My Drawing Adventure! LOTS of critic welcome and appreciated.

**daart** · February 2nd, 2011, 06:30 PM

]Hey everyone,

As almost everyone says, I am a long time lingerer and explorer around this site and finally have decided to start my own sketchbook! I have accumulated lots of sketches so here are some of them

I will take no offense-- critic' away. I want my art to be the best it can be

A little about me: My names Jack. I am 14 years old and I am in 8th grade right now. I have been drawing for about 1.5 years and love it. been on this site for 4 months I think and now im starting a sketchbook.

here are the first few pieces i could scan at school

ill have more up tomorrow!

edit:: uh.... so I just attached the things.... how do I just have them show up like in all other sketchbooks!! help :/. take a look at them if you want to though lol. any tutorials on how to upload correctly?

**Cyberman** · February 2nd, 2011, 06:34 PM

I usually upload my images as jpegs, and they need to be about 500 kb files. looking
forward to seeing them

**daart** · February 13th, 2011, 10:54 PM

hey... sorry I didn't post. heres some of my stuff I've done on photoshop-- having a tough time with scanning my drawings.

The mug-- tried a still life drawings. advice pleaseeee

The submarine-- it began as an attempt with an environment (which i really want to learn how to paint) and turned into this... lol

**daart** · February 13th, 2011, 10:54 PM

! Why is it so large? Someone help

**Velocity Kendall** · February 13th, 2011, 11:03 PM

hello, try resizing the image down to about 600 wide and saving as a small version, and uploading that.
careful not to save over your original.,

**Samszym** · February 14th, 2011, 12:28 AM

Just in case you didn;t know how, to resize an image click on image, select image size, and change width or height to resize the whole thing.
Okay, here's some advice for still lifing. The first thing you have to do is find the perspective of the scene. I don't know if your familiar with perspective, but in case you're not here's a helpful book on it by Andrew Loomis. (All his books would be great for someone trying to learn the basics) The way your mug looks the horizon line is above the cup. That placement would shift the circles of the mug into shapes called ellipses, which are what you have there. But the thing is with that perspective the bottom ellipse would be closer to being a circle and the top would be skinnier. You've got that reversed, the bottom seems slimmer than the top.

That helps you draw it accurately, painting's different. You need to see the different tones and simplify them. Tones on an object can be 6 different things: highlight, light, half tone, core shadow, reflected light, and cast shadow. You should understand the tones and not just put them on your canvas. The more you understand about these 6 elements, the better you'll be able to paint and exaggerate things. You actually did a pretty good job with this, and the reflected lights are nice. Try using a bigger brush than you think you need. that will force you to make bigger, simpler shapes. you can't get lost in little details or everything will look messed up. Go for the big ideas first, details and highlights are last.

Another huge thing is edge control, making an edge of something any degree of hard to completely blended in with another shape. In your mug the edges are pretty much the same all around, blurry and seemingly uncontrolled. this would be the essential link for edges.
Okay, I think that's all, hope it helps. It's great that you've started going here so young, keep working at it and you'll be awesome.

**daart** · February 14th, 2011, 01:32 AM

Originally Posted by Vertical

Just in case you didn;t know how, to resize an image click on image, select image size, and change width or height to resize the whole thing.
Okay, here's some advice for still lifing. The first thing you have to do is find the perspective of the scene. I don't know if your familiar with perspective, but in case you're not here's a helpful book on it by Andrew Loomis. (All his books would be great for someone trying to learn the basics) The way your mug looks the horizon line is above the cup. That placement would shift the circles of the mug into shapes called ellipses, which are what you have there. But the thing is with that perspective the bottom ellipse would be closer to being a circle and the top would be skinnier. You've got that reversed, the bottom seems slimmer than the top.

That helps you draw it accurately, painting's different. You need to see the different tones and simplify them. Tones on an object can be 6 different things: highlight, light, half tone, core shadow, reflected light, and cast shadow. You should understand the tones and not just put them on your canvas. The more you understand about these 6 elements, the better you'll be able to paint and exaggerate things. You actually did a pretty good job with this, and the reflected lights are nice. Try using a bigger brush than you think you need. that will force you to make bigger, simpler shapes. you can't get lost in little details or everything will look messed up. Go for the big ideas first, details and highlights are last.

Another huge thing is edge control, making an edge of something any degree of hard to completely blended in with another shape. In your mug the edges are pretty much the same all around, blurry and seemingly uncontrolled. this would be the essential link for edges.
Okay, I think that's all, hope it helps. It's great that you've started going here so young, keep working at it and you'll be awesome.

Wow thanks so much for all the advice!! I'll try to do another still life this week keeping in mind your words. Also many thanks for the links. I uploaded this still life b/c I think it is my best digital painting so far.

However, I am more interested in figure/character drawing, etc. And at my school at the end of our 8th grade year we do a big, final art project and I decided to fill a sketchbook with Loomis studies which I should start within the next few weeks

In the past I have done Bridgman studies, mainly focusing on the lower jaw- it was the only part of the book in which I could understand the drawings and the concepts he was outlining, lol.

Well thanks again for the advice and I'll be posting as much work as I can as soon as possible

**daart** · February 14th, 2011, 03:15 PM

a drawing of my hand that I did over the summer

**daart** · February 14th, 2011, 03:16 PM

honestly... I need help... where do I resize the images? I tried re sizing it like that in photoshop and now the background is still there. What program (mac) can I use to make these smaller? :/

**Samszym** · February 14th, 2011, 07:14 PM

Woah. I'm not sure how to help with that. maybe you only had the drawing selected, to resize an image the way I said you can't have anything selected. Anyway, when you're doing Bridgeman and Loomis studies be sure to draw from imagination using the principles they tell you. Loomis is supposed to be a guidebook and you need to develop the rules with your own imagination. And Bridgeman's all about mass, I don't think copying his lines teaches you anything. And that thing about the six elements applies to everything that gets hit with light, so character drawings too.