lips are projected to far out of the face even for her heavily botoxed lips lol Cheek bone needs to be lifted up as well, not so round and chubby cheeked But the eyes say Angelina all over.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited March 2009
I am off to the labs now, but when I get back I shall attempt to address that!
surrealitycheck on
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited March 2009
Found a digital camera so I can scan in some of my graphite stuff!
The top of this picture got washed out by lighting, but I think it captures it well enough
surrealitycheck on
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited May 2009
Here's some other stuff I've uploaded to my ca sketchbook, I can't link the images and I don't have them on this pc but I hope the links suffice, sorry for the inconvenience!
A lara thing I did when I was bored, HI LARA
Sketchbook stuff
A more finished thingy
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MustangArbiter of Unpopular OpinionsRegistered Userregular
edited May 2009
I simply cannot believe that you have been drawing with conviction for only 6 months.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited May 2009
I simply cannot believe that you have been drawing with conviction for only 6 months.
Oh, it is worth pointing out that most of those from reference - from my own head is MUCH MUCH worse!
I simply cannot believe that you have been drawing with conviction for only 6 months.
Oh, it is worth pointing out that most of those from reference - from my own head is MUCH MUCH worse!
All (intelligent) artist use reference for the most part. You can do stuff straight from the mind, but using good reference will always make an artwork better and never hinder.
Anatomy - Try and think of the figures your drawing as 3D models and draw out all the planes and shapes to build them up, here's a lil sketch I did to give you an idea of what I mean (kinda crude sorry only a couple min):
Also it will really help you out when you are working out the values in terms of lighting and trying to figure what planes get hit with light and what planes don't:
I think this is a good start...You have a lot of raw talent now it's up to you to refine that and go out and actively try and absorb as much knowledge as possible. The internet is a wonderfull educational tool, use it. Best of luck!
Tim
t i m on
God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die.†Bill Watterson
Nice pencil studies. All i can say is "keep it up!"
:^:
winter_combat_knight on
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited August 2009
Been doing more stuff like this today, but most not fit for human consumption hurhurhur
Kewop, my hope is that one day I shall be able to produce stuff so good from my head that I won't need reference! It's somewhere to aim for, at least >_>
Deadlydorito KEYBOARD HIGHFIVE
Tim - I plan on doing some studies exactly like that today at some juncture. Hurrah.
hmmm, either you're assuming i'm female, or you're suggesting i'm gay?
Does writing notes down next to sketches help? Do you ever refer back to them? I used to note stuff down in my sketchbook for reference, but found myself never refering back to them as all the notes are already written in books, and ive got 5 sketchbooks filled with loomis studies sitting in my wardrobe which would be a nightmare to try to find information through.
winter_combat_knight on
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited August 2009
Does writing notes down next to sketches help? Do you ever refer back to them? I used to note stuff down in my sketchbook for reference, but found myself never refering back to them as all the notes are already written in books, and ive got 5 sketchbooks filled with loomis studies sitting in my wardrobe which would be a nightmare to try to find information through.
The point of the notes is to give me an anchor to aim for when looking at what I'm doing. If I feel like I have to populate a list with criticisms / ideas it forces me to produce what I'm thinking in a short, summed-up form. In that case I was looking at a few sketches by the supertacular Wes Burt - http://wesleyburt.com/galleryfecal.html - and just noting what struck me about his use of lines in shading, as he uses a mechanical pencil and shades in a fashion that I like a lot. I tend to find without forcing myself to process what I'm looking at I won't get as much out of a picture as I could have done. It also gives me something to poke at when I'm trying to apply what I've gleaned.
Ever since I wandered through california a few months ago and heard people call each other broseph I automatically feminise it whenever I use it, apologies
Edit : As an example of pure text - this is what I did yesterday in order to get myself to plan things out.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited August 2009
MOAR SHEEZ
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited August 2009
Working on drawing every day, here is some of today's stuff! Also did 45 minutes of posemaniacs, but not spamming you with those or the other scrappy leg studies lol.
This thread is probably one of the most marked improvements ive ever seen on this board.
I love it! keep on keepin' on, broseph stalin.
RubberAC on
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited September 2009
Chaps, I have recently returned from a 10-day hiatus and frankly, my own willpower isn't getting me the practice I'd like to do each day. I was wondering if I could enlist any of you lot, not in a strict sense, but in a general OH GOD BEES sense for two purposes;
First, to give me some idea of what you chaps (as I know there are a lot of you who are involved in art education, where as I have quite literally never been near a place of artistic learning) would consider a good schedule to be done each day (as in sets, types of exercises etc, when they should be done) with a goal being roughly 5 hours of work each day.
And second, to harangue the crap out of me if I do not post the stuff that I am scheduled to post each day. I know this might be slightly beyond the call, but if I do not rope in some kind of external force I probably won't end up doing what I should be doing, which would be a huge shame. I fully realise that starting as late as I have, I need to work harder than I am, so I am hoping this might help.
Just keep doing what you are doing and do more of it. Experiment.. Write a paper about why you want to be an artist( not saying to post that here.. its just a personal thing that you should proapbly do. Putting your thoughts into words helps.).. then focus on the things that excite you. Do them... and do studies so you get better at doing them.
Kendeathwalker on
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited September 2009
I don't wish to sound ungrateful, but I was hoping for something approximating a specific schedule.
The truth is that without fairly rigid guidelines I will naturally follow the path of least resistance to do the things that I can already do adequately without tackling those that I can't. My hope is that if I can have an outside influence engaged in the loop somewhere, I will do vastly more work that I would otherwise avoid!
Also, I am also uncertain where some of my problems come from. For example; I don't know what an appropriate exercise would be to get a foundational grip on space and form (just from the point of view of rendering simple 3-dimensional objects). Or if I even need to do that. It's like... I'm not sure which elements of my technique need to be most tuned etc.
My CA thread has way more stuff in it, so it will give you a good idea of where most of my practice has been and what my average actual standard is.
For example Ken, if you were to set yourself the "ideal" daily 5 hours schedule of the quickest and brutal methods of getting yourself better, what would it consist of? How would you assess what you had done? How would you vary it as the weeks go on?
I know a fairly significant amount about learning - I spent quite some time working in a lab that dealt with the psychology of learning - but I am also well aware of my capacity to be lazy and engage in unthinking self-deception.
I don't wish to sound ungrateful, but I was hoping for something approximating a specific schedule.
The truth is that without fairly rigid guidelines I will naturally follow the path of least resistance to do the things that I can already do adequately without tackling those that I can't. My hope is that if I can have an outside influence engaged in the loop somewhere, I will do vastly more work that I would otherwise avoid!
Also, I am also uncertain where some of my problems come from. For example; I don't know what an appropriate exercise would be to get a foundational grip on space and form (just from the point of view of rendering simple 3-dimensional objects). Or if I even need to do that. It's like... I'm not sure which elements of my technique need to be most tuned etc.
"Someone else make up a schedule for me!" is a cop out. Learning how to figure out what your weaknesses are and coming up with ways to address them on YOUR OWN is something that is very important for any artist to learn, specifically because self-directed study subjects and methods are going to vary wildly from artist to artist. If you need others to give you "assignments" before you ever tackle your shortcomings then you will never get to them. Buck up and stop giving yourself excuses to be lazy.
It sounds like tautology, but to get better at something you need to practice doing that thing and it's simple as that. If you want to get better at depicting three dimensional forms, then you need to study three dimensional forms. That means drawing from life, not photographs. Based on what you've posted in this thread drawing from life is something that you don't do much, so it makes sense that you might struggle with understanding of structure in things you're trying to create or interpret from 2D.
In fact, in representational art the "best" answer for trying to improve on nearly ANY subject is to seek that thing from life and make observational studies of it.
Scosglen on
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited September 2009
Scos, I do dig that; but also is it not possible that there are practice methods that are taught conventionalyl at ateliers or whatever that I might not figure out on my own, that might nonetheless be helpful?
I am quite aware of the necessity of practice, and indeed if nobody can think of anything in particular then I'll go back to doing what I was doing, but I still would like to know where I stand. And your suggestion of lifedrawing is also a handy one, as I tend not to do it.
If theres any good advice towards studying its something I view towards people who draw a lot is they don't improve a lot often times because they aren't thinking about what there drawing, likeeee you'll have some nice hand dexterity but you wont actually be aware of what your trying to do.
Sooo if anything I would recommend on thinking about how much you think on your stuff, and the best way for you to think on something, for instance ikage writes notes on her stuff to help her think. I personally in a way "meditate" 80% of the time and then draw 20% of the time, I use to draw a lot but I found it wasn't really helping. I know someone who thinks a lot but also uses constant book reference and anatomy reference. Its such a varied thing that theres no set "this is what you do" finding out how you learn is a challenge in itself
and depending on the situation it can change to, I sometimes have to refer to books or read up on stuff to help me understand it
Loomdun on
splat
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MustangArbiter of Unpopular OpinionsRegistered Userregular
edited September 2009
That's actually pretty good advise^, in Richard Schmid's book Alla Prima, he talks about making sure that there is a definitive reason for every line you draw. Don't noodle around just because you're unsure of what you're going to do next. I am guilty of it, but it's a habit I'm trying to get hold of.
SurrealityCheck here is your assignment. Draw for 5 hours each day. Go outside and draw the houses on your block, or the kids on their bicycles or whatever. Go to the zoo if you can, get into figure drawing classes. Drawing from life is in general 10x better an exercise than drawing from photos, especially when you are just getting started. I know you already said 5 hours was your goal, but I think you don't realize how great a goal and how simple to achieve that it really is.
If you are looking for some special tips on how to train, get yourself into a good school. It's very difficult to give good training online so don't expect to find it. I was going to do the best I could to offer some good drawing information through my lessons but I don't think I will be doing them anymore because of low participation. So check out the tutorials I have linked to all over this forum, they have the best information you are probably going to find online.
Ive recently been reading Robert Beverely hales books about drawing.
Ive got a lot of training so I have no difficulting understanding the ideas he is trying to communicate but they seem extremely straightforward to me.
If you want a specific this is what you should do type thing. That man has written a book telling you exactly that
And I am not going to link you to any of robert beverely hales books.. you can do that shit on your own via google if you give a damn. And if you dont know who he is.. educate yourself.
You should not look to forums for your end all.. just as a supplement. 99.99% of the stuff you will here on a forum is stuff that has been written about in a much more cohesive, comprehensive and coherent fashion by some one likely far more educated and experienced.
Forums are a great place to find out about those resources. And I have just started you on your quest.
NibCrom asked me a similar question awhile back, so I'll reproduce what I told him here, with some additional exercises you can try.
That said, a lot of these things require a lot of patience and dedication that can be difficult to muster, and difficult to see if you're getting anything out of them, outside of a classroom environment. It's not that they're not good for you or that they're designed to be demoralizing, merely that slogging through a tough time in your learning process (and there will be many such times) is easier to do when you're doing it with other people, or have a set time and place to be to do these things- while being in an isolated environment won't make them any more or less frustrating, the chance of that frustration turning into defeat and letting yourself shy away from doing the exercises is much higher.
So while yeah, you should be trying to do these things if you can, Cake is right in that first just getting in the habit of drawing everyday is more important; learning to love that process. So make sure your drawing schedule is balanced between the hard medicine of rigorous exercises, and the more fun stuff that make you love drawing. Neglect one or the other and you'll stagnate.
So yeah, if you can, take some of these that sound interesting and mark out 3 hours a week to do them for a period of 3 months, then look over your work, reevalutate what you need to be working on, pick a different handful and repeat. And similarly, take 3 hours to do something you just enjoy doing, and see if you can apply that hard learning to that enjoyable task- speedpainting, comic book type figures, etc.
Just don't get caught in the OH GOD I NEED TO BE GOOD YESTERDAY WHY IS THIS GOING SO SLOW I NEED TO DO ONE MILLION ART HOURS PER WEEK trap, and try to do everything all at once, because you'll burn out real quick, and in the process you'll fail to appreciate that probably the best thing you can develop towards doing art is patience. Don't rush things, but don't slack off either. Keep a steady, balanced pace in your progress if you can. Tortoise and the hare.
Now to the actual content, I tried to do ones that you can do from photo ref or model, though having a model is obviously preferable:
Master Copy
Pretty much what it sounds like- take a drawing, painting, or sculpture from a master-level artist, and try to draw it yourself. The idea is to use the exercise as a way of trying to reverse engineer their work, figuring out how to take qualities from their work and then being able to apply it to your own work.
Ex: If you wanted to work on smooth line work with flatter color design, you'd want to copy a Mucha. Subtle shading and gradation, a Bouguereau or Prud'hon. Dramatic lighting, Caravaggio or Rembrandt. Heroic proportions, ancient Greek statues. You can learn a lot by taking the time to rigorously scrutinize master artist's work, and training your hand to be able to replicate their qualities.
Plus, it's something specifically mentioned as far back as Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks, and he seemed to know what he was on about most of the time. If you spend a lot of time looking at old master drawings, you'll often run into drawings of masters doing their own master copies from other masters.
It helps if you can find good reference to work from, and not some 300x400 jpeg off google image search. Wikipedia often isn't too terrible for references, but if you can get a good art book or a high-quality xerox from one, that's usually going to be your best bet. If you don't have a library around that carries decent art books, Borders seems to dump a lot of expensive art history-type books full of high quality, full-color reproductions into their bargain area, and you can easily walk out with a $60-70 book for $10-20. The Robert Beverly Hale Anatomy/Drawing Lessons From the Great Masters books in the title are also good sources for reference, with a side benefit that they have a good variety of artists in them, so if you're not totally up on your art history and don't know which artists you should be drawing from, it'll give you a good list of names to choose from.
Check out Juliette Aristides' Classical Drawing Atelier for a decent rundown of the process (just be wary of the advocating of the sight-size method in the book- as while it does have its merits, it is far less flexible in the long run than other methods of measuring).
This exercise can be done as a several week long process of meticulously rendering out the chosen piece as much as possible, or quick studies to break down specific aspects of someone's work.
20 minute figure drawings
This is a term probably without any sort of standard definition, but I'm just going off of what the definition is at Watts. Basically the lay-in is the first stage of any drawing, focusing on getting the basic proportions, gesture, and forms to read. The classes here to practice it are run by having a model take 20 minute poses, which is enough to figure out some initial linework and some basic indications of form, but not enough to get into detail or full rendering. The drawings are done so each on fill up a full page, to practice composition.
It's not a fully realized drawing, it's just practicing getting your initial observations accurate- so when you do go to do a full drawing, you don't end up spending 3 hours rendering a head that's 3/4 the size it should be or something (I actually did that last week, and my God did it piss me off when I realized what I'd done).
I wish I had some in progress shots from an instructor demo for you to look at, because I'm getting too into contour and shading in these examples to really show you what the important bits of the exercise are.
I guess these finished ones from Erik's blog should help, but again there's shading on it that you probably stop yourself from getting into if you're just starting out- he can get away with it because he's been doing them for 12 years:
These look pretty complicated, but if you look at the outlines, they're much simpler than any real contour would be. The body is defined in big, sweeping lines, which all are either C-curves, S-curves or straight lines (CSI for easy remembering). Keeping things defined simply lets you focus more on the proportions without wasting time trying to define fingers or individual abdominal muscles or whatever.
If you don't have access to a model, you can do the same exercise using (preferably nude) photo or master-drawn reference. Not as good, but it still will help.
Cast drawing
If you can find one for cheap or have regular access to a museum with good sculptures to draw from. Again, Classical Drawing Atelier has a decent process description. Good for practicing measurement, and working on form and shade. NightDragon did a really nice one awhile back: http://www.fireflights.com/Random/LaocoonCast.jpg
Spend your time on this, ND's took 21.5 hours to complete.
Figure Drawing
Self-explainatory (sort of). 3 hours+ per pose.
Figure invention exercises
-Maniqueinnizing figures (Loomis or How to Draw the Marvel Way block and cones method)
-Drawing reffed poses from different perspectives
-Examine figure for one minute of time, then put the ref out of sight and reach. Then spend the next 5-9 min. attempting to draw what you remember of that pose.
Long Anatomy Study
-Copy a full figure master drawing or photo, lightly
-With tracing paper, draw in where the skeleton would be using reference.
-Then with another piece of tracing paper, draw in the musculature using reference.
-Armed with the knowledge gained by putting in the skeleton and muscles, go back to the original drawing and, work on it with the intention of designing to highlight the anatomy- taking what may be an underwhelming or ambiguous area in the reference and creating a clearer read to it.
jesus christ bacon.. great post. Way to completely undermind me saying that forums arent the end all
Sur... do everything he just said.
Kendeathwalker on
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited September 2009
Thank you very much Bacon, that's perfect. I'll see about putting together some kind of vague schedule and see what I can be getting on with. Thanks to everybody else as well, all is appreciated.
If you are looking for some special tips on how to train, get yourself into a good school.
Just going into my last year of a biochem masters - after that I definitely plan on getting some formal tuition, but for now I'm having to rely on the mercy of the interwebs :P
Bacon and I were just having a discussion today about how he puts too much into his critiques on this forum. But on the other hand that post could not be better put. Definitely focus more on developing good healthy work habits than on any specific topic or technique. I am only just discovering the beauty of having a solid work ethic and it really is amazing how much you get done when you just force yourself to sit down everyday and work regardless of what on. I still go to the movies and watch TV and play video games, but I usually get in at least 5 or 6 hours of work a day. Usually 8 or 9.
But a good amount of that work is in a classroom environment where I am also socializing and it takes a bit of the edge off of how dull some of this stuff can be. So if you have some buddies who like to draw, maybe organize trips to the zoo or to the food court at the mall or wherever to have some fun while you are doing it as well.
Anyways, I thought I would also point out that those links to the 20 minute layins of Erik's aren't working.
rts on
skype: rtschutter
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited September 2009
Going to post my schedule this evening, and then the hard VURK shud begin.
Posts
Hello Ange!
Found a digital camera so I can scan in some of my graphite stuff!
The top of this picture got washed out by lighting, but I think it captures it well enough
A lara thing I did when I was bored, HI LARA
Sketchbook stuff
A more finished thingy
Oh, it is worth pointing out that most of those from reference - from my own head is MUCH MUCH worse!
Thanks! I've been slacking recently because I ran out of momentum, so it is appreciated >.<
It sounds stupid, but it's kind of just a matter of taking stuff slowly and doing a lot of measurements. It sounds mechanical but it works for me o.O
Her forehead and nose have since been corrected, but my digicamera has been STOLEARISED by bad people so that is all!
All (intelligent) artist use reference for the most part. You can do stuff straight from the mind, but using good reference will always make an artwork better and never hinder.
Good drawings
Anatomy - Try and think of the figures your drawing as 3D models and draw out all the planes and shapes to build them up, here's a lil sketch I did to give you an idea of what I mean (kinda crude sorry only a couple min):
Also it will really help you out when you are working out the values in terms of lighting and trying to figure what planes get hit with light and what planes don't:
I think this is a good start...You have a lot of raw talent now it's up to you to refine that and go out and actively try and absorb as much knowledge as possible. The internet is a wonderfull educational tool, use it. Best of luck!
Tim
:^:
Been doing more stuff like this today, but most not fit for human consumption hurhurhur
Kewop, my hope is that one day I shall be able to produce stuff so good from my head that I won't need reference! It's somewhere to aim for, at least >_>
Deadlydorito KEYBOARD HIGHFIVE
Tim - I plan on doing some studies exactly like that today at some juncture. Hurrah.
WCK - Thankies brosephina
hmmm, either you're assuming i'm female, or you're suggesting i'm gay?
Does writing notes down next to sketches help? Do you ever refer back to them? I used to note stuff down in my sketchbook for reference, but found myself never refering back to them as all the notes are already written in books, and ive got 5 sketchbooks filled with loomis studies sitting in my wardrobe which would be a nightmare to try to find information through.
The point of the notes is to give me an anchor to aim for when looking at what I'm doing. If I feel like I have to populate a list with criticisms / ideas it forces me to produce what I'm thinking in a short, summed-up form. In that case I was looking at a few sketches by the supertacular Wes Burt - http://wesleyburt.com/galleryfecal.html - and just noting what struck me about his use of lines in shading, as he uses a mechanical pencil and shades in a fashion that I like a lot. I tend to find without forcing myself to process what I'm looking at I won't get as much out of a picture as I could have done. It also gives me something to poke at when I'm trying to apply what I've gleaned.
Ever since I wandered through california a few months ago and heard people call each other broseph I automatically feminise it whenever I use it, apologies
Edit : As an example of pure text - this is what I did yesterday in order to get myself to plan things out.
MOAR SHEEZ
might want to grab yourself this anatomy book
http://www.amazon.com/Human-Anatomy-Artists-Elements-Form/dp/0195052064
hands down. Best book ever on the subject if you can only buy one. You should get as many as you can but thats my favorite.
Im taking a class with a guy whos got over 200 anatomy books and this is his favorite... as well. Rey Bustos
45 Mins of posemaniacs and a few random studies.
I love it! keep on keepin' on, broseph stalin.
First, to give me some idea of what you chaps (as I know there are a lot of you who are involved in art education, where as I have quite literally never been near a place of artistic learning) would consider a good schedule to be done each day (as in sets, types of exercises etc, when they should be done) with a goal being roughly 5 hours of work each day.
And second, to harangue the crap out of me if I do not post the stuff that I am scheduled to post each day. I know this might be slightly beyond the call, but if I do not rope in some kind of external force I probably won't end up doing what I should be doing, which would be a huge shame. I fully realise that starting as late as I have, I need to work harder than I am, so I am hoping this might help.
Open to any suggestions.
MwahXxxx
The truth is that without fairly rigid guidelines I will naturally follow the path of least resistance to do the things that I can already do adequately without tackling those that I can't. My hope is that if I can have an outside influence engaged in the loop somewhere, I will do vastly more work that I would otherwise avoid!
Also, I am also uncertain where some of my problems come from. For example; I don't know what an appropriate exercise would be to get a foundational grip on space and form (just from the point of view of rendering simple 3-dimensional objects). Or if I even need to do that. It's like... I'm not sure which elements of my technique need to be most tuned etc.
My CA thread has way more stuff in it, so it will give you a good idea of where most of my practice has been and what my average actual standard is.
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=151722
For example Ken, if you were to set yourself the "ideal" daily 5 hours schedule of the quickest and brutal methods of getting yourself better, what would it consist of? How would you assess what you had done? How would you vary it as the weeks go on?
I know a fairly significant amount about learning - I spent quite some time working in a lab that dealt with the psychology of learning - but I am also well aware of my capacity to be lazy and engage in unthinking self-deception.
"Someone else make up a schedule for me!" is a cop out. Learning how to figure out what your weaknesses are and coming up with ways to address them on YOUR OWN is something that is very important for any artist to learn, specifically because self-directed study subjects and methods are going to vary wildly from artist to artist. If you need others to give you "assignments" before you ever tackle your shortcomings then you will never get to them. Buck up and stop giving yourself excuses to be lazy.
It sounds like tautology, but to get better at something you need to practice doing that thing and it's simple as that. If you want to get better at depicting three dimensional forms, then you need to study three dimensional forms. That means drawing from life, not photographs. Based on what you've posted in this thread drawing from life is something that you don't do much, so it makes sense that you might struggle with understanding of structure in things you're trying to create or interpret from 2D.
In fact, in representational art the "best" answer for trying to improve on nearly ANY subject is to seek that thing from life and make observational studies of it.
I am quite aware of the necessity of practice, and indeed if nobody can think of anything in particular then I'll go back to doing what I was doing, but I still would like to know where I stand. And your suggestion of lifedrawing is also a handy one, as I tend not to do it.
Sooo if anything I would recommend on thinking about how much you think on your stuff, and the best way for you to think on something, for instance ikage writes notes on her stuff to help her think. I personally in a way "meditate" 80% of the time and then draw 20% of the time, I use to draw a lot but I found it wasn't really helping. I know someone who thinks a lot but also uses constant book reference and anatomy reference. Its such a varied thing that theres no set "this is what you do" finding out how you learn is a challenge in itself
and depending on the situation it can change to, I sometimes have to refer to books or read up on stuff to help me understand it
If you are looking for some special tips on how to train, get yourself into a good school. It's very difficult to give good training online so don't expect to find it. I was going to do the best I could to offer some good drawing information through my lessons but I don't think I will be doing them anymore because of low participation. So check out the tutorials I have linked to all over this forum, they have the best information you are probably going to find online.
Ive got a lot of training so I have no difficulting understanding the ideas he is trying to communicate but they seem extremely straightforward to me.
If you want a specific this is what you should do type thing. That man has written a book telling you exactly that
And I am not going to link you to any of robert beverely hales books.. you can do that shit on your own via google if you give a damn. And if you dont know who he is.. educate yourself.
You should not look to forums for your end all.. just as a supplement. 99.99% of the stuff you will here on a forum is stuff that has been written about in a much more cohesive, comprehensive and coherent fashion by some one likely far more educated and experienced.
Forums are a great place to find out about those resources. And I have just started you on your quest.
There is your specific schedule. Go..
That said, a lot of these things require a lot of patience and dedication that can be difficult to muster, and difficult to see if you're getting anything out of them, outside of a classroom environment. It's not that they're not good for you or that they're designed to be demoralizing, merely that slogging through a tough time in your learning process (and there will be many such times) is easier to do when you're doing it with other people, or have a set time and place to be to do these things- while being in an isolated environment won't make them any more or less frustrating, the chance of that frustration turning into defeat and letting yourself shy away from doing the exercises is much higher.
So while yeah, you should be trying to do these things if you can, Cake is right in that first just getting in the habit of drawing everyday is more important; learning to love that process. So make sure your drawing schedule is balanced between the hard medicine of rigorous exercises, and the more fun stuff that make you love drawing. Neglect one or the other and you'll stagnate.
So yeah, if you can, take some of these that sound interesting and mark out 3 hours a week to do them for a period of 3 months, then look over your work, reevalutate what you need to be working on, pick a different handful and repeat. And similarly, take 3 hours to do something you just enjoy doing, and see if you can apply that hard learning to that enjoyable task- speedpainting, comic book type figures, etc.
Just don't get caught in the OH GOD I NEED TO BE GOOD YESTERDAY WHY IS THIS GOING SO SLOW I NEED TO DO ONE MILLION ART HOURS PER WEEK trap, and try to do everything all at once, because you'll burn out real quick, and in the process you'll fail to appreciate that probably the best thing you can develop towards doing art is patience. Don't rush things, but don't slack off either. Keep a steady, balanced pace in your progress if you can. Tortoise and the hare.
Now to the actual content, I tried to do ones that you can do from photo ref or model, though having a model is obviously preferable:
Pretty much what it sounds like- take a drawing, painting, or sculpture from a master-level artist, and try to draw it yourself. The idea is to use the exercise as a way of trying to reverse engineer their work, figuring out how to take qualities from their work and then being able to apply it to your own work.
Ex: If you wanted to work on smooth line work with flatter color design, you'd want to copy a Mucha. Subtle shading and gradation, a Bouguereau or Prud'hon. Dramatic lighting, Caravaggio or Rembrandt. Heroic proportions, ancient Greek statues. You can learn a lot by taking the time to rigorously scrutinize master artist's work, and training your hand to be able to replicate their qualities.
Plus, it's something specifically mentioned as far back as Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks, and he seemed to know what he was on about most of the time. If you spend a lot of time looking at old master drawings, you'll often run into drawings of masters doing their own master copies from other masters.
It helps if you can find good reference to work from, and not some 300x400 jpeg off google image search. Wikipedia often isn't too terrible for references, but if you can get a good art book or a high-quality xerox from one, that's usually going to be your best bet. If you don't have a library around that carries decent art books, Borders seems to dump a lot of expensive art history-type books full of high quality, full-color reproductions into their bargain area, and you can easily walk out with a $60-70 book for $10-20. The Robert Beverly Hale Anatomy/Drawing Lessons From the Great Masters books in the title are also good sources for reference, with a side benefit that they have a good variety of artists in them, so if you're not totally up on your art history and don't know which artists you should be drawing from, it'll give you a good list of names to choose from.
Check out Juliette Aristides' Classical Drawing Atelier for a decent rundown of the process (just be wary of the advocating of the sight-size method in the book- as while it does have its merits, it is far less flexible in the long run than other methods of measuring).
This exercise can be done as a several week long process of meticulously rendering out the chosen piece as much as possible, or quick studies to break down specific aspects of someone's work.
20 minute figure drawings
This is a term probably without any sort of standard definition, but I'm just going off of what the definition is at Watts. Basically the lay-in is the first stage of any drawing, focusing on getting the basic proportions, gesture, and forms to read. The classes here to practice it are run by having a model take 20 minute poses, which is enough to figure out some initial linework and some basic indications of form, but not enough to get into detail or full rendering. The drawings are done so each on fill up a full page, to practice composition.
It's not a fully realized drawing, it's just practicing getting your initial observations accurate- so when you do go to do a full drawing, you don't end up spending 3 hours rendering a head that's 3/4 the size it should be or something (I actually did that last week, and my God did it piss me off when I realized what I'd done).
Not very good examples, but these are some of mine from last term:
http://bacon.iseenothing.com/Watts/FigLayIns_1.jpg
http://bacon.iseenothing.com/Watts/FigLayIns_2.jpg
http://bacon.iseenothing.com/Watts/FigLayIns_3.jpg
I wish I had some in progress shots from an instructor demo for you to look at, because I'm getting too into contour and shading in these examples to really show you what the important bits of the exercise are.
I guess these finished ones from Erik's blog should help, but again there's shading on it that you probably stop yourself from getting into if you're just starting out- he can get away with it because he's been doing them for 12 years:
EDIT: fixed these links
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CXjxCzN0BqQ/ShQ41wJ5-dI/AAAAAAAAAik/2E1rEjmCm6o/s1600-h/Fig2-09+(8).jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CXjxCzN0BqQ/ShQ5Duk7B8I/AAAAAAAAAis/SQuOlvm5jGY/s1600-h/Fig2-09+(4).jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CXjxCzN0BqQ/ShQ5D1T4nSI/AAAAAAAAAi0/lx2l6VYak0k/s1600-h/Fig2-09+(11).jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CXjxCzN0BqQ/SK9-RDpQiGI/AAAAAAAAAJE/63HN_DTuP6E/s1600-h/8Fig.JPG
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CXjxCzN0BqQ/SK9-RQzfihI/AAAAAAAAAJM/9Ec2EPYE398/s1600-h/8Fig+(2).JPG
These look pretty complicated, but if you look at the outlines, they're much simpler than any real contour would be. The body is defined in big, sweeping lines, which all are either C-curves, S-curves or straight lines (CSI for easy remembering). Keeping things defined simply lets you focus more on the proportions without wasting time trying to define fingers or individual abdominal muscles or whatever.
If you don't have access to a model, you can do the same exercise using (preferably nude) photo or master-drawn reference. Not as good, but it still will help.
Cast drawing
If you can find one for cheap or have regular access to a museum with good sculptures to draw from. Again, Classical Drawing Atelier has a decent process description. Good for practicing measurement, and working on form and shade. NightDragon did a really nice one awhile back: http://www.fireflights.com/Random/LaocoonCast.jpg
Spend your time on this, ND's took 21.5 hours to complete.
Figure Drawing
Self-explainatory (sort of). 3 hours+ per pose.
Bridgman copies
http://deadoftheday.blogspot.com/2009/07/perspiration-anatomy.html
Figure invention exercises
-Maniqueinnizing figures (Loomis or How to Draw the Marvel Way block and cones method)
-Drawing reffed poses from different perspectives
-Examine figure for one minute of time, then put the ref out of sight and reach. Then spend the next 5-9 min. attempting to draw what you remember of that pose.
Long Anatomy Study
-Copy a full figure master drawing or photo, lightly
-With tracing paper, draw in where the skeleton would be using reference.
-Then with another piece of tracing paper, draw in the musculature using reference.
-Armed with the knowledge gained by putting in the skeleton and muscles, go back to the original drawing and, work on it with the intention of designing to highlight the anatomy- taking what may be an underwhelming or ambiguous area in the reference and creating a clearer read to it.
Twitter
Sur... do everything he just said.
Just going into my last year of a biochem masters - after that I definitely plan on getting some formal tuition, but for now I'm having to rely on the mercy of the interwebs :P
But a good amount of that work is in a classroom environment where I am also socializing and it takes a bit of the edge off of how dull some of this stuff can be. So if you have some buddies who like to draw, maybe organize trips to the zoo or to the food court at the mall or wherever to have some fun while you are doing it as well.
Anyways, I thought I would also point out that those links to the 20 minute layins of Erik's aren't working.