Floatharr's endeavours

**Floatharr** · January 27th, 2008, 11:43 AM

Hello, CA. I've been lurking around since around early 2005 and I thought it could finally be the time to start a sketchbook.
Had this account created (buggy registration form) and here I am.
I tend to write a lot so bear with me.

I've been drawing pretty casually for as long as I can remember and had a few unsuccessful attempts at painting
but lately I've started filling more and more pages of doodles and even taken a more serious interest in learning how to paint.
My goal would be to be studying art abroad some time in the not too distant future.

I've started this thread to motivate to keep filling those pages.
Maybe one day we'll see double digit pages. Anyway, here goes.

edit: I had pics in the first post at some point, managed to delete them while trying to get the thumbnail up. Go to the latest post for new stuff.

**funfetus** · January 27th, 2008, 12:15 PM

Not a bad start -- you've got potential. Just keep studying your basics (anatomy, proportion, and don't neglect perspective), and draw all the time. Do some life-drawing if you can, or at least go to a cafe or a park and sketch the people that are around. Good luck!

**Floatharr** · January 27th, 2008, 05:38 PM

Thanks for the advice, funfetus. Guess that means a bit of a change in direction for me but I'll see what I can work out. Already started going through some anatomy.

EDIT: need to remember to lower the resolution next time

**Floatharr** · January 28th, 2008, 12:20 PM

A few random things and a very nice unicycle drawn at work. I wish we had unicycles there.

**Sjouke** · January 28th, 2008, 01:36 PM

Pretty cool. Practice more and you'll be good!

**Floatharr** · January 28th, 2008, 08:43 PM

You'll never guess which movies I've just watched.

Sjouke, thanks for the encouragement.

**Floatharr** · January 29th, 2008, 04:57 PM

some doodling at work

**Floatharr** · January 31st, 2008, 01:28 AM

Apparently I work best filled up to my neck with caffeine. Tonight was an artistic night.

I swear I'm going to do something more finished one of these days. Got a few days off coming up in the weekend.

**Floatharr** · February 1st, 2008, 04:53 AM

Today's drawings.

**Floatharr** · February 3rd, 2008, 09:15 PM

some more starwars doodeloos

**Floatharr** · February 5th, 2008, 09:24 AM

Today I felt like some hands.

**Cookiedough** · February 5th, 2008, 09:28 AM

Keep drawing and studying. I already see your anatomy improvements, they're small, but there. Just keep drawing every day. Do a lot of stillifes, also do selfportraits.

Also, i think you could invest in some darker pencils, to help you with the contrasts.

**Floatharr** · February 6th, 2008, 08:45 AM

Drew a lot today, not especially happy with any of it. Except maybe for Jacque-In-Le-Box.

**Floatharr** · February 8th, 2008, 06:05 PM

Last two days, I was too tired to up anything yesterday.

**Floatharr** · February 10th, 2008, 01:42 AM

A few random things from tonight with a pinch of imagination this time.

**smuli** · February 11th, 2008, 12:11 PM

Glad to see you start this and I hope to see it kept up for long with the same pace.

The feel of light in your sister's portrait is awesome and the little sketches of vehicles and more caricaturic faces have lots of character about their overall appearance. I think it's obvious on the lines that you haven't drawn with big sweeps and let it influence your drawing style though. Some of the lines seem petted or corrected many times. For line quality, a good exercise is to draw your model without lifting the tip from the paper. I tend to start a drawing session by doing that while just looking at the live topic I'm drawing (blind contours). They always end up looking like crap but after that, it's much easier to draw with long sweeps.

IMO your heads and hands could do with some sharper and bonier forms in general. In the bald heads it seems like you've rounded up some ankles below the chin and at the top of the neck for example. Of course, keep copying Loomis and you'll have those things fixed in no time though.

I agree with Funfetus about sketching people from life, in number your life drawings seem to be way behind from the imaginary topics compared to the norm. But whatever you feel like drawing, keep it coming!

**Floatharr** · February 17th, 2008, 07:04 AM

A few days without uploading anything, been busy. I honestly have no idea what happened with the mess but I like the other opening I filled up after that. The single page is a few days older than those.

**Floatharr** · February 21st, 2008, 01:46 PM

I got a bigger sketchbook. A5 is the size now, I feel liberated.

I like the detailed glob. I figured that must be what my mind looks like at 5:30am. Honestly I have no idea where it came from.

**Floatharr** · February 25th, 2008, 10:30 PM

An another 7.68003526 × 10-6 acres of doodles. Yes, it's accurate.

**smuli** · February 26th, 2008, 10:43 AM

I like the camouflaged ameba too. Nice pencil shadings whenever you give it some time but you sure seem to be in need of topics.

Would be great seeing your go on some daily sketch group picture or some of the weekly challenges. And try to force yourself into using a sheet per picture to get out of drawing just with your fingers.

Good job on those blind contours by the way. Now try to make them bigger and carry the loose drawing style on to your imaginary drawings, working from basic shapes to detail. It'll show in both the construction and line quality of whatever you draw.

Keep the updates coming!

**Floatharr** · March 2nd, 2008, 12:10 PM

Updating every day was becoming too much of a chore so I guess I'm doing a few pages at a time now. It seems the more I try the further away from my goal I get. Oh well, time will tell. I shall do my best.

**Floatharr** · April 3rd, 2008, 01:32 PM

Not a lot of posting lately. Computer broke down, then the printer and then I just kind of lost interest in fixing my scanning so I've been just drawing.

This is some of the more interesting pages, had to leave some out to save my nerves from excessive scanning and posting overload.

**smuli** · April 4th, 2008, 10:32 AM

The space ships and helmet are my favourites. Shadings are great but the line quality still has plenty of room for loosening up. Actually I think the only drawings as loose as that kind of thumbnails should be are the blind contours on the first sheet. On the other ones, it's hard to find a single line gone amiss outside the contour. Don't know if that's because of petting or using eraser but try to get your whole hand to it. I get the best results by sketching the basic form in very rough basic shapes and then detailing with a heavier hand. Try a softer pencil if you aren't getting the different line weights you need.

Topics are definitely varying and nice to see you've drawn a lot. Heads are getting shaped up too. Keep it up!

**Floatharr** · April 4th, 2008, 06:47 PM

I do tend to clean up any rough squiggles and negative shapes pretty aggressively and the rest tends to cover up with shading. I've been trying to incorporate a black ballpoint pen or a sharpie into my drawings and so far it seems to work pretty nicely. Also, I press down on the pencil too hard and after a longer while it starts hurting, need a softer pencil.

Fairly confident with the rasta sand-predator today, I like the tones. Took about 10-15 mins. I'll see if I'll start experimenting with technique and media again soon to address some of the aforementioned things graciously pointed out by smuli.

**Floatharr** · April 5th, 2008, 08:42 AM

Decided I'd mess around with a larger drawing and throw in some half-empty markers just for good measure. Biggest damn picture I've done in a long time, a full A3 sheet of paper. Turned out a big mess. Would have used watercolours if I had had any.

Free bonus: the next page from my sketchbook.

**Floatharr** · April 6th, 2008, 01:22 PM

More stuff. The anatomy stuff is more of a stroke economy practice. I've noticed my shading and linework is messy and unorganized in comparison to some of the masters so I'm trying to learn to be neater with my penciling.

**Matthew Forte** · April 6th, 2008, 01:29 PM

Some pretty good stuff man, I like how you update so often. Keep up with the anatomy stuff, that has been all I have been doing for the past few days, and I can confidently say that my figures and sense of proportion has gotten much better.

**Floatharr** · April 6th, 2008, 05:17 PM

Thanks a bunch for the reply. Awfully silent in this thread, glad to know somebody's watching. Now that you mention it, 2 updates today. Wonder if that's a bit too frequent...

Anatomy's definitely one of my weak points, I'm trying to keep working on it. Saw your thread, making progress I see. Just keep updating and things will come almost automagically. Well, that's what I'm planning on.

Also, doodles:

**Floatharr** · April 9th, 2008, 06:32 AM

Sometimes I wonder whether I should upload all these pages or should I practice some censorship. I've decided to upload even the less interesting pages for the sake of completeness, after all this is a sketchbook, not a romanticized showroom of beautiful art.

Also, my new bigger and fancier sketchbook is entirely too thick to scan, didn't take that into account while purchasing it. I like the softer pencils I got though, need to relearn to use them.

**Floatharr** · April 10th, 2008, 10:22 AM

Next page. I seem to be lacking inspiration so it's drawings from books today. I got the coolest little fountain pen with an ink cartridge yesterday though. Too bad it's hard to use.