Jarrad's Sketchbook

[Kvenh]

Thanks for dropping by in my sketchbook!

Working hard on those foundations of drawing, keep on rocking!

Regarding your question of the figure, many people like to use the books by Andrew Loomis, George Bridgman and John Vanderpoel. They offer some eye-opening ideas how to view the human figure. I haven't got a clear favorite of those, I just use them all.

[Clur]

Hey! Thanks for your very kind comment in my sketchbook.

About that figure you're having trouble with - I think taking a look at the actual muscles and bones and how they work together will help you with positioning things. The books Kvenh suggested are all great for that sort of thing.

[Jarrad]

Kvenh: No Prob. Your stuff is great! Very inspiring! Thanks for the advice!!
Clur: Your welcome. I meant it! Good point, I'm going to do some studying up!

Here are drawings from today. I'm going to try to do 100 head constructions in the next little while. I'm aiming for 10 a day. The numbers that are circled are from imagination/memory and the ones with the triangles had references.

oh ya. I had a fair bit of trouble casting that crappy looking shadow for that cylindrical shape. If anyone has a good way of doing it.. I'd like to know!

[Jarrad]

Here are some still life studies from today. I used chalk powder and applied with a cotton pad... no lines.. I was trying to focus on the large shapes for those ones. Feelin' pretty lousy about my stuff. That will pass though. I need to do many many many many more.

[Jarrad]

Hey, kids! Meet Grampa Murphy.
We have three grampas already!
This one’s a great jazz musician.
Oh, they all are.
Oh, oh: you see, the kids, they listen to the rap music which gives them the brain damage. With their hippin’, and the hoppin’, and the bippin’, and the boppin’, so they don’t know what the jazz…is all about! You see, jazz is like the Jello Pudding Pop — no, actually, it’s more like Kodak film — no, actually, jazz is like the New Coke: it’ll be around forever, heh heh heh.

[Clur]

Hey, those figure studies are looking pretty good. If you can apply the confident line work you have in your perspective drawing to those, you'll be doing great!

[Jarrad]

Clur:Thanks. That's the trick eh! That shall come with many many many many many many more hours of practice... probably. I checked out your last piece you did on DA. me likely a lot. Do you only paint in water colours? Have you ever tried oils? I've only tried acrylic but the others interest me a bunch!

here are some things from today. Still keeping up with my 10 head (min) a day goal. I did some more still life studies with powdered chalk and applying it with a large cotton pad which only allows me to focus on the larger light and shadow forms. I tried doing each one twice.. the second of each was done with a black pencil crayon. Some went better than others .. as you will see.

[Jarrad]

some people scribbles and a skull that doesn't belong to any specific animal.. certainly not human!

[peterhurman]

Im impressed, lots of studies and you are heading in the right direction. The way you are breaking figures down into shapes in the last post is a great way to learn in my opinion, after all everything is pretty much shapes in perspective.

If you havent already you should check out kchens figure studies here

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=1432

I learned loads from them

[Jarrad]

peterhurman: Thank you very much! That means a lot to me since I'm not going to school so I never get any feedback on stuff so I'm never positive that what I'm doing will help me in what I am hoping to accomplish later on. I'm quite sure now that I know what I need to do to get there

I have that seen that before. I haven't given it a serious look but now that I've been reminded of it I certainly will. I have this link: http://www.angelfire.com/art3/kchendemos/ .. basically the same but slightly more convenient.


here are some things from later today. I drew less due to wrist pain.. keeping it contained!

[Jarrad]

here are couple more.. the picture uploader is being difficult so I thought that I'd do it in two chunks!

[Jarrad]

more heads. and some other imagination stuff.

[Jarrad]

wrist is doing pretty bad today. time to take it a bit easier.. sleep at least 8 hours a night, focus on always keeping a light grip. .etc.etc.etc
here are some imaginative doodles. I never really finished any of them. I still intend on at least doing the 10 heads today and hopefully my wrist can handle more than just that. I also have to plan for a DnD campaign that I'll be playing with my friends tomorrow. Doing that kind of thing really generates a lot of neat ideas for art. They go hand in hand!

[Jarrad]

10 more heads before midnight!!! Yeah!! Time to get back to working on that DnD campaign!

[David Keen]

Great progress so far! Your geometric work makes me keenly feel how much I need to improve my perspective. It's great to see you've started with some anatomy studies! If you haven't heard of them already check out the books by George Bridgman and Andrew Loomis, I found them very helpful. Keep it up!

[Jarrad]

Ebersol: Thanks! Your artwork is beautiful! It has so much life in it. Thanks for the tip. I have 2 Bridgman books and all of the loomis pdfs. They are great!

Looks like I fell behind on my head quota! I did 13 today, but since I didn't do 10 yesterday.. I'll need to do 17 tomorrow! I'm sure I'll have the time .

I tried painting one with acrylics. It was certainly a neat experiment.

[Wheeljack18]

Hey man, thanks for stopping by my SB. I see that Ebersol already recommended loomis and bridgeman so if you stick with that advice you won't go wrong. All I can say is keep up the studies and building your mileage.

Take it easy.

[Jarrad]

Wheeljack18: No problem. It's a pleasure to check out good art such as yours!

I haven't finished 100 heads quite.. but I've decided that I'm done with making head constructions everyday for a bit.. Perhaps I'll apply that now and draw some heads with features.. here are some of the last head constructions as well as some doodles. I did a couple of timed painting studies.. Neither of them are purely from my imagination. The first is strongly based off of a painting by Feng Zhu.. The other is a photo I found and I changed some things. The first one was 25mins and the second was a 45min.

[Jarrad]

and some quick apple sketches before bed!

[Jarrad]

Here is stuff from yesterday. I didn't feel like scanning it and whatnot then. I tried to break down a chimp's skull into more basic shapes.. but the perspective (among other things) is off... I'm finding the breaking down of animal anatomy interesting though! I did a composition study of another painting I found online that i like..I'm not sure who it by. I also did 1 abstract thumbnail. I haven't done a ship construction in a while. This one turned out mediocre at best.

[Jarrad]

some stuff from today. im not a fan of how I did the perspective for the robot.. so i'll try it again!

[Jarrad]

hello, world.

[towy]

interesting work Jarrad, good start,
your drawing technic are cool like that one http://www.conceptart.org/forums/att...1&d=1321493155
cheer up !

[Jarrad]

towy: thanks. you have some really nice energy in your work.

here are some composition things. they were fun.

[Jaro]

Nice work Jarrad! Keep working on those studies and more robots please!

I like your recent composition work, maybe you could select one and try to turn it into a finished piece?

[Jarrad]

Jaro: Thanks! I will do that. I would love to hear any advice that you'd have to offer at any point. You have amazing work! We also have the same name!

some things from this morning and last night..

I've started thinking about the psychology of shapes. What makes a shape feel "fast" or "slow" or "calm" or "aggressive". I tried to make some 2D shapes that had those characteristics. It was neat.

[Jarrad]

more stuff from yesterday. I was going to paint a still life of jars so I did some thumbnails to try out different composition things but then I decided that i didn't want to do the jars. I still learned a bunch from those thumbnails!

[Jarrad]

i spent most of the drawing day struggling with architecture stuff and thumbnails... this self portrait put me in my place and It allowed me to see exactly where my skills are at... pretty low!

[Jarrad]

here are some more things from today. the painting sucked. too rushed, gross colours, unbalanced, stupid white spot left unpainted, blah blah blah. I'll do s'more until they are less crappy!

[Jarrad]

freehand practice cubes.. minus the bold black outline
rendered shapes and some personal notes
another crappy SP