Anyone else tend to blow the size up without thinking when drawing?

[JFierce]

Weird topic but there's not much else going on in here, the standard woe is me, how do I read, tell me where to start topics.

But anyways, I've just started working on figure drawings which I haven't done in ages, and something has been off when trying to do it I couldn't figure it out when it hit me........I have this really bad habit of just focusing in on the details of something when drawing figures, then without thinking about it just drawing things really big without thinking about the space on a canvas/paper. I run out of space before I get probably 3/4ths done with the figure I'm doing.

Anyone else have this (or had this) habit out of curiosity?


Trying to force myself into drawing things smaller without resizing digitally or throwing out a bunch of paper because I screwed up.

[Conniekat8]

My life drawing teacher hammers us about this very thing all the time...
Initial step to drawing, determine height and width of your piece, place it in the right spot on the paper... (in a lot of cases, center)... then start with a gesture and fitting and correcting proportions.
Working from general to specific.

Mid to the end of the class, you could have a really good detail on the drawing, if it's not placed and proportioned well, he will not even look at it, or make you redo it.

When you neglect the initial planing steps, it's super easy to have yours stuff meander all over the place.

Here's a handout he hammers us with frequently... I'm typing it up because I need a refresher review anyway...

Steps to drawing accurately:
1. Establish overall dimensions of the composition... Height+width. Via viewfinder or sight measurements, portrait or landscape.
2. Establish size and scale (where and how big it will be on paper)
3. Determine if the overall design fits within a specific geometric shape. Triangle, parallelogram, circle...
4. Define your point of view. Are you in front, is the subject parallel or angular to you... determine eye level and center line...
5. Intuitive gesture. Quickly and very lightly sketch in the gesture of the whole thing... minute or two.
6. Envelope. Use envelope to establish a more precise outer frame of the big picture. Make appropriate corrections to height and width.
7. Draw from the outside-in. Work from the outside. Do not start in the center of your composition and make the drawing grow. This will most certainly not make your drawing fit in your picture plan.
8. Think shapes - mass or area, not edge (line). When drawing individual parts focus on producing shapes, rather then edges. Bounce your eye from one edge to the other till you see the true shape. Draw lightly at first, refine later.
9. Work from general to specific. Don't get stuck on small detail.
10. Positive/negative shape. While refining the underdrawing, keep shifting your attention from positive to negative space.
11. Establish a sound underdrawing. Don't shift your attention to detailed planes and values too quickly. Make sure you have established correct proportions and that shapes relate well to one another.Evaluate height and width of each shape and as they relate to one another.Make corrections as necessary. Don't worry too much about creating dramatic dimensional space at this point. Once a good underdrawing is established, you are now ready with the refinement process of overdrawing.
12. Start overdrawing. Begin to refine, accentuate and emphasize the initial exploratory gestural lines.

methods for refining a drawing go from steps 13-35..... if there's still interest I'll continue those tomorrow, my bedtime is fast approaching....

[JFierce]

lol I'm starting to over come it slowly it feels tonight. Just doing a bunch of practice sketches of figures over and over. But this is the first time I've ever actively realized what I'm doing. Even worse it's really apparent when I'm trying to quickly sketch in my figures I'm observing accurately. Which shows my big weakness. I never had a set method and had a kinda sorta gesture thing going on and it works fine with imagination, I can set up what I feel the character is doing roughly, create a manikin and build up with construction without too much issue, not perfect but I felt confident I was improving as I went.

Now that I'm trying to apply it to observational figures, I feel much less confident because I can easily tell if the proportions are off in some way. Hence the whole working on the accuracy of your gestures type thing. I just really over blow the proportions.


It gets harder especially with the really weird poses. Ignore the lazyness that is incomplete, it's late and I'm done for the night (and the censoring as I like to show my drawings to friends on facebook and they have kids)


1412142


This one for instance. One of my figure doodles for the night. This is dealing with a lot of stuff I've never done before. I haven't done females much. It's stretching the limbs out in both directions, judging that was a pain to even attempt and if I was on a set paper and not digital I would never have guessed that close to right. It would have been wonky as hell. I can grasp the figure and what's wrong if I have long enough, but when I'm doing something quickly that's when I screw up usually and blow things up and proportions go crazy.

Though thats the whole point of figure studies I guess, to learn from these observations then make it almost second nature as you observe.


Once you grasp your weaknesses you can fix them at least. Going to try out some of those steps though in the future. I just need to get a set method and ingrain it into my brain.

[Conniekat8]

I just need to get a set method and ingrain it into my brain.

It takes a LOT of practice (at least for me).
I'm taking my figure drawing class again, rather them moving into figure drawing 2, just to keep practicing. We can take each class up to three times, figure drawing 1, 2 and 3...
.... after 9 semesters of it, maybe I'll get somewhere LOL.

Also proportions, he had us memorize male and female proportions (according to loomis) and we have to constantly check them.

[dpaint]

the simplest way to avoid this problem is start by marking the longest axis of the subject within the boundaries of the paper. An example would be for a standing figure make a hash mark to signify the top of the head and the bottom of the feet. You don't have to measure at this point because you're just defining the boundaries of the shape well within the boundaries of the paper. Then you relate everything else to that longest axis for size. If you do that you will never have the problem again.

[cro-magnon]

i often find i'd like to step my picture plane back a bit after i get a drawing going. (i'm usually drawing townscapes). it's something i have to consciously focus on at the start.

[FourLeafClover]

I always do the opposite.

[JFierce]

Thanks very much, definitely sounds like good advice.


Yeah a set method will not be easy to ingrain, but usually it helps when it makes sense to me. Like before when trying to paint in something. I originally just scattered shit everywhere working on details here, working on details there with no priority. Now I'm starting to lay out the general dominant colors and building up, leaving things like highlights for the final stretch instead of just tacking them on right away.

[Conniekat8]

Thanks very much, definitely sounds like good advice.


Yeah a set method will not be easy to ingrain, but usually it helps when it makes sense to me. Like before when trying to paint in something. I originally just scattered shit everywhere working on details here, working on details there with no priority. Now I'm starting to lay out the general dominant colors and building up, leaving things like highlights for the final stretch instead of just tacking them on right away.

My life drawing teacher has us have the list of 'steps' and loomis proportions handouts 'in front', clipped on our drawing board.
Not so much to follow the steps, but a cheat sheet refer to it as a helper to self-correct when something goes wrong with the image.

While we;re drawing, he constantly walks around and look at people's stuff and goes... ok, so, this looks off, can you see why.... most of the times it's because we overlooked something in the setup process. Surprisingly the times where we just don't see what's wrong, or how to make it right are a lot more rare.

It's a lot like learning about what errors we are prone to making, and how to correct them.

Similar to what DP mentioned, determine the heights, he also has us split it in half (visually, or with a tiny mark) and then in half again.... so you end up with quarters - Top head, nipples, crotch, bottom of knees, feet. In more complicated poses, of course it's more complicated then on a standing figure, but you end up in a habit of locating the key elements and how they relate to one another... then start layering in levels of detail.