Amber's sketchbook

[Amber Marie]

I've finally decided to make one of these things after spending months lurking on this site and envying all the talent and skill I've seen.

I just turned 21 and I've waited (*cough*procrastinated*cough*) for long enough to start making an effort to improve my art. I really want to make a career out of my art one day and I need to get my butt in gear if that's ever going to happen.

I have been taking art classes for the past 3 years at my local community college and, to say the least, I have not been doing the best I know I can do. So without further ado, here are some of my recent sketches =]

[Kino_PuA]

So far so good! Definitely can't wait to see more work from you!

[Amber Marie]

Kino_PuA: Thanks!!

Here are some more sketches since my last post. Just some bridgman studies and a couple of life drawings.

[Amber Marie]

Back with some more sketches. I'm having a lot of trouble with the quality of my line. I've been trying to have a more confident line, but I keep falling back into the habit of "petting" my lines with shorter strokes. Any way to fix this? And I definitely need more practice drawing clothing and folds because I just don't understand how to draw them and it shows =(

The last picture is my first attempt at drawing with promarkers and I have to say that I really enjoyed using them. Sorry for the bad picture quality in these. My sketchbook was too big for my scanner.

[Tea Drinker]

To help with line quality give this a try. When you draw try to use your shoulder and elbow more than just your wrist. Also when doing a longer line or curve don't follow your pen/pencil but look at your destination point on the page. That really works well on straight lines.

hopefully that makes some sense. draw with your arm basically not wrist.

[Amber Marie]

I just started "The Natural Way to Draw" by Nicolaides. It's been collecting dust for the past few months, so I figured I should use it like I had planned to when I purchased it.

I hate doing contour drawings. I can never seem to focus for very long on them. The one I did of the view of my neighborhood from my window was especially hard; I kept jumping all over the page without concentrating for very long on any one thing.

Anyway, I am taking Portraiture this semester, so I'll be posting all of my assignments for sure. I really wanted to take Painting I but that filled up the first week of registration =[

Oh well. Here are the sketches from the past couple of weeks.

[Amber Marie]

Tea Drinker: Thanks for the advice. I'll make sure to try to draw with my arm instead of my wrist. It's so hard to break the habit though grr.

I just finished a self-portrait a little bit ago. It took me about an hour or so, although it could still use some more refining. Looks nothing like me. My nose is definitely not that small haha.

[Amber Marie]

Hmm, for whatever reason my post yesterday did not go through. Guess I'll just have to repost it.

We drew skulls yesterday in Portraiture. The first one was done without instruction, just to see how well we could draw. The second one was after the professor gave us a demonstration and the third was from memory/imagination. I obviously need more practice with that haha.

The last two drawings are of my boyfriend who is always willing to model for me I think I like drawing with an inking pen, even though I can't erase my mistakes (such as the arm on the right being completely in the wrong place ugh).

[Amber Marie]

Been a while since I last posted. I just keep procrastinating so much lately, which is going to have to change if I ever hope to improve. I'm still trying to get through "The Natural Way to Draw", but I'm going at a snail's pace (I'm only on schedule 2C). I'm just going to post some of my assignments from my Portraiture class for now.

[WRappiii]

the portraits are looking good. keep posting

[Amber Marie]

WRappiii: Aw thanks =] I really feel like I'm learning a lot from drawing them.

I have a ton of drawings to post, mostly from "The Natural Way to Draw". Still on schedule 2C unfortunately ugh. I got a bit tired of drawing gestures of people so I used pixelovely's animal gesture tool and I had quite a bit of fun with that. I also have a couple of drawings I did for fun with no reference, except one of them I did use my boyfriend as a model. They are a bit too anime looking though. I did a few studies from "Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist" by Stephen Rogers Peck as well.

The last couple of sketches were from today. I went outside with my niece and one of my mom's daycare kids and I attempted to sketch them blowing bubbles. I kinda failed haha. So I just decided to draw a tree that's in front of my house. I was surprised that I actually enjoyed sketching and coloring it, even if it didn't come out all that great. Ah well, practice makes perfect.

[Kriss_Kringle]

First of all,thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment.
Second of all,you seem to be in the same pot as I am.You want to improve yet you keep procrastinating,so I can relate 100% with you.
Some of the portraits look very good and there's quality there but I think it's safe to say we both need to find some consistency in our work.I'll subscribe to your sketchbook and maybe we can both motivate ourselves to improve.

[Amber Marie]

Kriss_Kringle: No problem. Ugh, yeah procrastination is the worst. Thanks. Portraits are one of my favorite things to draw. I agree though that I do need some more consistency. It's mainly the fact that I put more effort into drawing certain things and I give up too easily when I'm bored or frustrated. I'll make sure to subscribe to your sketchbook too =]

I did this portrait today in class with prismacolor nupastels. It came out much better than I was expecting considering that I loathe pastels. I did have trouble with the hair, so my professor had to help me with that and some other details. Wish I could draw more today, but I have to leave for work in a few minutes. Grrr.

[Amber Marie]

I gots some moar drawings. Woot. I'm making some more progress with the Natural Way to Draw, just need to do some flash poses and I can move on to the next schedule. The contour drawing I did of my face turned out incredibly ugly as usual, but I guess it's not supposed to be pretty. I've been doing some studies from Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist for the past few hours and I've never been so bored while drawing in my life. Arg. I know I'm just going to have to grit my teeth and bear it because my anatomy is terrible. I did do a quick sketch of my kitty since he was being so still for once. He looks kinda mad though haha.

[Kriss_Kringle]

Lookin' good.I totally agree about the Atlas of human anatomy for the artist,just going through a couple of pages makes me feel like I took sleeping pills.
I have two cats and a dog and none of them stay in one place for long,so drawing them isn't my best bet.

[Amber Marie]

Kriss_Kringle: Yeah I'm so not looking forward to going through the rest of the book. Arg. It's annoying drawing my cat because half the time he's trying to play with my pencil haha.

So, I really hate how this portrait of my boyfriend turned out. It was the homework assignment from last class, which I didn't end up turning in because I stayed home. I need to stop being lazy >.< I only spent about two hours on it and it looks like utter crap. I just kept getting frustrated and I was confused as to what colors I should be using. Oh well. Live and learn. I did a few studies from Atlas of Human Anatomy again, but got distracted and gave up. The rest of the drawings are from exercise 2d in the Natural Way to Draw. Tomorrow should be a big drawing day for me since I'm off of work and my boyfriend said he'd model for me. Yay!

[Amber Marie]

Just finished the second section of Natural Way to Draw. Yay for progress!! I have two pastel drawings, the first one is a master copy of Rembrandt's portrait of Rosalba Peale and the second is from class today. I'm not too happy with either of them and I hate pastel more than ever now. I just can't seem to get the colors and tones right. My drawings always look "fuzzy" in pastel. I think I rely on my professor too much to help me get it right.

Anyway, I got accepted into Towson University last week, so I'm pretty happy about that. I need to put together a portfolio soon so that I can get into the Illustration department. I'm hoping that their art department is at least decent and that all the negative things I've heard about the school aren't true O.o Oh well, if I don't like it, I'm considering taking classes from The Art Department, but I'm not too sure if I will be able to since the tuition so expensive. We shall see...

[Eric-Anthony]

i like your studies. george bridgman's books are really great to learn anatomy keep pushing yourself!

[Amber Marie]

I started the next section in Nicolaides's book. One of the exercises is weight drawing. I'm not too sure if I am doing them correctly and I feel like I'm not spending enough time on them. I'm supposed to do one weight drawing in 30 minutes, but I ended up doing three in 15 minutes. I'm not quite sure how I am supposed to slow down the process =/

I started my homework assignment for Portraiture today as well. Something looks off in it, but I can't really tell for sure what it is. Blarg.

I'm gonna try to do some more loomis and bridgman studies when I get the chance. I should definitely have more time once the semester ends in a couple of weeks.

[Hayden Zammit]

That series of portraits came out awesome.

[Amber Marie]

Hayden Zammit: Aw thanks =]

Haven't really drawn much this past week. I'd been a bit busy over the weekend unfortunately. I have my last class for the semester tomorrow so I have to get all my assignments together and organize the ones I want to put in my final portfolio. I'm pretty happy that I'll finally be done with community college, even though I didn't end up getting my A.A. degree. I just can't wait to see how I'll like it at Towson.

I have the last drawing from class last week, which came out very bad. My professor took the liberty to draw a bunch of it for me =/ I just didn't seem to be getting anything right. I have a few more weight drawings. I think I'm starting to get the hang of them. I'm almost done the portrait of my boyfriend as well, just need to do some more refining and some finishing touches.

[Amber Marie]

Sooo happy the semester is over. I spent the last couple of days doing a few hand studies and some foreshortening practice. Not as much as I'd have liked to gotten done, but it's still something. I also have a page of studies from Atlas of Human Anatomy that I forgot to post from a couple of weeks ago. I finished the portrait of my boyfriend as well. I really like how it came out, although I think that it could still use some more contrast and some cooler colors in the shadow area.

[Amber Marie]

Figured I may as well update this thing. Been working a lot so I haven't had much time to draw (excuses I know >.<) but I've managed to draw some here and there. I'm having a hard time actually sitting down to draw for more than 10 minutes at a time. I think I'm just going to have to stop setting unrealistic goals for myself and stop thinking "okay I'll study this, this and this today". Rather than helping me draw, it's making drawing such a chore. So I'm going to stop thinking about what I need to do and to just draw from life as often as possible every day.

Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures. My scanner is really crappy. Reference for the last image http://www.characterdesigns.com/band...e_000_0004.JPG The rest were from loomis, pixelovely's gesture drawing tool and from life.

[Amber Marie]

Got some more drawings from the past week. I went to the park yesterday with my niece, nephew and one of my mom's daycare kids and attempted to do some gesture drawings of them. I gave up after five minutes haha. I'm probably going to do some exercises from Keys to Drawing today if my boyfriend is willing to model for me =]

References for the last 2 images: link

link

[Royzy]

Can see stacks of progress in here! Those portraits really show a lot. Figures are coming along nicely too. With those quick figure studies, see if you can get the form together with fewer (but well executed) strokes. They're looking a bit hairy at the minute

[Amber Marie]

Royzy: Thanks! I don't really think I've improved all that much though to be honest. My work is very inconsistent in quality heh. With the gestures I was trying to follow Nicolaides's approach in the Natural Way to Draw, but I can see that might my hinder my line quality. I'll try to use fewer strokes next time =]

I don't have too much to update with. I did one of the exercises in Keys to Drawing, which required me to block in the shadows, but it came out rather sloppy and my boyfriend was getting tired of standing in the heat outside. I also have a really ugly, unfinished self-portrait. Even though it's not very good, I do think I'm starting to get my likeness better, especially compared to the self-portrait I did a few months ago.

I joined this site called Drawing tutorials online (it's $20 a month), and it seems to have a lot of great information. I just feel like I learn much better with some sort of instruction than on my own. So I'm going to try to start with the basics and hopefully see some improvement before school starts.

[Kriss_Kringle]

Use yourself as reference when you're doing the mapping exercise from Keys to drawing or find a little statue and place it in front of your window on a sunny day.You can see I used a Shrek statue and then I made a self portrait while looking at a window in my living room under the light bulb at night.I was surprised how powerful the technique was since I didn't do any eye measurements to get the proportions right and it came out really,really accurate.
Your best bet is going to be a statue,preferably a white one because you can block the shades that fall on it better but grey or terracotta will work too.You're either going to have to find a statue in the park,buy a little one from an art store or make one yourself from clay which will help you when you study anatomy and proportions too.
It's good that you do different sorts of studies but I think you're not doing enough of them.You literally need to fill pages with studies and repeat them over and over until you're doing them from your own memory.
Also,try to work from black and white photos with high contrasts.That's how I improved at rendering and you've seen how those portraits look or just place stuff under a lamp and start shading.
Now get to work!

[Amber Marie]

Kriss: I'll consider getting a statue or something like you suggested. It would probably be easier since they don't move lol. I definitely want to do more practice with the mapping. Yeah, it's a bit hard for me to focus on one thing to study just because there are so many things I need to improve on that I'm not always sure what I should be concentrating on. I agree that I should be doing a lot more than what I've been doing. Thanks for the advice ^.^

I'm trying to get in the habit of updating this thing at least every other day, so even though I don't have many drawings to upload today, I'm planning on doing a lot more tomorrow. I've been doing the tutorials on Drawing Tutorials Online for the past two days and I really believe that I've learned so much from them already. I'm not going to post my drawings from them just because I'm not too sure if I'd be violating some sort of copyright.

I do have one figure drawing that I did to practice the use of form that I learned from the site (reference). It's not that great to be honest. I also did a few gestures of my cat and drew my hand. It really came out funky looking around the fingers O.o

[Amber Marie]

Wow I'm starting to feel like every minute I don't spend drawing is a waste of time. I'm actually really enjoying myself when I draw. I've always sort of felt this way to a certain extent, but not to this degree. It's nice =)

I did a few gestures of my hamster a little bit ago. Not the greatest, but I'm trying to get the hang of drawing animals. I used to only draw animals when I was a little kid, so I kinda want to get back into drawing them. I did some studies of my mouth and nose before my neck started to kill me from holding it in the same position for so long. I also drew a quick sketch of my boyfriend with vine charcoal, which was fun. I might do some more egg studies tomorrow since I think they are very helpful when it comes to shading.

I'm hoping that by the end of the summer I will have improved noticeably.

[Amber Marie]

I have a few things from the past couple of days.

The first is a few doodles and a bad self-portrait that I lost motivation to finish after my sister said it looked like a fat man haha. The second is just a quick figure study (reference). Had a hard time with the hand. I can draw hands okay by themselves, but once I try to draw them on the figure they look so crappy. I also drew a longer self-portrait today, took me about an hour and a half. I think the one I did a couple of posts ago looks more like me, but whatevs. Actually, the more I look at it, the creepier it looks O.O