iMigraine's Scrawlings

[iMigraine]

After reading a few posts, I decided I needed to stop lurking and start showing my humble sketches.

Since I haven't drawing since High School (over twenty years), and only recently decided I needed to be more creative. I picked up Keys to Drawing by Dodson and dove into the exercises.

Update: Now (January 2013), I realizes I need to focus on developing my observational skills (the basics) before working on anatomy. It doesn't seem as fun or sexy but without it, I'm doomed to be poor or worse yet "mediocre." My game plan is to study Deborah Rockman's "Drawing Essentials" and after some "Lessons in Classical Drawing" by Juliette Aristides.

[hollysz]

Carry on working- one of things I see with this study is that your lines seem to be quite unsure/a little messy, but that should improve as you draw more.

[iMigraine]

Number Three, Tones

[iMigraine]

Haven't updated in awhile.

Couple of hand studies.

[iMigraine]

The exercise was to draw through an object to figure out depth. The twisted rod iron on the back rest could have been better. I think the box I drew first was off perspective.

Oh well, how else can I learn if I don't make mistakes?

[alexrockclimber]

The hands are probably my favourite. I keep on trying to draw them but I can never draw the finger nails

[iMigraine]

Thanks Alex.
I like my first drawing of my hand better than the second. My shading is poor because I'm still learning the basics and I've been improvising to see what works (poorly for now).

[iMigraine]

This was an exercise in depth perception. A bit crude. I was in a bit of a rush to finish this, it was late, and my lighting was poor.

Next time I'll grab a lamp.

[p sage]

Cool man.

One thing that you're missing is proportion; that's really the cornerstone of everything representational. It's the first step, before value (shading), before 3D (volume)... you begin learning to judge proportions by measuring.

If there's something you want to draw, think of it as being constrained by a rectangle. Now, that rectangle has a short and long side.

Make a square with the short side, and measure it into the long side of the rectangle. how many times does it go in? It may be a fraction. Don't be too precise; it's okay to think "about 3 and a third" or "three and a piece".

Once you've gotten the whole measured like that, find halfway down, and halfway across. Now you have a landmark. Use the "short side" of your large rectangle, and find out how far a certain feature is from halfway.

Keep your measurements on a scrap of paper, marked with pencil ticks.

This is kind of a crash course in proportion/measuring, but I hope it at least gives you a start.

[Black Spot]

What p sage said and also try to loose the lines by shading up to where they should be - you'll get a lot more volume that way.

Cool name btw.

[iMigraine]

It's been awhile since I posted anything. I bought a skull from AnatomyTools.com and started drawing more from observation.

[iMigraine]

I also bought a cast of four different eyes to help my studies on shading. Really helps me see shadows and tones.

[Kolbenito]

Strong progress, keep it up!

[iMigraine]

I picked up Loomis's "Drawing The Head & Hands" and started drawing the plates. But I watched a video on drawing the male head and saw how artist Ron Lemen approached it with the Riley method and the construction method. To me these two methods (Riley & construction) are very close and the construction method also looks like a hybrid of Loomis's ball and plane method. So now I'm finding that I like the construction method and I'm going to try drawing some of the heads in Loomi's book in that way. Moreover, I have Michael Hampton's "Figure Drawing - Design and Invention" and notice he seems to use the construction method as well.


The troubling part of Loomis is that he tells the reader to work on the overall design and not to worry about the details. But I hate that all the heads' features (eyes, brows, nose, ears) are hard to see because they are drawn so small and sometimes very lightly too.

[iMigraine]

I watched Glen Vilippu's Academy video and he knows that too many beginners jumping into anatomy before grasping that basics. So I know I need to ditch anatomy now and draw more observation drawings. Not as fun or sexy but "muy importenta!"

Here's my first and hopefully many sketches from observation. My skills on shading is weak so I'm hoping that working with real objects will help me.
This was some fruit I setup in my make shift studio. I hung a white sheet up and covered a cardboard box and placed the lemon, ambrosia apple, and banana on top of it. Light source was from the top right side using a desktop lamp. I was told or read somewhere to use a minimum of three values. Now looking at my sketch I think it lacks that. Also, I had trouble with my background. It doesn't look separated enough to me. Maybe I should have darken the background more?

[iMigraine]

Found some sketches that I forgot to upload. These are all from observation.

From a plaster eye cast

[iMigraine]

My anatomytools skull.

[iMigraine]

First attempt at a self portrait using a seven inch mirror. Figure I can use this as a marker to check my progress over time.

[iMigraine]

Another skull from December.

[iMigraine]

Today I played with charcoal to learn values. Started off using a General's Carbon Sketch pencil then used General's stick of compressed charcoal extra smooth to fill in the background. This is my before photo.

[iMigraine]

An after:

For such a simple study, I really had a lot of fun and spent more time than I thought. I wasn't in a rush but I totally lost my sense of time until my shoulder bugged me and then I knew I had to took a break. Man, charcoal is really different from graphite. Really struggled on my sphere. Not too happy with the cast shadow.

[ClockworkLives]

Nice study! Don't forget that you can get a nice range of contrasts with graphite too and don't be afraid to push the shadows with those pencils - if you're having trouble, hook yourself up with a 6B or so.

[siiilon]

nice sketchbook, keep doing the good work

[iMigraine]

Nice study! Don't forget that you can get a nice range of contrasts with graphite too and don't be afraid to push the shadows with those pencils - if you're having trouble, hook yourself up with a 6B or so.

As you noticed from my early works, I didn't know much about values. Now, I'm working on it with all my drawings.

[iMigraine]

Started working on values from my eye cast. I used the one that kind of looks like Michelangelo's David statue.

[iMigraine]

Had a heck of a time on the measuring process so I could enlarge it.

[iMigraine]

The face side of the eye is eight by eight inches. Overall ten and half by 12 and half inches.

[iMigraine]

Really struggled with the eye brow. Just couldn't nail it down. My goal was NOT to make a perfect copy but simulate smooth forms. I drew this over a couple of days.

[rem92]

Hey mate.. one of the problems i can sense in your anatomy studies.. is that you are trying to lay down defined lines right away.. instead, try to draw big shapes first and then go in and dissect it up.. for the skull draw a circle then the big shape of the jaw..then go in and fill in the rest of the big shapes.. so on and so forth.. GL

Jeso.

[Tetsuo]

My first question is - seeing that you are older - how much time do you have to do art during the week? Or if you don't have time to do art, maybe at least look at art; or a tutorial; or artbook? Push a little bit harder to do a little more each day if you can. I know the shoulder thing all too well. Exercise. Stretch. AND hold your pen/pencil a little less tight...RELAX!

Also, get lost in your values a bit more...I want to see darker darks! The charcoal is pointing you in the right direction, but you can do that with graphite too! Hell even with HB pencil you can! Don't just darken the background so much...put something just as dark as the black background in your middle ground to get you to understand the value structure better.

GL

-TeT-