Saltz's shame

[SaltzBad]

Okay, first off : Bear with my materials. Critic anything into the ground as your heart pleases, I'm the better off for hearing it, but bear with me that I won't be using much beyond ~5 dollars worth of art supplies - an eraser, a misused lined block or some printer paper and a (usually) 2 HB pencil is as much as I can spare for now.

Any suggestions on how to get good low budget supplies are welcome - what kind of papers would work well for sketching and which don't. I was recently considering robbing some of the copiers of their papers and binding it into a sketchbook - the printerpaper I've tried to use instead of simple lined notepads (ugh) felt odd somehow.

Finally though, I'll try to (as a personal goal) have one presentable sketch a day tleast, and take any suggestions or exercises to heart. The updates won't always be daily, as I don't have daily access to a friggin scanner.


Now that we've got that out of the way, this here is one of the first ones were I can say the head proportions are rather correct. The cheeks are intentionally a wee bit wide, and the whole thing is mostly outlines - I did try to play with the eraser and give the lines different weights.



Crits are welcome - first and foremost on proportions, and then on different ways to tackle shading. The hair is shoddy beyond it having a hairline, I realize that - but the paper was at that point too banged up to redo it. The really weird shades that seem to ignore any shapes around them are wrinkles in the block. I'll tear out the pages in the future for better scans.

Also, I've just started doing this for about a month, and have no formal education of any type in the arts, nor do I plan on doing this for a living. I do though sketch in every free second, and plan on doing so with dedication.

Final edit : Fixed now I hope.

[StephenC]

red x

im always happy to see new sbook

[SaltzBad]

Feh, free webspace provider doesn't allow for linking. Gonna look for some others - if anyone knows one that really lets me do that, or just provides a bandwidth limit instead of a generic no-go, please shout. Until then I'm gonna be trying out a few different ones.

In the meantime, just copy and paste the link into your ie window if you're desperate to see it, although theres no reason to be. Its not that great.

Edit :
Doing tests on other peoples pages to see how much linking each allows. So if you see weird links here, just me playing. Beh.

Edit 2 :
Ok, so I can link to a board that allows attachments. Let me find a slightly nicer way to do it though.

[SaltzBad]

It should work now. Can someone confirm? If it does, I'll be using this time to scan another few - espeecially those dealing with my shading-phobia.

[jezelf]

yep I can see it. Nice start. Im sure the work will look better once you get to use some unlined paper you like.

I've sketched on cheap photocopy paper - you can usually pick up a realm or a reasonal cheap price - might be an idea to ask if you could check a sample first otherwise you'll end up with 500sheets of paper you dont like. It might be more cost effective in the long run, than say, buying 20 sketch books.

here's one little excerise I found useful - when it comes to the figure, or faces etc, try using just one line to describe shape.

here's an example - of a life drawing of mine where Ive used many lines to describe form (bottom picture particuarly) the right line is in there somewhere! I was preoccupied with trying to show the weight of the model and body fat, but it looks scratchy, unconfident and undecisive. when I analysed myself when I draw like this, I discover that Im just drawing marks for the sake of it, not concentrating and observing and only draw what is needed.

here's another couple of life drawings where Ive tried to make a conscious effort to use just one line - unbroken if possible - to show form. the materials are charcoal on crappy printing paper. charcoal is my favourtie tool for life drawing because it is very versitile - you can also add weight to a line simply by adding more pressure, rather than going over again. youcould do the same in pencil by buying a HB or 2B - a softer lead. with a 2H its difficult to get the darker weight - at least with a HB you can add less pressure and more pressure to help define weight.

One of the advantages about this excerise, other than helping in observation is that it can help give you time. the more you can describe with less marks the more time you have to shape an image. the more detail you can put in too. this is useful when you have 30seconds on a life drawing - or sketching from life around you where even 30 seconds is a luxury!

Something else I found was when I had crappy paper I was less concerned about drawing a picture that was to the best of my abilites. I was more likely to experiement and throw caution to the wind. I was always worried about using up the expensive stuff - doing an image and 'wasting' money. usually my best work is with the cheap materials because I was less concerned about screwing it up.

sorry if Ive gone off topic. I hope I was of some help...somewhere!

good luck. look forward to seeing more stuff.
best wishes
jez.

[Pezz3D]

Take printer paper or something, never use lined. It'd look alot better in my opinion if it wasn't on lined paper... But that is pretty nice from what I can tell. Draw from life(I've heard that a gazillion times it helps.) and work on your shading... Keep it up..

[SaltzBad]

Ok, this is a sketch from thursday - I couldn't scan it until now though. I thought I got kind of lucky on them - they were straight from life, mostly done while talking to her. Took about 10 minutes to do the mouth, jaws, chin and all other parts of the head-shape, later at home another ~10 to do the hair right and some (now mostly washed out) crappy shading.



Its slightly sharpened right after scanning - it took a beating over the weekend. Really is a shame it didn't survive sitting on my sweaty lap too well :/

@jezelf:
Thanks alot for the crits, very useful tips there. I'll scan some stuff I did in exercising later this evening/morning. It does seem to help somewhat in creating a drawing without as many reference lines, redos and other things that take up alot of time.

Of course, that begs the question : What would I be best off using reference line wise? Personally I've come to liking just eyeline+center, and making up jaw as I go along while trying to adhere to 1/3 each (which often screws me over when trying to do perspective). I find using more reference lines a bit awkward, and nothing seems to tell me how wide the damn thing should be. Whats the width/height ratio ? I couldn't find it in Loomis Figure Drawing book so far (Haven't studied much of it either yet though).

Ok, anyway some more later today while I have scanner time. Not sure how much I'll get done, its not the most productive of days.

Edit :
Ah yeah, sketchbook wise the new ones will be on printerpaper - I don't have them bound into a folder of sorts yet, which makes using it a bit cumbersome :/

Picked up a used 3B Graphite and an eraser over the weekend too. Not sure h ow much I like the 3B yet. Its kind of odd after knowing only No. 2 writing pencils.

[SaltzBad]

K, tis gonna take til this evening until something new goes up. I'm gonna try to actually have something decent until then.

Yesterday evening a killer headache put me out of comission early, but there was nothing very worthwhile uploading anyway.

Edit : That aside, I'm having some trouble practicing in conserving lines right now - without a binder for the sketchbook and no desk, the whole setup tends to be quite loose, not really allowing for long lines.

[jezelf]

Not really quite understand what you mean. are you taking about reference from your subject? just play around - find what you feel describles the line for you. this is part of the kind of thing that will define you as an artist.

for me I look at how the area in defined. its kinda about angles. the angle of a jaw like is more defined on somone with a thin face, than somone with more fat in their face - where you sometimes dont even have a jaw line, or its so slight a defintinion that its better not to draw it because it helps define the form.

dunno if that is any help.
best wishes
Jez.

[SaltzBad]

I meant, it essentially never works out to make a long continous contour-line without much support (like you suggested), reference or no I always end up having to build most things from several small lines. I am trying to make it less obvious though, by paying more attention to where and how I put them and scribbling less.

Edit, anyway I got a boatload of stuff to scan, I'll do some of it this evening.