Neave's Sketchbook

[MeteorCat]

Hello everyone,

I have finally mustered the courage to post my artwork on these brilliant forums. I am absolutely stunned by the talent of the artists here hence I am a bit nervous.

A little about me: My name is Neave Lifschits. I am 19 years old. I currently live in Israel and I study at the Tiltan College of Design. For now, I'm in a short course teaching the three basic design programs (PS, Illustrator and Indesign). The real studies, the first year, begins in October and sadly, my illustration courses only begin on the second year.

I have only studied art with a teacher for a month or two but I have always been that kid in class that drew in the back row. I have about two years of experience with photoshop and I guess I have been drawing seriously for about a year now, mainly with pencil on paper. Recently, I've gone more into digital art and that is currently my main focus.

[MeteorCat]

Sketched my girlfriend while she read a book. She kept moving so I didn't get a chance to colour but I quite enjoyed drawing this.

[MeteorCat]

This piece is called Red Cardinal of the North. It's still a work in progress but I am really happy with it. I think its a big improvement for me.

[JJacks]

Nice sketchbook. It's always cool to see other people take an interest in "nature" subjects. One thing that I notice is that you focus more on detail than on basic structure. That's something you could work on.

[MeteorCat]

Thank you. I certainly love nature, and animals specifically. Ever since I was young I really wanted to draw them.

Thank you for the criticism too. I think I understand what you mean.

Oh, and thank you for being the first one to comment on my sketchbook. I thought this day would never come

[kitana_mk]

You have very burned colors and they are very simple. What I mean you make the leaves with just one color and maybe the dark version of it the flower too just one color and white. You can add some yellow and bright green in the leaves and maybe purple in the blue flower try not to use simple colors. And about the white - in the nature there is almost nothing which is really black and really white. Use very bright blue instead or every color near the white point but not white.
The pencil work is messy - keep the fingers and the hand away in order not to have this stamps and smudges.
I can say I like the bird most but this hard strokes on the feather bothers me.

Good luck!

[MeteorCat]

The pencil sketches were one of my first ever serious sketches so I didn't really pay attention to that. Plus, I'm assuming with time and all the moving around it smudged a bit.

I know what you mean about the hard strokes. I'm still working on this piece so hopefully you'll like it more when its complete.

Thanks for the comments.

[MeteorCat]

I decided to take a friend's friendly advice and draw from my head. So, with no reference, a piece has been created. I call it 'The Wanderer'.

[MeteorCat]

Update on the Red Cardinal.

[Suncut]

Nice sketchbook! The red cardinal is shaping up, but in the future I'd recommend starting with a big hard edged brush and working out the basic areas of tone before diving into the detail. Once you got the big areas of tone down you'll notice you don't have to draw every feather to get a feathery look, and it makes for a better design since you can control the points of interest in a piece by adding detail to the most important parts.

[GoodSniff]

Yesss another newbie welcome welcome. I've only just joined after lurking and being nervous about seeing some of the work that gets posted here. Anyway, the flowers at the top are fab. Could I make a suggestion? When drawing stuff like human and animal hair you get a better look by sketching out more the form of the mass, rather than the individual strands.

[MeteorCat]

The animals are sketches for a children's book that I am illustrating and the weird raccoon like animals are a present for my girlfriend's birthday.

P.S. It's a surprise so don't tell her

[2.3J]

Thanks again for dropping by!

I really like your red cardinal update! Both details and atmosphere are great! I too love drawing animals, so am looking forward to some new creature works of yours

[MeteorCat]

Making a new album cover for the band "Mumford & Sons" as a school project. They are awesome.


And some sketches working on anatomy and poses thanks to my father.

[MeteorCat]

I am thinking of printing out some sort of drawing for my father which involves a piano player as his profession is a piano teacher.

Just sketching some ideas so far. This piece is from a photo of Tom Waits.

[Rhubix]

Fun stuff so far
I think your biggest issue currently is edge control. You've got sort of a fuzzy look about your paintings and "hairy lines".
I think if you work on those two things you'll find a noticeable improvement quite quickly
Happy sketching!

[MeteorCat]

A small update.

The dog is another idea for my father. Can't really decide what to draw for him yet.

There is a school project to create a poster exhibiting your work so I was thinking of ideas. Some sort of bird/eagle carrying something representing art or digital art. Perhaps an eagle carrying a computer screen or maybe just sitting next to a large bucket of paint

Last but not least, the raccoons were sketched in class from a photo. I really enjoyed it.

[MeteorCat]

Yes, it is just a hand holding a calligraphic ink pen
I really didn't focus much on the details of this as I was just using it as a small element on the CD cover I am designing for my college project (see above).

[Baudolino]

Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook. You got some great drawings here, I really like your animal studies. Keep up the good work!

[MeteorCat]

Thank you, Baudolino.

[boybogart]

You show great potential bro, keep on rockin them sketches!

[MeteorCat]

An update for the poster idea. I think I'm going to go for some sort of large bird/gryphon carrying some sort of brush through the high mountains.

Anyway this is a sketch of an Andean Condor (one of the largest flying birds).

[MeteorCat]

I'm working on the poster for my school project. I must say I have never drawn this big (A3 landscape, not portrait) and it is really really hard for me.

The eagle is supposed to be leaving behind him a trail of something (haven't done that part yet) that brings life to nature, hence the rest of the image is very gloomy and dead. I took this idea from Fantasia 2000 -- Firebird - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FWq17CT6Cs

I would really like some help for this, please.

[MeteorCat]

Update on the poster.

[Kvenh]

Thanks for the continuing support!

Keep on working hard. Working digitally is hard thing to master but so much fun.

Try to add some distance to the eagle painting. The objects that go farther away from you generally go lighter in value because of the atmosphere in betwene so you can try doing the mountains in the background with some lighter values.

[MeteorCat]

Another update on the poster.

[Rhubix]

I love the dog with the Piano- I used to have a dog just like that .
Keep up the good fight ^_^

[Johnny_P]

Really nice stuff for your lack of experience. I like the cardinal painting, it's very realistic, though I would've defined some of its feathers, cardinals don't have fur! It seems you have an interest in drawing birds. A tip that I would give you is to study the anatomy of various types of birds, from the skeleton to the muscles-this way you will have an easier time laying in the overall form of the bird, and eventually you'd be able to create your own drawings of birds from imagination.
I hope to see some more drawings! gl =)

[Baudolino]

Hey Meteor! Thanks for stopping by... your new stuff is awesome. I really like the idea and general feeling of your last piece! I only would suggest to do some minor changes to the contrast to make the bird more visible since he is the most important element in the painting. Looking forward to the next updates!

[MeteorCat]

Thank you Johnny, Rhubix and Baudolino for your nice comments and advice.

I did a bit more work on the image today but it all got deleted when my PS crashed (I was sure I saved). It wasn't much, plus, I'm sure now I'll do everything even better. I honestly can say it was the first time it happened to me with painting digitally.

I'd just like to say how much I appreciate everyone taking the time to look and comment on my work. Thank you again.