M-Min's Sketchbook & exercises

[M-Min]

Gonna keep it real simple here. I'd love to be able to draw well and decided to jump right into it. Here are some quick gestures that I threw up using Vilppu last night. I used

http://www.pixelovely.com/tools/gesture.html

for the models. Some of them I'm happy with. Some, not so much. Crits or comments are welcome.

[jbrown67]

nice! that's a great idea. I realize this is your first post, but some suggestions for other things to work on are: portrait sketches, landscape composition thumbnails, hands, feet, detailed figure drawings (loomis books are great), and then any finished work you have. Try never to fall into a comfort zone, and just keep posting art as much as possible. Welcome to CA!

[M-Min]

thanks jbrown! i'll work in some loomis and environment sketches in my next post.

here are more gestures, noses, head rotations and two drawings from last year.

the noses actually came out better than i thought but i seem to be having difficulties with shading and value. any advice on how i can improve on it?

[M-Min]

haven't posted in a while. i've only got myself to blame for it. anyways, here's my failed attempt at an environment from reference. a few more gestures and poses using the pixelovely gesture tool. i'm working on an a2 drawing board but i'm tilting my head a bit too much to look at the screen. (i'm working off a laptop) is there some other way of measuring proportions? sight-sizing doesn't seem to be working at an angle.

priority to work on:
- proportions
- shading
- less sketchy lines

it's my first time working with ink. i love the feel of these pigma microns. definitely going to be working with them a lot.


p/s: i have no idea what those swirly things are either but i had a very random moment.

[Clean3d]

Nice work on the gestures! I've done a lot of my gesture drawing from pixelovely and lovecastle as well. Something I've learned is that it's very important to keep drawing from life as well! Transferring from one 2D plane to another will leave some gaps in your knowledge. If you're not already, I'd suggest finding a few interesting objects, as well as geometric shapes, and draw those daily. I have a skull model I enjoy drawing, but now I'm finding even it is just too complex. Gotta start basic!

Keep up the good work!

[M-Min]

Clead3d, Thanks for sharing that link to lovecastle. That site looks awesome!

Still not drawing as often as I should. Gotta try and rectify that.

Here's an update. I really struggled with that last one. The edges on the value studies I think are a bit too dark and there's not enough of a gradual transition on the curved surfaces. There's almost no highlight on the spheres and the cast shadow feels wrong somehow.

[M-Min]

Another quick update.

[M-Min]

I took a trip to the countryside over the weekend for a commercial shoot and brought my sketchbook along. My only regret is that I wish I had more time up there.





The horse kept moving away out of sight almost every two minutes.




An earlier sketch that I found in my book. Shadow construction and generating a smooth transition between tones still seem to be my main enemy.




Here's the result from the life drawing session I attended last night. It was a lot of fun and an amazing environment. I think I might just make this a weekly thing. There were some very challenging poses but I hope to improve on my sketches.

I just received my copy of "Natural Way to Draw" this morning with "Drawing Essentials" by Deborah Rockman and "Figure Drawingesign & Invention" on their way. Can't wait to dig in!! Fun Times! Crits and comments are encouraged.

[M-Min]

Hi again all! After a few months of soul searching, working and deciding on what it is I wanted to do with my life, I'm back now with a mission. I'm not gonna make anymore excuses (or at least try not to). The problem I'm having is discipline but I am trying to work on that.



I reeeaally need to work on those elipses



Some cubes in perspective. I got a bit impatient on some of these I think.





Some practice elipses. I keep running into the issue of having "tails" or the lines not connecting. I did some practices using graphite as well. Tried slowing down, speeding up and I keep coming up with the same results.



This time I tried to change my hand grip and used the broad side of the pencil. I don't like the soft line quality but at least the ends are starting to meet. Maybe it's the way I'm observing??



Gestures and stuff





I found a photo of a jug that had a dark background. I thought I was doing okay then I leaned back some more... *sigh*



Some objects that were scattered on my table. I think I like the cone the best



I recalled a tutorial on CtrlPaint where Matt Kohr was teaching about breaking down objects into simpler forms. Spoons were the subject, so I decided to do the same.



Some kitchen utensils. Gah! my shading's terrible!!



Some small thumbnails I've done in my pocket sketchbook.



With the gestures that I've done I'm a little bit confused in terms of what I'm meant to show/depict. In Michael Hampton's book, he talks about trying to understand what the model is doing/ or its story. I've been told to avoid contours and just focus on the pose itself but most of the gestures that I've seen in the sketchbooks ARE contours. Am I highlighting the contours as well as the general flow or are they both one and the same when it comes to gestural drawing?

[M-Min]

i really should smack myself for not drawing enough.

[eclip-se]

Patience and Discipline, Good luck!

[JonHop]

I've looked through your sketchbook and you've made a good start but there's one thing I really notice that you can work on that will really help you improve and that's the structure of the things you are drawing. Especially the human form and animal anatomy, don't concentrate on getting the values down but rather concentrate on getting the shapes in the right place with the correct proportions, traing yourself to see the shapes instead of 'this is arm or this is a leg' it may help to leave the values until you've got a good grip on that then begin to incorporate them into your sketches.

[Ghast]

my biggest suggestions for you sir are avoiding the deadly "chicken scratch line" and structure structure structure! Don't be so hesitant with you lines. Try and get the line you want in one sweep, and if you dont get it the first time, erase it and do try it again. And as far as structure, on the gestures, keep the fluidity you have, but still indicate where the spine and joints are. drawing rough shapes to indicate the direction of the hands and feet wouldn't hurt either. For the longer poses, really think of the body as shapes (I usually think of the skull, the spine, the ribs and pelvis). But still get the gesture down as fast as you did for the shorter poses, then build off of that. Good luck!

[M-Min]

@ eclip-se Agreed, I desperately need to work on that, thanks!

@JonHop Should I be focusing on seeing just the 2d shapes e.g circle, square, etc or should I also be searching for 3d forms as well?

@Ghast Just to clarify, when you say structure, are you referring to the structure or shapes?

Thanks all!

[M-Min]

I just realized, I seem to compulsively fill the page and don't really draw small without using my wrists, weird.

[M-Min]

my gestures seem to have gotten worse and i'm still trying to kick the habit of having sketchy lines.

got myself a copy of Bert Dodson's Keys to Drawing today. gonna work through that first i think before i tackle Loomis's books though I'm still waiting on Fun With a Pencil. Anyone by any chance know if Titan's announced a release date yet for that book?

[M-Min]

i've just about completed the first read through of Dodson's book. so i've started working through the exercises. i opted to draw hand hand instead of feet as per the feet exercise on pg 13. bad decision maybe??? my lines are still rather sketchy. amateur habits i guess. gotta kill it fast.

either way, the proportions are waaaaay off on these. main mistake here i think is that i focused too much on the contour rather than looking for shapes and too much on the individual curves instead of the overall shape.



found some markers lying around and decided to play with them





some sort of ray gun

[M-Min]

I was excited with this hand until i realized that i would run out of space on the page, then it all went down from there.





i would really like to draw smaller so that i can fit more hands on a paper

[ColorExcursion]

I really like the simple gesture studies Not sure if anyone has suggested this, but with your sketchy line issue you talked about...try drawing a complete line without picking up your utensil when you are drawing. It helps with muscle memory. Keep it up! I can already see improvement

[M-Min]

@ ColorExcursion. Thanks for the feedback and suggestion! I'll give it a try.

In the meantime, here's a couple more hands and gestures from last night.

[M-Min]

decided to work on perspective a bit more. didn't realize i smudged my paper that much till i scanned em in.

the bottom left sketch is meant to be a hanger of some sort and i never figured out what i wanted out of the bottom middle on

[Heyriel]

I really like those perspective sketches and thumbnails -can't pin-point why but they look very exciting and dynamic
As for the figure drawing: Have you ever studied the bone structure of what you're drawing? And muscle placment? That might help you alot c:

[M-Min]

@Heyriel. Thanks for the feedback. It just so happened that the study group that i joined had our first assignment which is to study muscle and bones in the arms and legs.

here's the result. now to put what i've learned into practice!

[OldManPsylus]

I'm impressed that you took the time to go through and name all the muscles. I don't even know any artists who just happen to know the names of every muscle in the body :p

Only thing that really seemed to stick out to me in the way of critique, is that your radius has a very odd bend to it. It should have a much more gradual bend to it. That, and on the neck of your far right femur on the first image appears to be extended a bit further than it should be.

On another note, you mentioned "I guess I kinda cheated on this one a little bit" back over in the study group forums. It's only cheating if you didn't learn anything from the assignment .

[keeptime]

Nice studies so far! I don't know if this will help you at all, but when I'm drawing hands I always try and mark out the main shapes first (usually a cube for the fist and then a triangle detaching from it for the thumb). Then I draw arced lines to mark out where the knuckles fall. I also find it helps to go for the darkest values first to sort of "map out" the hand, since those are usually between fingers and around knuckles/veins.

[Epona]

I really think there is some improvement from the start of your sketchbook. The anatomy studies are well done, and I really enjoyed your trees and hands. I agree with the posters suggesting you work on your line rather than too much on the shading. I'm looking forward to seeing more from you!

[Psychobuddy]

I think working on a construction method like the one in Loomis' book or Hampton's method would really pay off. You're figures, uhm, this is harsh I'm sorry, but they don't show an understanding of what's underneath the skin. Work on a way to but down a framework, and you should see an awesome improvement. Keep working.

[M-Min]

Darn, nearly a week without an update. I got really sleepy at life drawing session today. Btw, are there any Sydney-siders here who go to the Arthouse Hotel for Monday life drawing?

Here's everything from the past three days and today.































@OldManPsylus Actually, I'm still trying to remember the names of all the muscles. I wrote them down because I didn't know the names. I think I've got most of the bone names and placement memorised now but muscles are a whole different matter altogether.

@keeptime That actually sounds like a good approach. My observational skills still aren't great so maybe this will help.

@Epona Thanks for the feedback. I'm a bit stubborn unfortunately but I agree that my line work is completely shot still unless a ruler is involved.

@Psychobuddy. I completely agree lol. I can't even draw a circle or ellipse right yet but many thanks for the feedback. I'll definitely look at Loomis and Hampton.

[M-Min]

been somewhat distracted as of late. here's some stuff from today and some random sketches from a while back

[M-Min]

quick study of twisting box forms before i turn in for the night