Rank Amateur Attempts *cough* "Art"

[LMAshton]

Howdy y'all! I'm old and I'm just starting to try my hand at "art". I use quotation marks because, let's face it, I'm so much of a beginner and, really, I'm just an imposter or something.

I did the usual crayons in a colouring book as a kid and the fingerpainting thing in kindergarten and advanced to the big girl brushes in, what, grade 2 or 3? I sketched a frog I dissected for biology class in grade 8. I attempted a water colour of a flower in a one-off class. And that's it. No sketching or drawing or painting or even doodling in all those years.

Until a couple of months ago when I decided to see if I could do digital illustration. The husband bought me a tutorial - quite a good one, too - to teach me how to use Illustrator. And lo and behold, I didn't absolutely suck. So I'm sticking with it.

And then about three weeks ago, I decided to give paper and pencil sketching and drawing a try. And lo and behold, I didn't absolutely suck. So I'm giving this a go, too. Why not, right?

I have no idea where this will go, but I'd like to become competent. I think that's a good and reasonable goal. So here I am.

[LMAshton]

Oh goody, no problems attaching images to the post, no waiting for the sketchbook to be approved by a moderator, so I'll add a couple or so more. You know, so y'all can have a good chuckle.

I stumbled across tutorials by Mark Crilley on Youtube, and that's what I've primarily used in the first couple of weeks, so the first four drawings on here are the direct result of following his tutorials.

Now I'm starting to work through the exercises in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by... Betty Edwards. Had to look that up.

I know, I have a long, long, long, long, long, long way to go and a tonne of stuff to learn. That's what happens. Could be an interesting journey.

[Big Orange]

You're a huge fan of Mark Crilley as well?

[LMAshton]

Big Orange, I actually hadn't heard of him before I found his YouTube videos, so I haven't yet seen any of his work beyond his video tutorials. I am, however, a huge fan of his video tutorials - I like how he explains things. I find his tutorials easy to follow.


The vase is one that sits on our dining room table. It's blue, but I only have pencils at the moment, so here we go.

The dragon is a total fail - it doesn't look like a dragon and it doesn't look at all scary. It does, however, look like it belongs on a totem pole. If I were going for that look, it would be fine, but I wasn't. On the other hand, I'm still so new at this that not everything is going to work, so that's okay, too.

The "monster"... Well, it's sort of okay. It also doesn't look as scary as it should. The black marks on the face are supposed to look like the flesh is melting off, but alas, it doesn't.

I think in the case of the dragon and the monster, my lines are too refined, not rough enough. I think roughness would add to the scariness factor. This is, of course, something for me to play around with and see what happens.

[Psychobuddy]

Hi there, good for you for trying out something new, and even more props for starting a sketchbook. Uhm, I think you should try to dig into some anatomy as well, it's a foundation for pretty much everything we do. The standards are pretty much Andrew Loomis' Figure Drawing for all it's Worth, and George Birdgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life, or Constructive Anatomy, take your pick XD Uhm but keep going it's an admirable thing you're doing, I look forward to seeing more.

[LMAshton]

Psychobuddy, thanks for the comment. Yeah, I'm currently in discussions with a bunch of other newbies in the mentoring subforum about working on assignments and being accountable to the group, and Loomis's stuff came up. The consensus there also seems to be that learning anatomy Would Be A Good Thing.