Hey guys. I've been away from drawing for a few months, things have been hectic, but now I'm back in school with two drawing classes. Figure drawing and drawing 1. I'll be updating this probably mondays, wednesdays and fridays. Please critique and be vicious.
The first 2 are from the figure drawing class. The other 2 are on my own time.
Didn't have much time to do these because she spent a lot of time coaching the beginners since it was the first day drawing. (Using vine charcoal in class, pencil for the other 2)
The model moved around a lot on this one
Drew this in my film art class. (yes I know I'm missing an M) Sorry for the lightness, was using a 4H.
I'm really eager for next week to start so we draw more in class. This was from today, about 3 minutes doing a quick sketch of a plastic elephant toy about 1 1/2 " tall
Keep working at it, and remember to be deliberate with the marks you're putting down. Feel free to put down any lines that are useful to you (even just gesture lines or to align different parts of the figure) but really focus on where they are going and what looks off compared to the model. For those quick short poses, you'll probably learn more from trying to be more accurate and maybe ending up with a "less finished" drawing than you would learn from rushing yourself.
Hi lyrium! I've been following your thread. Awesome work you're doing! I'm always excited when you upload stuff.
I really do have a tendency to rush. Thanks for that! I'll work on taking my time more, I forget to. Do you have any tips for working with vine charcoal? I didn't really stick with the compressed stuff before, and we're going to be using vine charcoal most of the semester i the figure class.
Something I drew today sitting around.
Looking at it now the sleeve is annoying me. He lifted his arm a lot. I would have a few lines down for where the wrinkles were at, then he'd move and I tried to get the light and dark areas in but then they were different shapes. The angle from his face to his hand was right, but his arm feels really short looking at it on my screen... I think this is one of my better drawings of NOT a model.
Watching snatch, decided to draw my favorite character.
A couple of things. I've never actually drawn hair or fur. Maybe half an hour, I felt like i was polishing a turd, not really making any headway. Any pointers on hair or w/e would be great, any comments on this at all would be helpful.
edit: Looking at it side by side the left (viewer) looks warped.
Drew over some angles to figure out where the problem was. Idk if the proportions are any better. This is probably all I'm going to do on this. Just wanted to engage in some learnings and see if I could figure out what went wrong.
Reference
More figure drawing class. Have my first out of class assignment that I'm gonna work on today. @lyrium I tried to focus on what you said about being deliberate with the marks I make. Any thoughts on these?
1 min
5 min
about 20
This teacher likes to talk and demonstrate a lot... so there really isn't much drawing time, at least for the past 2 classes. I'm going to sit in on a different instructor later and see if that's any better. Might switch classes.
I'm no lyrium, but my comment would be to concentrate less on the heavy outline, and focus instead on form and shade if you can. Study how light is striking the figure and work on making your shading reflect that gradation as much as possible.
i dont care much about you using line or not. i think the male nudes are interesting to look at Because of how you used your line. but in terms of your other drawings, otherwise i agree with halen.
Thanks guys! I found it difficult the last 2 days in this classroom with no definite light source. A huge array of windows on one side and ambient lighting all around made finding the light and dark areas difficult. That's something I've been trying to work on in general, that Humphrey Bogart drawing is one of my only serious attempts at shading (there's some in my other threads) it's still a really new thing to me, so I'm trying, but without instruction it's all trial and error i feel. I know you're supposed to shade light to dark (right?) but aside from that...?
This is most of an assignment to copy a drawing of a skeletal hand as closely to the original as possible. My copy so far. I'm saving the wrist bones for tomorrow cuz I'm bored. (isn't due for a week)
This is the reference. The thumbs on both hands of my copy are not at the correct angle (while there are other mistakes these stick out like a sore thumb)
In drawing this I had an epiphany that my favorite artist's designs are very skeletal, and he tends to shade in a similar fashion as this copy I'm doing. Hatching and cross-hatching and whatever you call it.
Our model was sick today. We decided to draw him anyway[/joke]
All kidding aside, he was sick, so we drew a skeleton with no jaw.
Only had about 5 minutes on this one. Didn't get to look at it too long, it was being moved to demonstrate stuff to other students, making it difficult to get any real lines down before I had to essentially start over.
I want to say this was about 20 minutes. I've never drawn a full skeleton before and I found myself wandering and getting a little frustrated Mental note, when using charcoal, start from left to right so you don't pick up the charcoal with your hand...
It was a really nice day today, mid 60's and the sun was really warm. I decided to go to the park. These are some gestures I did of some people there.
This is where I was at.
IDK if the stuff at the park is any good. As far as I know, all I'm trying to do is get as much information with as few lines as possible, but IDK if I managed to do that.
My once a week drawing class was today. We started off with an exercise, draw an object from your house from memory. Be as detailed as you can, then go home and draw the thing you chose in person. I haven't done the second half, so I'll save that for later.
Hands. "don't look at the paper, don't lift your pencil" etc
My shoe. She told us "no sketching, no planing, just contour. practice following the shape of what you're looking at."
Still life. "No shading, just contour, outline." I finished with the line drawing after about a few minutes, I got bored and started to shade and draw out the light and dark shapes, but she made me stop The photo isn't from my exact perspective while drawing, so it isn't perfect
My once a week drawing class was today. We started off with an exercise, draw an object from your house from memory. Be as detailed as you can, then go home and draw the thing you chose in person...
I don't think you should be practicing on magazine grade photo's. In the discussion thread you were asking for gesture drawing references, but you went far beyond gesture drawing . I think everyone has heard this before.
(so it stands to reason that you would actually like some references for some simple studies?)
Many [nude] art model books exist with responsible lighting so not to cause the "photo refrence" problem. Go to the library, or ask the dark side of the Internet to let you have them for free.
If you relinquish control you will gain unequalled power
I don't think you should be practicing on magazine grade photo's. In the discussion thread you were asking for gesture drawing references, but you went far beyond gesture drawing . I think everyone has heard this before...
I get distracted easily. It looked like fun, so I did that. I don't like surfing the internet for naked people, they often wind up being grotesque and/or overtly sexual. If you have any other references, I'd appreciate it.
I should have put quotes on it. The exact title of the series is "art models" and they are available as E-pubs and real books too! I'm not implying you do something unethical when I mention that ebooks have torrents...
However, If you put the word "art" in your porn search, you still get better quality images than that website you seemed so interested in. Not to mention dynamic poses... So I really don't see the problem.
Drawing some 30 second and minute gesture stuff. Found a great timer app on my phone that yells at me to change the pictures. Maybe did an hour, here's some of the better ones.
@halen I am not super focused on shading at the moment. That's a little beyond my goals at the moment. It's more for the experience than for finished pieces. I figure the more I do it, the better I can see? Idk if that makes sense, but it makes sense in my head. Besides, I like the character that pencil adds when it doesn't look airbrush smooth.
Shading is a big part of understanding form, If its not part of your focus, better to forgo it than to haphazardly place it. I'd recommend trying the monthly enrichment, it would be good to focus on a simpler object.
What sort of paper are you using? A smoother paper, and a softer medium may help. Charcoal pencils on BFK, for instance, will give you a different range than HB on sketch paper.
Shading is a big part of understanding form, If its not part of your focus, better to forgo it than to haphazardly place it. I'd recommend trying the monthly enrichment, it would be good to focus on a simpler object.
What sort of paper are you using? A smoother paper, and a softer medium may help. Charcoal pencils on BFK, for instance, will give you a different range than HB on sketch paper.
Well i mean, all I'm really trying to do is draw the light and dark shapes The only reason I scribbled them in was to differentiate which is which. It depends on which drawing we're talking about.
Is this something that will lead to bad technique? If so I should stop doing it altogether. If not, what are your suggestions?
I'm using 2B-8B on sketch paper (except in figure drawing 1 we use vine charcoal on newsprint)
So more line drawing stuff. We aren't doing shading in class, and I have no actual practice or education on shading, so the stuff I put on these was me drawing the light and dark shapes that I saw and doing my best. No real light source, since we aren't doing shading yet the teacher hasn't been set one up.
Plz critiques. I'm a bit farther ahead than the rest of the class since I've done this before, so the teacher is spending a lot of time with the students that need it, so I could use some feedback, lemme know what I need to pay attention to.
Gestures
first long pose of the day. The head looks small, but that's because the picture got cut off at the top
exercise in following form with your eyes (not looking at paper)
Last pose of the day. Went a little dark on the lines.
dude you gesture drawing is quality.
focus on that sexy line you're dropping on the viewer. it tells a terrific story (to those listening).
get comfortable drawing the penis. (art class doesnt imply a sexuality )
There are a lot of approaches to gesture drawing. Based on the way we use them at my school, I would like to see you have some indication of where the entire figure is located before you jump into the details of the contour. If you think of the "gesture" as one movement, one action, one cohesive thingy that the figure (or whatever you're drawing) is showing, then it only makes sense to have some indication of that before worrying about the specifics of the figure. To clarify, the fact that a lot of your drawings are missing lower legs, or that you ran out of space for the head, etc, show a lack of planning out what the entire pose is from the start. For gesture, this is your immediate concern.
To be fair, maybe you can't see the lower legs very well depending on how you're set up, but I stick to my point that it looks like you're prioritizing the contour of the figure over the actual motion of the gesture. So something like this:
says more about the gesture than what you have. Though you are giving some nice attention to the contour, I'm just saying that gesture exercises are meant to focus on something different.
I'm done with the second LEG of my homework assignment. I'm getting a little tired of running around doing all the LEG work around here, but at least I have a LEG UP on this assignment. Also, it's a leg.
TY Lyrium. A friend loaned me a copy of his vilppu drawing manual (pretty sure I saw that jpg in the book) It's really awesome the motion you can get with so few lines. That is what I was going for the other day, but I lost focus on it I guess. We really aught to be doing more gestures before getting into the longer poses. I'll try some of those tomorrow (today?) in class.
Gestures. I tried keeping in mind what you said @lyrium, and what I've read and done from the vilppu book this week. Idk if I really followed through though.
1
First longer pose, I think about 20 minutes. She was leaning against the wall, and she pivoted to the left over time. I tried to fix it as I went, but in the end the perspective was way off because of that. Idkwtf I'm doing
The long pose for the day. I waste a lot of time going over the same lines a lot trying to correct what I see. I made her torso very short, in turn making her look wider than she really was. Also IDK if foreshortening is correct. I didn't know what else to do on this, so I started a second one, it was aweful so I'll spare you.
The enrichment is meant to help you make sense of things like that salt shaker. Your shadows are probably in the roundabout spot where they are supposed to be, but if your practice rendering simpler shapes, it will help you understand how the light is actually building that shape, and subsequently make your drawing more coherent. There are multiple lessons to learn. Not just the standard "Draw what you see, not what you think you see", but also "understand what you see". It is very small technical accurateness that takes something from flat to believable, so you need to start slow and be mindful, careful.
Try building blocks if you have any around, or something less reflective/clear, like a coffee mug and an egg. Set up one direct, strong light source with a desk lamp. Focus on rendering this as accurately as possible.
We spent 3 hours doing critiques on the memory and observation drawing that we did, so we didn't get to much drawing, but what we DID do was going over line quality and line variation. This is what I did during the class. I really want to do more of the enrichment, but I have a mess of other homework to do :P
What has gotten into you? Your work just looks much more cared for lately. I'm impressed.
Wow, what a compliment. Thanks man. IDK if this quite lives up to that statement, but assignment from class that I didn't want to do so I didn't spend much time on it.
I think it was the fact that the knee intersects with the shoulder makes it look wierd. Or maybe the fact that the head is too big, but the negative spaces were as I saw them
people watching today. I have more, forgot to take a picture of those. will do later... [img][/img]
Posts
I'm really eager for next week to start so we draw more in class. This was from today, about 3 minutes doing a quick sketch of a plastic elephant toy about 1 1/2 " tall
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
I really do have a tendency to rush. Thanks for that! I'll work on taking my time more, I forget to. Do you have any tips for working with vine charcoal? I didn't really stick with the compressed stuff before, and we're going to be using vine charcoal most of the semester i the figure class.
Something I drew today sitting around.
Looking at it now the sleeve is annoying me. He lifted his arm a lot. I would have a few lines down for where the wrinkles were at, then he'd move and I tried to get the light and dark areas in but then they were different shapes. The angle from his face to his hand was right, but his arm feels really short looking at it on my screen... I think this is one of my better drawings of NOT a model.
A couple of things. I've never actually drawn hair or fur. Maybe half an hour, I felt like i was polishing a turd, not really making any headway. Any pointers on hair or w/e would be great, any comments on this at all would be helpful.
edit: Looking at it side by side the left (viewer) looks warped.
Drew over some angles to figure out where the problem was. Idk if the proportions are any better. This is probably all I'm going to do on this. Just wanted to engage in some learnings and see if I could figure out what went wrong.
Reference
Ok, so the bill is at the wrong angle
edit: made some quick fixes and uploaded the new version instead
Looking back at the stuff I've uploaded in the past IDK if I've really made much progress over that amount of time.
Watching the sportsball game with some friends. Sorry about the lightness of the picture. It didn't really pick up on camera.
Photo
At a place called Rendezvous in town. Having a drink and a cigar with some friends. Really dark place so I couldn't see very well what I was drawing.
Photo
1 min
5 min
about 20
This teacher likes to talk and demonstrate a lot... so there really isn't much drawing time, at least for the past 2 classes. I'm going to sit in on a different instructor later and see if that's any better. Might switch classes.
keep posting please
This is most of an assignment to copy a drawing of a skeletal hand as closely to the original as possible. My copy so far. I'm saving the wrist bones for tomorrow cuz I'm bored. (isn't due for a week)
This is the reference. The thumbs on both hands of my copy are not at the correct angle (while there are other mistakes these stick out like a sore thumb)
In drawing this I had an epiphany that my favorite artist's designs are very skeletal, and he tends to shade in a similar fashion as this copy I'm doing. Hatching and cross-hatching and whatever you call it.
Stuff like this:
All kidding aside, he was sick, so we drew a skeleton with no jaw.
Only had about 5 minutes on this one. Didn't get to look at it too long, it was being moved to demonstrate stuff to other students, making it difficult to get any real lines down before I had to essentially start over.
I want to say this was about 20 minutes. I've never drawn a full skeleton before and I found myself wandering and getting a little frustrated Mental note, when using charcoal, start from left to right so you don't pick up the charcoal with your hand...
It was a really nice day today, mid 60's and the sun was really warm. I decided to go to the park. These are some gestures I did of some people there.
This is where I was at.
IDK if the stuff at the park is any good. As far as I know, all I'm trying to do is get as much information with as few lines as possible, but IDK if I managed to do that.
Hands. "don't look at the paper, don't lift your pencil" etc
My shoe. She told us "no sketching, no planing, just contour. practice following the shape of what you're looking at."
Still life. "No shading, just contour, outline." I finished with the line drawing after about a few minutes, I got bored and started to shade and draw out the light and dark shapes, but she made me stop The photo isn't from my exact perspective while drawing, so it isn't perfect
Never done a landscape sketch before, this was all new to me.
From memory
From sight
I didn't get to finish the chair.
Any thoughts?
More sketchy sketch
So the sartorialist has some cool stuff, thanks natri and seraph for that. any thoughts?
Oh, there it is. There's the suck. I spent too much time on this and little reward.
I'm feeling a little creativity starved after all this drawing from life or whatnot.
(so it stands to reason that you would actually like some references for some simple studies?)
Many [nude] art model books exist with responsible lighting so not to cause the "photo refrence" problem. Go to the library, or ask the dark side of the Internet to let you have them for free.
If you relinquish control you will gain unequalled power
I get distracted easily. It looked like fun, so I did that. I don't like surfing the internet for naked people, they often wind up being grotesque and/or overtly sexual. If you have any other references, I'd appreciate it.
However, If you put the word "art" in your porn search, you still get better quality images than that website you seemed so interested in. Not to mention dynamic poses... So I really don't see the problem.
@halen I am not super focused on shading at the moment. That's a little beyond my goals at the moment. It's more for the experience than for finished pieces. I figure the more I do it, the better I can see? Idk if that makes sense, but it makes sense in my head. Besides, I like the character that pencil adds when it doesn't look airbrush smooth.
What sort of paper are you using? A smoother paper, and a softer medium may help. Charcoal pencils on BFK, for instance, will give you a different range than HB on sketch paper.
Well i mean, all I'm really trying to do is draw the light and dark shapes The only reason I scribbled them in was to differentiate which is which. It depends on which drawing we're talking about.
Is this something that will lead to bad technique? If so I should stop doing it altogether. If not, what are your suggestions?
I'm using 2B-8B on sketch paper (except in figure drawing 1 we use vine charcoal on newsprint)
watching mad men
Plz critiques. I'm a bit farther ahead than the rest of the class since I've done this before, so the teacher is spending a lot of time with the students that need it, so I could use some feedback, lemme know what I need to pay attention to.
Gestures
first long pose of the day. The head looks small, but that's because the picture got cut off at the top
exercise in following form with your eyes (not looking at paper)
Last pose of the day. Went a little dark on the lines.
focus on that sexy line you're dropping on the viewer. it tells a terrific story (to those listening).
get comfortable drawing the penis. (art class doesnt imply a sexuality )
Part of an assignment. You could say I'm done with the first leg!
To be fair, maybe you can't see the lower legs very well depending on how you're set up, but I stick to my point that it looks like you're prioritizing the contour of the figure over the actual motion of the gesture. So something like this:
says more about the gesture than what you have. Though you are giving some nice attention to the contour, I'm just saying that gesture exercises are meant to focus on something different.
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
I made some progress here.
I'm done with the second LEG of my homework assignment. I'm getting a little tired of running around doing all the LEG work around here, but at least I have a LEG UP on this assignment. Also, it's a leg.
TY Lyrium. A friend loaned me a copy of his vilppu drawing manual (pretty sure I saw that jpg in the book) It's really awesome the motion you can get with so few lines. That is what I was going for the other day, but I lost focus on it I guess. We really aught to be doing more gestures before getting into the longer poses. I'll try some of those tomorrow (today?) in class.
Gestures. I tried keeping in mind what you said @lyrium, and what I've read and done from the vilppu book this week. Idk if I really followed through though.
1
First longer pose, I think about 20 minutes. She was leaning against the wall, and she pivoted to the left over time. I tried to fix it as I went, but in the end the perspective was way off because of that. Idkwtf I'm doing
The long pose for the day. I waste a lot of time going over the same lines a lot trying to correct what I see. I made her torso very short, in turn making her look wider than she really was. Also IDK if foreshortening is correct. I didn't know what else to do on this, so I started a second one, it was aweful so I'll spare you.
A little more progress on this
yuck.
Was trying to find some basic shapes for the enrichment, I think this was a little more complex than it was supposed to be...
The enrichment is meant to help you make sense of things like that salt shaker. Your shadows are probably in the roundabout spot where they are supposed to be, but if your practice rendering simpler shapes, it will help you understand how the light is actually building that shape, and subsequently make your drawing more coherent. There are multiple lessons to learn. Not just the standard "Draw what you see, not what you think you see", but also "understand what you see". It is very small technical accurateness that takes something from flat to believable, so you need to start slow and be mindful, careful.
Try building blocks if you have any around, or something less reflective/clear, like a coffee mug and an egg. Set up one direct, strong light source with a desk lamp. Focus on rendering this as accurately as possible.
Wow, what a compliment. Thanks man. IDK if this quite lives up to that statement, but assignment from class that I didn't want to do so I didn't spend much time on it.
people watching today. I have more, forgot to take a picture of those. will do later...
[img][/img]