Furiana's SB

[furiana]

Diarum: Lol! Yeah, we're still talking about art. About an hour, maybe two. (Probably more like two, for that one.) That's as opposed to the ones that take two days!

eekolite: Mmm, perspective. Now that you mention it, I probably had a hard time including the foreground because I wasn't sure how the perspective should work. That's something to watch out for.


Speaking of still lifes, I'm starting to want some variety! I'm hoping to take a trip to the zoo in the next few weeks; there's a couple free days coming up. I might drop in on a life drawing class, too. I'm not sure, though: I got a couple dollars as a gift, and I haven't decided how to spend them. Watercolor paper would be nice. So would a pad of Bristol for the graphite work. I could use a whole set of pencils, not just the HBs left over from school. Or maybe gouache? I checked with dpaint today, and he says that gouache and acrylic are the best way to learn to mix colors. (Excluding digital painting, I mean.) After today's watercolor pencil fiasco, it would sure be nice to have a more reliable way to finish drawings...

[loper42]

Wow, your doing a great job! I just love that study of the drapery. Its beautiful. Your definitely improving. Keep up the great work. Good job with perspective. Its such a challenge to do properly. I applaud you for working it out.

[Diarum]

Man, I can't see any updates but it says that there were two posts that I have not seen O.O

[furiana]

What happened to yesterday's post? I could have sworn that I uploaded the koala drawing yesterday. :confused:

Well, in any case...

Diarum: Lol! Yes, we're still talking about art. I mean drawings that take one or two hours over the course of one day, as opposed to several hours spread out over two+ days.

eekolite: Thank you! Perspective takes on a whole new meaning whenever I try to do an environment. I used to think that I understood perspective pretty well. How wrong was I?


EDIT: Removed the koala because my earlier post is showing now. How bizarre! (I'm leaving the duplicate comments because they're not taking up as much space, and because I think it's funny. XD )

[Diarum]

ah now I can see it lol that is weird O.o

[loper42]

Oh it looks lovely. You did a great job with the eyes. It looks like you posted it twice. Oh well, I love the textures. You know what you could do now. Try giving texture light and shadow. That would be a challenge.

Don't force yourself to draw still life if you don't enjoy it. I've realized recently that no matter what you draw it should be drawn the same way. Find interesting objects. Some things require more skill than others, but it is all the same in the end.

Your doing a great job! Keep it up! Congrats on getting to page 4. I'm so behind on pages.

[furiana]

Weird!

Texture with light and shading... Maybe a roll of toilet paper? Something with personal meaning.


I'm slacking on purpose tonight. I spent nearly all day on the mermaid, with nothing to show for it. -.- I tried to render it in watercolor pencils twice. Failed. Then I inked it, which took a few tries. Then I colored in the sky with colored pencil - so slow! - only to realize that I had completely skewed the shape of her face! Nooooooo!

More than that, I'm getting frustrated with other, bigger life issues. So, here's my life drawing today. No critique needed. Also, it's only directed at you folks if that would motivate you to draw. Otherwise...

[ErikHolfelder]

4 pages hell yeah, chuggin along furiana. The shading on the koala is very steady and meticulous - nice job.

Failures suck, but they're also awesome. You will be a million times stronger if you fail a million times (just make sure to analyze and learn from them!)! Keep it up furiana, you are gonna own your craft!!!

[furiana]

You bet!


I went at the mermaid again today. I still don't have anything worth posting, but I'm starting to see improvement. Maybe I've failed often enough that I'm about to catch a break? Anyways, I did the observation drawings during a brief walk. They're humble, but humble sketches like these add up over time.

[loper42]

Cool drawings. Keep up the work.

The finger feels a bit off proportionally. But, I could be wrong.

Don't give up. You can work through this.

[ColorExcursion]

I can see such improvement in even just the first page You seem to absorb a lot of what you study, I am still too nervous to concentrate on the muscles as you have. Keep em' comin'! :]

[furiana]

loper42: ... Wow, it's REALLY off, isn't it? Whoops! <.<; Oh, well, it served it's purpose. Thanks for the encouragement as always!

ColorExcursion: Welcome, and thank you! It's funny what drawing regularly will do.

... Speaking of "muscles" and "drawing regularly", I just realized that I completely dropped the anatomy studies. Double whoops. Well, that's alright; I can pick them back up when my current project is done.

[ErikHolfelder]

Looking good furiana. The head of the bottle looks really nice (looks like plastic!). Clear parts sure are tough though aren't they.

I love all the notes on your sketch pages. Love to see artists thinking through stuff on them.

Keep it up, you're doing awesome!!!!

[furiana]

Excellent! Yeah, the clear part was tough; my eyes had trouble focusing on the values. I just wasn't sure what I was seeing. It was like they kept shifting! Maybe a value scale would help for something like that? The value changes are so subtle, though...


I had a similar problem today with the erasers. (No notes, sorry! ) Maybe I should simplify values again for a while? Maybe I could use gradients for fun. Maybe I should pay more attention to relative values before I start shading things in? I dunno, I'm just tossing around ideas.

Anyways, I'm starting to realize that photorealism in black and white is all about the tiniest changes in value, if the underlying construction is good. I think. In fact, I'm wondering if accurate values are one of the secrets behind trompe l'oeuil? I've noticed before that the unconvincing ones look washed out or overexposed to me: maybe the value changes weren't subtle enough?

[furiana]

Trying a reflective surface today.

[Nenad]

Hi there furiana. Huh, you're doing great girl! Post #22, nice looking study, post #23, haha, very good, I'm glad you took the advice. Post #26, very good as well, #28, the can, good just, the 'ring' around the "button" should be just a little bit more elliptical. Post #29 is the best of the kind, ah, I love it. Post #30, great work that one. Page 2, wow, you're going serious, that's good. Post 65, the glass, or the can, good fading. Post #74, the girl, hot! So goddamn good! Post #79, the hanging towel, I love it!

Now, there's something interesting with post #82. The eye looks so bloody realistic that, together with those hairs around it, it looks like, looks 3D, looks like it ain't on the paper....hahah...just wow!

Post #85, looks realistic, a result of a good shading. Good work. Post #91, excelent end up. Post #104 " I'm starting to realize that photorealism in black and white is all about the tiniest changes in value", exactly.

Keep on like this, you're doing just great. See ya!

[ErikHolfelder]

Was swamped for a couple days, but got time to post now!

Man, your rendering is coming along really nicely (I need to get back on the pencils!)

I think you are right about the value. What you are essentially talking about are the edges of flat values. If they are too abrupt and high contrast, it will appear really overexposed. Proper gradation of edges is also what allows you to portray different materials accurately (as in metal has many abrupt, high contrast edges).

Good food for thought, keep it up!!!

[furiana]

Nenad: Good to see you around again! It sounds like the longer drawings in particular are striking the right chords. I'll have to remember that!

eekolite: You know, I've heard about edges. I figured that I would learn about them once I got the basics under my belt. (The ellipses on the bottlecap and candle still need fixing, for example.) Now I want to try drawing an extremely reflective surface twice, once with sharp edges and once with blurred ones, to see if the "blurred" one looks duller...

Today's studies are coming up soon. Watch this space!

EDIT: There they are! I went to the zoo today. I've got a long way to go still, but I'll have another chance at it later this month.

As I side note, I used different types of media for this. See if you can spot which ones are graphite, and which ones are gray colored pencil! (Warm gray 70% and cool gray 70%, for any Prismacolor fans out there. These photographs don't show the different shades of gray very well, but both are lovely. )

[ErikHolfelder]

Haha, love the first bird. He looks like a cool guy!

Keep it up!!!

[furiana]

He was a character! I must have spent half an hour in front of his cage while he marched back and forth, performing for me.


Today's drawings won't be posted online. I went to a life drawing session, which was unexpectedly fun, but I forgot to ask the model if I could post the pictures!

[furiana]

Odd mood. Could not care less about accuracy, but the charcoal felt good.

[ErikHolfelder]

Man that sketch has a lot of character. Very expressive.

Just wanted to pop in and say keep it up. As like Marlee and loper, I'm going to be out of town for a couple days so I wanted to say KEEP ROCKIN!

See ya in a bit

[furiana]

I'm glad I posted it, then!

(See your sketchbook. )

--
Once again I went to a lifedrawing class, and once again I can't post the drawings. I expect this will happen again in the future, too. I don't want any more artless posts, though, so did a quick value study afterwards. It turned into a good example of how nice values won't make up for bad construction, but whatever. I learned what I wanted to anyways. :p

[loper42]

Good work! Really nice shading. Absolutely beautiful.

[furiana]

loper42, I'm surprised you like that so much! I really wish I could show you the figure drawing from the same day...

Today wasn't a particularly good drawing day. Now I remember how much I hate powdered graphite/charcoal. I mean, I'm sure I'll get the knack of it if I kept practicing, but... urgh! It gives me ugly patchy values, and it looks so dirty! >.<

[furiana]

I came across two jackrabbits and a family of turkeys today! Besides my attempts at drawing those, I sketched a few landscapes.

[furiana]

First part of a two-day drawing. Also, a sketch of a girl. I didn't take the time to edit the sketch before I inked it, but it shows where I'm at with drawing faces from imagination.

It's pretty funny to see the two photographs side-by-side: it's pretty obvious that ink cleans up better than graphite does, especially if there was more light in the room!

[furiana]

Charcoal doesn't work like graphite does. You'd think that would be obvious, but it still surprises me.

[Samszym]

The charcoal stuff looks nice!

[krysjez]

hey Furiana, lots of progress here If you're still undecided about what to spend your "few dollars" on, let me just say that watercolor is beginner-friendly and looks really great with ink.* If you decide to get watercolors, make sure to buy some CP/cold-pressed/"NOT" watercolor paper too, some nice round brushes and a flat or two.

*I am, of course, partial towards watercolor because it was the first painting medium I used.