Swampdigger's Sketchbook

[Swampdigger]

Hooray for color. Decided to join the crowd and do a few of these color study landscape... things.

[Diego]

The SP is great man. The lifedrawings are looking cool too, do tons of these. Even if they look like gestures, capture the pose, then if you have time, render the face or whatever.
Anyways, keep up the good work.

[url00]

Very nice work!
(Wish I could have seen it made!)

[l0stinth0ughts]

hey swampdigger,
you are doing great man, i like all the new updates and the experiments that you are doing with ome of your artwork. keep it up man, and best of luck

[pennington]

you're peeps are great, that sp is rad. I still gotta stress controlled thought-out strokes when you're placing values. the bridgman has great fluidity though keep doing those.

[Swampdigger]

Thanks for all the comments guys, I haven't gotten around to posting recently, had to take an unplanned trip for a few days. Trying to draw in cars=hard. Anyways, stuff from the past week and a half.

First of, some more Bridgman, I really wish my scanner was bigger, cause these were so nicely placed on the page, haha, but I had to chop them up to get them all.





Moleskin sketches, had fun with these, I realize there are quite a few problems on these. Notably, the perspective on the third one.










Now some other pencil drawings. I really need to be pushing the values, something I'm still having trouble with.







Another SP, considerably happier with this one, the likeness is a bit better. A bit more challenging too, since the light was less harsh, so there were alot less obvious shadow. Still having some trouble slowing done and really paying attention to every stroke. Doing better with it though, I think. Ignore the close crop... if possible, either I need a larger scanner, or I need a smaller sketchbook, heh heh. I feel like the scanner also lost some of the details too. I dunno. I'd really like crits on this one, still struggling to figure out which direction some of my lines should be going.




Oh, and some more posemaniacs, I feel like I'm starting to understand the gesture, I don't know if it's visible in this, but I thought I felt improvement from the top of the page to the bottom.

[Andrew Marks]

Your stuff is great, your lines look fluid and it seems as though you know where you want to go with them.
For you latest Sp, I dont know what to say, it looks solid, but I would suggest push the values more. Make those darks stand out alot more, it makes it look alot more depth is in it. As for which direction to go with your lines, im not sure if there is a universal rule, but I would think as long as they compliment the shapes and form of the subject it really wouldnt matter.
But your on the right track, keep up the studies and draw as much as you can.

[pennington]

the sp looks great. the hatching is good too, you're making good decisions there isn't one way to do it.a couple of things about value, 3 values in the light and 2 in the shade. also think about core the shadow as the form turns away from the light. the gestures are sweet, i'm envious, keep doing those. with the value studies, decide what your lightest and darkest values will be in the picture and then everything else is just in between. so in the towers you have three tones from the light of the paper to medium value. but you can get much darker. you can also try using softer pencil lead like 4-6B to get darker values.

[Swampdigger]

First off, thanks for the comments guys.

Second off: Woah, I didn't realize how long it's been since I posted last. I blame it on the fact that it takes over an hour to scan everything in and get it ready to post. heh. Anyways, here's what I have to offer.

First off, three small acrylic paintings. Trying to get a better hold on acrylic. These are the most recent of my paintings, and by far the best, I feel like I'm getting a much better hang of it. One thing I'm not sure about is if it's best to do the lighter shades of monochrome paintings by thinning the paint with water, which pretty much makes it a watercolor (what I've been doing) or to mix white into the paint, which would give me practice with mixing at the simplest level.






Now a few people I've drawn from life. Some of these are turning out decent, but I also have days where everything I do is pretty much worthless.











Smudging on this one came from the opposite page. Kinda annoying.




I've also been going through some "show us your picture" threads on forums. And been doing quick sketches of the people. Not exactly great lighting but you get to draw alot of different people without having to search a whole bunch. A couple results of that.



A couple Bridgman, definently haven't been doing as much as I should.





Something done from my head that turned out okay. Well except for the shoes, arm length, and other stuff. haha.



And for good measure, one of the posemaniac pages I've done. I'm probably doing one of these every three days or so on average.



Overall I feel like I'm doing a bit better on value, but I know I really need to do some serious study. Hopefully I'll get to that this week.

Feedback on any of my art would be appreciated.

[MarkWinters]

Nice work here. Nice to see the studies. My only bit of advice is to consciously avoid using 'symbols' when you draw. Try hard to draw what you see, not what you know (or think you know). Avoid 'draw lips here' , 'eye shape goes here', 'add nose'. This seems to happen most with your faces (a truth with most artists) Do your best to recreate the forms and planes you see. Best of luck!

[Swampdigger]

Hey, thanks for the advice it's definently something I need to keep in mind. Though, to tell the truth, with alot of these life drawings I'm too far away to see their features clearly, and do just slap some features on them.

A quick portrait.


A portrait I wanted to be quick, but I had so much trouble with it that it went long.




Posemaniacs for today, felt like these were sloppy.



Some of my Bridgman and one thing from life(sorry about the bleeding over).









Along with this, I've been doing some studies in charcoal of random small objects on newsprint and compositional studies.

[Swampdigger]

Digital portraits. I've been trying to do one of these a day, and so far it's been working out. Though I've sacrificed quality for consistency, I'm hoping to actually get into some kind of habit. I feel like I'm getting a better hang of doing these though. I'm having more fun painting/drawing/whatever you call it, and less time trying to figure out how to do it.

Since this is just practice (right?) I'll throw them all up, the bad and the better.









And just for kicks, I'll throw in this speedy.

[Dorkthrone]

I really like the portraits. They have some nice tones to them.

[Swampdigger]

Thanks for dropping by Ninjacat. I appreciate the comment.
Some stuff I've been doing.


Bridgman

Sorry about the tipping.



Something out of my head. I think I'm getting better at anatomy, but not good. My attempts at clothing are terrible though.


Quick portraits for pictures.



And my latest posemaniacs.

[Zombunny27]

I notice that when you are not drawing faces head on or in profile, your proportions and placement seems to get a bit distorted. I do this all the time myself, so I try to mark the center of the face and the perpendicular line where the eyes will be. It seems to help with funky angles. Keep up the nice studies!

[Swampdigger]

Hadesdreams, thanks for stopping by. I agree with you completely, I have this bad habit of not to take enough time deciding on the placement of facial features in relation to each other. I'll have to work on that.

Tonight's work. Value studies from photograph. Just to clarify, I wasn't trying to copy the values in the photographs but to change the values, if need be, to work better artistically. It was actually alot more work than I thought it would be.

[Swampdigger]

Facial studies.



A small study working on the relation of the values.



Aannd the my latest posemaniacs, doing these is usually pretty relaxing so it's a nice break. I tried staying looser and less structural with them.



Someday I might get around to scanning in my other art. meh.

[Swampdigger]

A quick color study.


From my head, I really need to work on faces...


And as usual, I'll throw in today's posemaniacs.

[Swampdigger]

Alrighty, two color studies. And then two pen/watercolor quickies. I did on the pen drawing on location then slapped on the watercolor at home. Besides being fun and really bad. They let me know just how bad I am with color when I'm not sitting in front of what I'm painting.










Man, I can't wait till I get to page three, I'm getting sick of waiting for everything to load every time I come to this page

[pennington]

Dude !! You're doing great. Awesome landscapes man. I can tell you've been doing a lot. the bridgman studies are really confident. I'm really impressed with your work. all I can say is post more :] thanks for the feedback.

[Swampdigger]

Hey Pennington, thanks for stopping by and the encouragement it's good to here someone thinks I'm getting better.

Ho'kay, so here's some of my people drawings. Then some Bridgman. And at the end there's a pencil copy. Trying to learn how to use the pencil better. It always ends up undefined and blurry when I use softer pencils.

[Swampdigger]

Art is for looking. Stuff from life, of people.






Shoes are a weakness.

Bridgman, good ol' George.



My other pen was prettier.



A study, wip.

[Swampdigger]

Alrighty then, some of the stuff I've been doing. Having to input all that classification information every time I upload a picture is annoying, but whatever, I'm sure there'll a good reason for it.

More anatomy.





Some peoples. I feel like I'm getting a better hang of portraits, but I seriously need to push the values on them.

[Swampdigger]

Some of my work this last week.

From life.




From photos.





Anatomy and Pose.



I've realized that I've been lazy with my studies. Satisfied if it looks decent instead of focusing on learning from the process. Gonna try to absorb everything instead of copying it from now on.

Sorry if some of this is a bit big. Looking at it now it seems like it might be.

[Swampdigger]

Art. In no particular order because I'm to lazy right now to figure out which are which.

[Swampdigger]

Alrighty, some new stuff here. This is just a sampling of what I've been doing. It would take way too long to post everything. As it is I'll have burned something close to an hour by the time I'm done. The other stuff is pretty much more of the same anyways.

Learning to oil paint, I've still got a lot of work to do. Incidentally, I found that scanning them, at least with the settings I had it on, doesn't work so well.









Bridgman.
I really feel like I've started to learn something now, not just copy.




So I realized it's taken me almost a year to get about one page on my thread. Gonna try to post more. Sorry if some of the images are big.

[Swampdigger]

Yeah.

[Swampdigger]

Some inks from a couple free moments on a recent trip. Along with a couple other random things.

[crashMMVII]

Really an excellent sketchbook, I can tell the posemaniacs stuff is already paying off. The Bridgman studies are exceptional as well.

I need to get myself a moleskine :/

[Swampdigger]

Yeah! New batch, new page. I haven't been posting much, but I have been drawing.

Thanks for the comment crashMMVII, yeah, I generally spend a long time on the Bridgmans, maybe too long. heh. I've been neglecting my anatomy studies lately though, I should get back to them.

Yeah, moleskins are nice, I'm not sure I would advise getting the really little one, (like the true pocket sized one) cause if you're going to be using it a lot chances are you're hand'll get a little cramped. I speak from experience because that's the one I got, while it's nice because you can just throw it in your pocket, if you know you'll be using it alot I'd recommend the next size up.