 'Draw from Life' in a critique thread is where thinking stops. Those are two different things. That point, however, was probably too nuanced for a message-board conversation. Either you understand the nature of that nuance, whether or not you agree with me about the effect of it, or you don't, so I'm happy to let it drop.
I have to take Karen's side, but I do appreciate a lot the advice of drawing from real life. Maybe there could be some more guidelines, like "try drawing with certain pen/pencil/whatever which is good for starters" or even "check X art movement which reminds of your work" and stuff like that. Believe me any advice at all is good, since I'm complete newbie anything you say will likely be new to me.
I unfortunately haven't had the time to practice, that's probably another reason I never go past doodles, because doodles are done really fast so I can do them practically at any time, and while doing something else, but I think I'm going to start a schedule, at least one hour a day or something like that.
Well, typically pencile/pen types depend on what you're personal preferences are. But, a good starting point is usually 3B HB and 6B (sometimes 9B as well) for pencils. Microns are commonly suggested as pens. As far as giving you pointers by looking at other people's art... that doesn't happen often as we're here mostly to help you find your own direction and help you fix the problems you have in your art as it is.
That's really the best thing you can do