Trails of Crumpled Paper and Chewed-up Pencil Stubs~

[Jessibelle]

only ten mins until the end of the week - ten minutes to upload before i fail my new years resolution. No time to scan, so here - have an actually finished tonal enviro study. felt i learnt quite a bit from this - mostly about brush controls and work process more than anything.



gonna try setting myself daily goals, see if that gets my ass in gear any. Also, from march onward - at leas t one fully finished personal piece, every month.

[Beeston]

Improvement Buddies yeaaaahhh!
Though I might take some to catch up I think.
Lots of good dedication to studies in here

[Velocity Kendall]

youve got a great eye... with practice and time youre going to be fucking superb..
this is pretty
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...boardacryl.jpg

[Jessibelle]

damascus57: Thankyouu nahh, if we both carry on at the way we're going, you'll catch up pretty quick i think.

Velocity Kendall: you don't know how much that comment made my day. Thank youu!

So, this week started off so well~ had a really good monday, artwise. tuesday onwards is where it started to go wrong... I got a little sick. hence the slightly later than usual update x)

But, I'm all better now! nearly. Although, you still won't get an update from me for a week now - Im'a be in germany for a week gonna try and get as much sketching done there as possible, fingers crossed.

Been studying Jeno Barcsay's 'Anatomy for the Artist' lately - amazing book. So easy to understand, the pictures are just gorgeous to study and he really goes into depth. Feel like I'm understanding a lot that I didn't before.






My first attempt at a digital self-portrait - why do I always choose to do these when I'm ill/just got out of bed? There's no way I can come off looking good.

also, apparently none of my self portraits look like me because i'm never smiling. I've had orders to do a 'happy' sp. xD

and wip's of a still life I set up a while back - sorry for the crappy phone photos.



See you in a week!

[ThomasM]

great still life setup there and some even better anatomy studies! Really nice work, keep it up

[MightyApplejacks]

Great self-portrait there, do you have it 'constructed' in that outline one before you go on to fill it in? Either way it looks pretty solid, keep it up!

[Charmer]

Really like your self-portrait! Looks good valued!

-Flo

[Jessibelle]

ThomasM: thankyouu
Jacklesbury: thanks! yeahh, at my skill level i find it easier to focus on structure, then form separately, and make sure i get proportion and placement right first.
tasser: thanks

back from germany! loved it, it's beautiful there and the art scene is so much more alive than it is back home didnt get as much art done as i wanted though, it was a college trip so i was constantly with other students doing some activity or other.

been playing around alot in my sb with inks and water colours lately. this was one big fat experiment; not sure how i feel about it.


from life, not very clear since theyre all jumbled together.

a whale skull from the aqua zoo, the view from the top of the rheinturm of the river rhein and some from life in a pub/restaurant

some lifedrawings from the train, a statue and a water feature from a summer palace we visited


and this was done on the hour long plane ride back; think i'll finish it up with some more washes the guys anatomy is bothering me though and im not sure how to fix it.

[Dope Fiend]

you'd see either more of his chest, or his back in that perspective, and his neck seems a little long, or misplaced due to the small shoulder and her arm..that's just my analysis of it, shrug

latest sketches are looking wonderful, and the digitals are impressive as well, keep up the good work!

edit: and don't get down on yourself, you're making a lot of progress, it's always difficult..especially compared to the overwhelming talent here on CA

[ThomasM]

great stuff. sketching on the train is a brilliant way to learn. Sometimes I'll see something very simple go by (like a rooftop) and try to draw it from memory. That is a great exercise to improve your memory so maybe give it a try?

Anyway, no crits, just keep doing what you're doing!

[Jessibelle]

Dope Fiend: Thank youu, that was really helpful. i've tried to fix it, but i'm not sure how well that went - it'll be in a future post. and yeah, putting myself on guilt trips is a bad habit i need to kick :/

ThomasM: i know, and it's a shame - i rarely ever use trains. x) that exercise sounds like a really good idea thoughh, sounds like it'll really help with visualisation and getting studies to stick.

Oops, I missed a week! :/ i know i say this all the time, but last week was so incredibly hectic i barely had time to lift a pencil, even though it was half term :/ going camping for half of it probably didn't help. resuming normal transmissions now though! twice weekly updates, yep yep.

not really happy with anything in this post. :/
life drawings, a coffee shop and the view from the tent (basically all you could see in every direction x])


some small biro landscapes; so many things wrong with this. i really should have used pencil.


boyfriends sister wants a picture of her children - some prepatory studies (sorry for the dirty marks, they were done on the back of those ^


anatomy studies a la jeno barcsay, and some studies from mugshots of criminals in sydney in 1920's. the references were smaller than i was used to, so these were a bit trickyy.

[Jessibelle]

need to get back into this routine. or improve it.

meh, this is so frustratingg. :/

[Jessibelle]

been feeling really rather shitty for the past few days, for various reasons. :/ things are starting to look up though!

a doodle i did to relax and make me feel better, that kinda got out of hand. i know the shoulder and the face definately need fixing. trying to focus on not relying so much on local colour; i know, my colour theory currently sucks. very lois van baarle inspired:


some sketchbookystuff:



and the last of the studies for the friends picture of her kids.

[William b. Hand]

Looking good! You're very right to wanna keep connected to your own spontaneous, non-study-oriented impulses -- those're why you're studying so hard in the first place, because you wanna become super powerful so that you can be super-confident in those explorations. Some people get lost in the maze of study, so overwhelmed by how much they don't know and so dominated by the visions of others, that they stop valuing and nurturing their own imaginations. Conversely, there are those who are aware of and fear that very scenario so much that they shy away from any real study, only to find themselves crippled by the lack of an organized understanding of the basics.

Keep striving to absorb and process and produce with that perfectionist zeal, but drop yourself all sorts of slack. Those two things are not actually at odds with each other, they help each other.

[ThomasM]

great portraits here in these last few posts. no crits from me because you are doing all the right things. Posting frequently is definitely the path to improvement so keep doing what you're doing! I think I'm 5 posts away from a 365 posts in the last year, and its helped me learn so much.

No crits, just gogogo!

[Jessibelle]

William b. Hand: man, your comment just made so much sense to me, so insightful. I think the thing i have the hardest time with isn't so much any of the facets of drawing or painting, it's finding the time to study it and finding a balance within the limited time i have. so yeah, thank you!

ThomasM: thankyou! yeah, productiveness in art output and posting is the way to go - i'm currently posting as much as my schedule will let me, sadly. :/

so yep, lets see what we got.

some hand studies - attacking those anatomical weaknesses, go!



an update on that acrylic still life - yes, it still looks shitty/ a mess. yes, it's taking forever to paint. (it doesnt help that to replicate the lighting, i can only paint when it's dark outside - and ive been too tired to stay up that long. xD)


and some concepts for the main character of a little mini-comic im planning on doing. went with the bottom one, i think it's pretty obvious why x)


so, ontop of my daily art goals which i never really make public other than a daily to-do list on my desk, i think im'a set weekly ones, which i'll post on here gotta keep pushing... so, by this time next sunday, i wanna have at least:
*50 hand studies (including the seven in this post)
*2 watercolour still lives.

let's see how this goes

[Jessibelle]

hands, hands, hands!




trying to focus on structure and actually learn something. rather than just making a pretty study.

been playing around with ink in my sketchbook - so much fun!! 8DD

japan...


also, should be joining a lifedrawing class next week, finally!

[Satu]

Really nice sketches here! I love your figure studies and value studies.

[Jessibelle]

Satupeikko: Thankyou!

okay, a little bit late for the twice-weekly mark, but some very last minute plans over the weekend prevented me from getting on the computer until late - i did attempt to upload, but i was falling asleep at the computer before they'd even all scanned. So yeah, this counts as sunday's post, it does!

rest of the 50 hands!





I know i wanted to get two watercolour still lives done this week, but I could only make 1 1/2 - the second one is unfinished cause i was painting in the kitchen and the mother made me clear out. :/



I think making the weekly goals really helped me focus, which is a success! I work better under deadlines, i think.
so, for this week:
-2 self portraits
-pencil still life (fully rendered)
-watercolour photo study

right, this has basically made me late for college! gotta goo! 8D

[Jessibelle]

had my first life drawing class last night. its not a class in the traditional sense of the word, there's no tutoring, you just come along with whatever materials you feel like using, sit down and draw.

5 mins, warm-ups: (sorry for the crappy quality of the paper)


15 mins:


40 mins: (a3 piece, best i could do was a photo)


self portrait - i think i elongated my face a bit too much. how come my pencil rendering, no matter how happy i am with it irl, always looks like crap when i pull it up on screen?


and some neil gaiman's sandman studies, for a fan-art piece i'm planning on. still in love with using inkk

[Jessibelle]

tired. not so much small talk.

self portrait no.2 - closest ive got to a likeness i think, other than the left eye being placed majorly wrong:


watercolour photostudy. learnt alot, made alot of mistakes. need to do more of these.


pencil still life - hated the first and scrapped it halfway through. second got finished, needs better tonal range.



finished painting... i know, the anatomy is fucked and it's obvious my colour theory is non-existant... work harderr!


for next week;

• 20 figures (imagination and reffed - structure and proportion)
• 20 hands (imagination and reffed)
• digital still life
• watercolour study

[Cyberman]

those watercolor studies are coming along, especially the last one, and the digital
self portrait is very good too. Oh and your color theory being non existent is a tad harsh, you have a complimentary color pallet, with the area in light saturated and the area in shadow desaturated, that is actually kinda advanced IMO.

[SamC]

Cool sketchbook Nice to see someone doing so many studies some of your pencils are looking really good, keep pushing with those digitals!

[Satu]

Nice watercolour photostudy and self portrait! Keep it up!

[Jessibelle]

Sean McClain: most of the colours on that piece were just guesswork based on instinct and the very little colour theory i know, and to me it seemed obvious i was guessing. x) yeah, i tend to be pretty harsh on myself; not good for my health, maybe. but thankyou!!

SamC: wow man, thanks. i've been being motivated by your stuff for a while, so that made my day a little.

Satupeikko: Thankyou, i intend to!

wow, early update. productive, woo!

some sketchbook pencils im planning on colouring soon. trying to break away from/expand my usual subject matter with the first one, i never usually do environments from imagination; getting stagnant with what i usually do.



progress of a digital still life - im keeping track of the hours to see how (un)efficient i am. day one i was pretty happy with the amount of work i did on it (i had coffee that day, which might have helped...) but today, i spent more time on it and made less progress, and felt like i learnt less. :/ messing about with rendering.


some figures; drew the first of each from ref, second more-or-less from memory, then went back and drew over in red to correct. trying to break my habit of 'studying' on autopilot and not actually learning.


no life drawing class this week :/ scheduling problems.

[carakhan]

really really nice studies! I like the last one, good idea to draw over it again. I do the same thing, too much autopilot studies.

[Kalin]

Hey there, nice sketches! I like that house you made in your most recent post, looks really interesting and will probably look awesome colored in! Out of all of your people drawings I think your self portraits look the best.

[Jessibelle]

Kalin: Thank youu~ yeah, im looking forward to playing around with colour on it. hmm, i think that could be cause i'm having trouble applying what i learn from the self portraits? need to work on that perhaps x)

Arenyth: thanks! yeah, its a real problem, but its so easy to just zone out instead of focusing on what the study is trying to teach you. :/

hmm, is this gonna be three posts in a week?

finished still life:


more figures:


and some very (veryvery...) crappy sketchbook pages, hmm.

[smuli]

I like how you're training your memory with the figure sketches and you seem to be doing well at it. Hand studies and self-portraits look good too and that digital still life looks like an excellent color study. Brush strokes could be simplified on the fabric of course but on the torsos of the goose or whatever they look good. Can't think of any real critique... I like how steady you are with the updates. Keep them coming!

[Jessibelle]

Smuli: Thank you! yeah, stroke economy is a weakness for me - brush and pencil. I wanna focus on theory for now though, and attack that when i feel i have a firmer grasp on the basics

rest of the figures - the last five are from imagination (which explains why they're so shitty). That was frustrating; I hadn't picked up nearly as much as I thought.


hand studies - they were mostly drawn facing the opposite direction from the ref pic, to improve my eye/force myself to concentrate. the ones with a red dot were from imagination. (i did do 20, but i shut down the computer without saving the first two. i swear. )


watercolour study - did better than last week, still a long way to go. apologies for the bumpy paper, i'll use better quality/stretch it first next time.


the sketch for the commission i mentioned a few posts back:


Went watching the sick puppies live on thursday night (they are fucking. amazing. live. Seriously.) and i kept noticing the way the coloured lights showed form and the absence of local colour, and i wanted to try it. no sketch, just blocked in the forms with paintbrush.


lastly, yeah, my post-it doodles stack from work is slowly growing.


three posts this week! the reason i got so much done is i had no overtime this week, plus didnt have to work today, or go to college either... my first free day since the christmas holidays. next week wont be so kind to me :/ lots of overtime... so with that in mind, and the fact that i left myself little time for personal work despite having lots of free time, i'ma go easy on this weeks self-assignments:

• 20 figures - female (referenced and imagination
• 2 tonal character designs

!