Sketchbook of a Determined Art Student

[OakLeaf]

Hey, whats up people? I've been checking out some of the sketchbooks here but never ended up making one myself until today. My goal in making a sketchbook thread is to have a place where I can post my sketches and get some feedback and constrictive criticism so I can become a better artist! Please feel free to give me some pointers! I'll probably mostly be posting figure exercises and stuff like that because I'm kind of obsessed with figure drawing but need to get much better at it! Ok, I'm done talking.

Right now I'm studying vilppu and and loomis and also trying to study anatomy from my artistic anatomy book.

Attachment 1664240

[OakLeaf]

I have been really having a hard time knowing what to practice drawing right now. Stuff from Loomis seems a little bit overwhelming right now. I'm not sure if I'm going to continue studying the Loomis manikin thing but I think his way of drawing heads is really nice, I've been doing that a bit. After practicing drawing the head and skull for awhile, I tried to draw a skull in photoshop from my imagination. It's not perfect by any means but it will be nice to compare this one to a better one I do in the future.

I also attempted to copy some stuff from Michelangelo, I really like his style. I still haven't met anybody here yet, somebody should say hi!

[linesanddots]

Those are pretty good rough sketches. If they were fleshed out wow...

[OakLeaf]

Thanks! I don't think I'll finish anything anytime soon though, I have to have everything perfect, and it's FAR from perfect.

[OakLeaf]

I tried to copy a portion of a Rubens painting. Maybe I'll finish the rest of it later...

[linesanddots]

Me I've always loved black and white. I guess because you actually can get so much energy from the lights to dark. Color sometimes ruins it for me. Example: Have you ever seen the back part of a comic book where it might show breakdowns or inked pages? Just the sketches get to me. It's awesome.

Oh I wanted to compliment on the action of your figures.

[OakLeaf]

Thanks again! I try to put an almost exaggerated amount of action in my figures, even if they aren't proportionately correct correct now, at least you can feel the action! Yeah, I love black and white, and at this point and I don't even want to bother with color. Baby steps.

[twilightmoon777]

Looking good, loving the figures at the very beginning! Keep cranking them out! And I know what you mean by Loomis being overwhelming. I just started working on some of his stuff today and I'm like wow. Push through it though!

[Jbeihl]

I would just go balls to the wall and add color and don't think about it.. just go with your gut, and draw what you see in front of you.

[OakLeaf]

Quick, rough, proportionately incorrect. Better then nothing though.

[Introspection]

Don't be afraid to draw things thats not the human figure, like a pen or an egg or whatever you have lying around your desk that has an interesting shape. That is something I have found to be incredibly helpful for me, just sit down take a few deep breaths to calm down, and stare at an object, trying to understand how the form moves in space and slowly and calmly try to draw what I see.

It takes alot of dedication and the progress is rather hard to see at first, but its the determination to keep at it thats vital. You do learn so very much trying to draw from life, it is harder in some aspects, compared to drawing from other drawings, but you learn so much more from it.

Not sure if I made any sense there

[OakLeaf]

I thought about your advice to draw more objects and stuff from life and I'm going to follow it. I'm just kind of obsessed with figure drawing right now! Today I worked a lot on drawing the head. I'm really liking the Loomis method. I think from now on I'm going to post these really tall jpeg's instead of individual one's when I have multiple pages, it's much faster.

[Jessibelle]

don't worry about things being overwhelming - stuff can seem a bit intimidating at first, but if you take a deep breath and dive straight into it and work at it enough, it'll soon become easy - it's by facing the challenges that we improve and become better artists

i also agree with introspection on the drawing from life - it might not seem related to figure drawing and what you wanna do, but i'm learning that everything in art is linked and that by learning one thing you have a greater understanding of others. drawing from life teaches you important stuff about light, shadow, form, shape, and understanding 3-d - all stuff that is included in figure drawing. once you understand how light and shadow wrap around the form of say, a ball or an egg, you can apply that to how it would wrap around the form of a head, or a chest and so on.

to keep pushing and enjoying what you're doing is the most important thing though. good luck!

[OakLeaf]

Thanks for the encouragement! It means a lot, really.

I know I just posted, but since then I did a bunch of super quick, rough gesture drawings that were so much fun! Usually I don't like drawing in photoshop that much because it seems unnatural or something but this felt really nice.

[OakLeaf]

The charcoal drawings are copies of different Michelangelo statues, and more gesture drawings in photoshop.

[OakLeaf]

I've been trying to draw faces a lot but it seem that I'm sort of stuck in a rut. I keep drawing the same loomis skull things with the face on top, I can't figure out how to make faces look different and how to add character to them, all my faces look pretty much the same. Alright, I hope that I get past this annoying spot soon. We'll see.

[dierat]

You're making good progress in your figurative studies already; keep up that momentum! For your digital work, try starting off with harder brushes and more opaque paint when you're blocking your shapes in and laying everything out, then move into more transparent settings for blending and rendering as necessary. Oh and try not to skimp on the hands and feet in your figurative studies. The longer you put off learning to draw them, the harder it will be to catch up in those areas later on. Keep up the good work!

[OakLeaf]

I finally feel like I'm making some progress! The whole day today I was feeling really discouraged but sketched a lot. At the end of the day something sort of clicked, maybe I was just really warmed up or something but I started to draw a lot better and it was much more fun. I know the anatomy is off, I haven't been going over anatomy as much as I should, that will come soon, I promise! And dierat, I will also try to start drawing hands and feet on my people! I know it's something I shouldn't ignore. And thanks for the encouragement!

[Grey_Rift]

nice work try to look more at reference of human skulls and mayby try to watch some tuturials how to construct your drawing more your head for example http://www.stanprokopenko.com/blog/2...ead-any-angle/

[OakLeaf]

[OakLeaf]

[invinciblewombat]

you're definitely showing improvement, just keep on drawing from observation/life

[Egg0]

One recommendation that I can do, it's to paint from life, just, things that you've around, like a pen, or your desk, whatever, really helps to understand form, values, and shading. So keep working on it, nice improvement

[OakLeaf]

Since my last post, I've moved to Paris, taking a year off before I decide what university or school I want to go to. Basically, I have absolutely no responsibility or anything right now, so I get to do whatever I want!

I bought a year pass to the Louvre and have gone a few times and copied stuff. It sounds simple to sketch statues or paintings but not for me! I get really frustrated and sort of feel stupid when people look at what I'm sketching -_-

I haven't really been drawing that much up until this week. I feel really inspired right now to keep drawing and getting better, so hopefully I'll be posting mosre often, and hopefully you guys will get to see some sweet copies.


At the bottom, there's two pictures of the Rubens paintings. That's the kind of thing I love to copy and there's a whole hall at the Louvre just for Rubens.


Thanks invinciblewombat and Egg0. I know I keep saying it, but I'm going to start sketching more stuff from life. I've been sketching statues at the louvre, that counts right?

[OakLeaf]

[BlasteR]

cool figures man , your figures have this crazy flow to them :p .
but i think you draw the arms too long most of the time .
keep drawing from pictures , movieshots , stil life .
You can always try to sketch outside when its sunny
you could pick up girls that way :p .

greetz

[OakLeaf]

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I haven't worked to much on proportions so you're probably right about the arms being to long.

[OakLeaf]

I did my best to sketch real world things today. Mostly hands and feet. I feel like I'm improving a bit.

[TCrow]

I'm loveing the studys, keep up the good work.

[OakLeaf]

Thanks TCrow!

More figure studies as usual. And a fruite/squash/fork spoon setup. I also JUST started drawing in pen for pretty much the first time. Its kind of scary at first but I really like it. I think drawing in pen forces you to choose wisely where you make your marks, and it only takes a few lines to make something look really awesome.

I also want to try ink this week, like the kind that you dilute with water I think. India ink? This is what i'm talking about. Can someone tell me exactly how you use it and what you need to do this?