Hi all, I'm recovering from a pretty bad chronic health issue that had left me impaired (couldn't hold a fork or chopsticks without pain) and took art out of my life for a couple of years. Learning to draw again for fun, although there are limitations to my practice. I can't draw with pencils at all, the vibrations set my condition back. But I can use inky stuff!
Anyways I'll post stuff here as a diary to myself to help keep motivated. I'm really excited to be doing this, it's taken a lot of effort to rehabilitate my body to this point
This is from the weekend just now, I'm trying to learn by breaking down One Piece
I still need to actually learn perspective, tried a tiny bit today. This is from a walking video in Pakistan on youtube. I love those videos and they might prove to be useful once I really sink my teeth into perspective
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I downloaded a shitty pirated version of Joe Weatherly's animal anatomy book, imma get the real one as a reward when I've drawn every day for a month. He mentions to not be a xerox machine and try to draw from imagination. Looking forward to making more frogs, and going to the zoo as well. Got two cats so I should deffo get in on drawing them too
I think Oda might be a master of facial expressions, and I can tell that he uses lots of different shapes in character design. He's so amazing I can't believe how much more I am appreciating his work now. Really fangirling over him, especially the background characters are the most interesting
Having to take 15 to 20 minute breaks every 15 minutes of drawing, just for safety's sake. But I'm feeling fucking great, bodily and mentally too .
On an ergonomics/body safety note:
- It takes a lot of yoga and qigong to get my body to a state where I can draw even this much. I might need to hold back on using RL pens and stuff and get on the tablet again. With the tablet I can draw while looking at the computer screen, which is at eye level. It's much more ergonomic that way.
- I'll have to be more diligent about practicing standing and seated meditation as well, that's really important to relaxing the stiffness out of the body. More importantly, maybe, is the process of looking at bodily tension and pain less like an enemy or an obstacle and more like a part of life. Animosity towards a medical condition makes it worse I think
I'm really glad this forum's still operating.
So my mental notes for tomorrow are... -use the tablet, standing/sitting will help the body draw more, keep thinking about sideways frogs, and probably find some dope one piece stuff to draw
I like your notes around your pieces; makes your posts much more interesting.
Keep up the good work and look after yourself.
ERGONOMICS
late notes for yesterday:: I tried following Ahmed Aldoori yesterday in his latest figure drawing video, but i tried doing it with a drawing tablet.The tablet's cool but unfortunately because it is based on a pen-nib design i have to hold it in a more constant manner without switching grips - not good for me! I need the body to be able to find new positions of comfort, and drawing from the shoulder/wrist with brush pens facilitates that for sure.
Another issue may have been that I was watching and drawing along with a video. I think next time i'll just watch, and take notes of some things the pro's do. Maybe note down sometime stamps of things to check out later to learn from more in depth and in focus.
This is today's stuff:
I'm making some interesting mistakes, and I seem to only notice parts of the structure of the frogs AFTER I draw them. With my drawing in front of me, I have a point of contrast available, and it is only with the contrast available that I notice the most interesting things of the frog's pose.
I think I can address this by giving myself a minute or two to just look at the frog before putting pen to paper. Maybe I could also write down notes of landmarks or how to tackle the pose.
Trying to figure out the most ergonomic approach. Going from the shoulder is very good, especially with brush pens if i can drag the shaft of the pen against the paper. This lets me relax the shoulder and wrists further
I can draw against whiteboards at school as well, (i work at a school lol) especially during our four hour breaks. Might be good to plan my week with the goal in mind of taking advantage of these breaks and getting on the whiteboard
I’ll do a photodump later
Can draw more now, i think practicing hand mudras has been really helpful. Also doing yoga and qigong with the mindset of ‘let’s get to know what the body state is like now’ instead o ‘lets fix this bad thing in the body’ is a huge difference maker
Yesterday during drawing i felt my hand tense up at one point, and that’s when i have to stop. Ill keep an eye out on that each time from now on
Maybe i gotta first get the hobby to a sustainable level, and THEN go for targeted learning
Made my first creative piece today, it's the octopus with the cauldron. I had been drawing frogs and frogs and nothing but frogs for ages, and felt bored at work just using pinterest. I also had a dream involving DK publishing's visual encyclopaedia style of books. there was a book i flipped through called "a dictionary of cat-based rat killings", although theimage i recall isthatof a rat standingatop a WW2 man'srifle in a battleground in a pacific island, it's claws extended andmouth open like a warrior. Gonna get some of those and learn RL stuff and drawing stufffrom theimages
New keyboard as well is fuckingwith me, dodgy space bar.
Ergonomics gettingbetter
Workheaps more intense, less time to blog but wannakeep it up to date anyway
I wanna look into calligraphy as well, so i could eventually make the sketchbook look like those trippy 1960's posters andalbum covers
Anyways here's an emu. I'd like to expand my visual library during this time that i can draw for just short bursts. At work I can draw things for the kids on the whiteboard and they get really engaged with that stuff, it's good also when I turn up to class early and all the materials I need is a marker and the whiteboard, then draw the animals doing stuff for them. An angry dog on a ball, a sad cat under a big carrot, an octopus with a gun. They love it, and it makes it easier for them to remember the sentences and stuff (They are learning English )
The other day I asked my kindergarten class what the farmer had, and they yelled out TWO CHICKENS! So I drew two chickens, then a kid yelled out FOUR BANANAS! So I drew the bananas. Then one banana ended up being a spidermanbanana, and the other one a batmanbanana. It's so easy, they yell out what they want you to draw (but you guide them into wanting images of the target language), then we practice writing sentences about the drawings and they give drawing a go themselves.
Anyways, regarding building up a visual library... Kim Jung Gi has a video on proko where he describes how he observes the world. It's the one video I've seen wherein he really explains his process of how he's trained his eye. I'll watch it again. I know that I can't draw too much in a single day, so I might as well get to know the process of observation a bit better too. It might be good for my health as well if the drawing process is interspersed with long moments of just looking at my target object
Oh actually I forgot about this next thing! I asked my teen students to create the most evil country ever and then let them draw it (They had to talk to each other while talking about how to draw it)
It's a pretty evil country, here's rule #2: "You gotta kill a rabbit before entering"
Really really good news, Turns out you can do pixel art quite ok with a mouse! So I've got a left hand mouse, right hand pen for the tablet, and soon i'll get a right hand mouse too. Also got a trackpad but those are extra evil levels of unergonomic, although ocassional use will be fine and dandy for me. Just gotta be super careful.
Here's some shit I've done, the skull's the latest. It's 64*64, and I am at the point today that I'm just done. Tomorrow I'll try 48*48 and then 32*32, then 16*16 and finally an 8*8 pixel drawing of the same skull with the same pallette. There's an aussie guy who suggests this as an activity, calls it 'shrink ray' challenge. It's fun.
Here's the skull big
Here it is not big
I call this the snekkiken cuz it was supposed to have a snake coming out of it's mouth but then i got tired
I'm really glad that sprite stuff exists. I can integrate both arms into the process and ease the load on the right, it's so much easier to take care of myself. Also the fact that every single pixel matters so much makes it easier for me to pause for a few seconds, or even for a long time, to evaluate the recent stroke/pixel/decision. I think this is the right path for me
Also cute news, when I'm starting to feel particularly tight my cat jumps on my lap. Aint that nice, like she's telling me to take a break