Rhaucans Sketches:Struggles & Joys

[Rhaucan]

I'm trying my best to think of something original to say as a new member starting their sketchbook. Oh well all my imagination goes into my art now.

So welcome all. I have aims like most people here, to become as involved in my hobby of art as possible. I'm tired of keeping my love of drawing as a solely personal thing, I want to share in the whole experience with others, communication. Through such, become a better drawer, a better artist, a better person. I want to have the skill to draw, whatever I do in life.

More specifically i've started drawing seriously for about a 2 weeks now. I have set myself the task of two sides of A4 a day, which I have partially stuck too. However i have a problem, a few actually. I'm not finishing pieces, because I go easy on my self because no-one views them afterwards. Also i'm taking huge amounts of time to make drawings which I don't think should take that long. So its my hope that if I work with it in mind that my work will now be open for public viewing, I will take the whole thing more seriously. Atleast persist with drawings through to the end.

I've not got into painter, yet but i'd really like to and i'm planning to buy a graphics tablet soon (just a graphire 3)

Hmmm what else did I want to say

Oh yes i'm 17 , from UK, manchester (to any-one nearby, i'd love to make contact). And i'm doing Art at A level.

Feel free to post on anything, criticisms earn sweets. Its the figure of "views" of the thread that will be enough to encourage me.

[Rhaucan]

So the fun beggins. Heh, It feels like i'm undressing at the swimingbath for the first time or something.

Well one of the first things I did on finding this fantastic site was to explore all the middle class threads, I did the first assignment and here are the results.

Probably best to post my work bit by bit

I first posted this in the begginers critique and i'm posting the same comments.


The best thing about this was that i couldnt be tempted to go back to my computer in the middle of the drawing - One thing i noticed was how much time it took, i think there are other shading methods that would work better and take far less time.


never done a hand, by now i realising how much you learn from drawing from life. I kept going back to add more but it never felt finished. Hard to draw with one hand whilst keeping the other there.


This was the study from memory of a person, hardest one yet, i'm not at all pleased with the outcome, but hope i have picked up some knowledge on form and things. The head should have been lower on the body, It was my 10 year old brother, generally need to look at proportions. Also drawing clothes is something i've never thought about/done.


And what better way to end an introduction, doesnt actually look like me, couldnt be bothered with the hair i was still taking hours over pictures i wanted to take 30 mins max, nose is bit misplaced, theres something wrong with the ear.

Oh and heres my attempt at a Daily Sketch Topic, I'd really like to follow it more, but I have to force myself not to look at the thread, so i'm not tempted to subconsciously copy. But I havnt got very far with most ideas, i've been blaming it on poor sketch suggestions.

This was a simple one, "A Blunt Medieval Weapon"

Oh and a piece of wood, nuff said


As you can see i'm not just inept at drawing, but also posting on forumns. When I do the image post thing all i get is those red x's of doom.

Could it be my host? maybe the image size?

[Rhaucan]

I'm following a book called, "express yourself through drawing". Which has taught me loads so far. It opened my eyes to drawing seeing things as forms, and drawing with my eyes when I walk around. I'll refer back to some of its lessons as I keep posting, just to remind myself of them.

Heh it even has breathing excercises and warmups before drawing.

This was a task set to draw an arrangement of plants, and put as much detail in as possible, with all the skill you have. Now the idea was to draw from life. I cut some flowers and made this arrangement, but forgot to put the flowers in water, so they were dying as i was drawing them. To the point where I had to work completly from memory. So I think it began better than it ended, as is the case for most of my drawings so far.

Since I put so much time into this I want to criticise/analyse it myself.



Well the first thing I realised. I started on the white rose in the center and did it far darkly. Shading is something I struggle with, but love it when it works, I'm never sure how rash to be with my shading, and my hatchings usually go badly.

I suppose the next thing is the leaves, I think i'll just try and avoid drawing them in my life. There deceptivly hard to draw, and I would need to put a lot of practice into learning how to capture the texture, patterns with a pencil.

The Vase there in looks a bit like a stem, its not its a shiny metal vase thing. Not really captured the shiny feel of it there.

A common problem is how long everything takes, I've been trying to be firmer with myself and focusing on one area before moving on to the next, and having more confidence drawing my lines rather than lots of little ones.

I'm not entirly satisfied with it, the begginers thread told me "never be satisfied, and if you can change anything do". Maybe I should go back over some of this, however it wouldnt be any fun at all, and i find i draw a thousands time better when enthusiastic too. What do you think?

Dont worry I dont think all my pictures are going to come with an essay.

[Rhaucan]

And heres the only plant studies I did that were dark enough to scan.
I was trying to draw through understanding form and things, they helped alot.

[Rhaucan]

Following the middle class, I did this assignment 1 on line quality.

Specifically I wanted to work on drawing big, and improving the confidence of my lines, but i think the latter is more to do with attitude at the time.

I chose an image from a page of a loomis book
here

http://www.saveloomis.org/FigureDrawing/147.htm


There was alot I wasn't too pleased with, the proportion of the chest for example.

Half way through I flipped the drawing and realised I had been thinking about the body, not the lines on the page. A hard habit to break.

I suprised myself by doing a second copy, and trying to fix the problems and approach it in a different way. Its going to take some work though.

[Rhaucan]

Ok so heres my seconds attempt, I didnt make the huge developments i had hope. I think i got the proportions a little better this time and paid attention to negative space. This was all drawn from upside down, and was full size on the page now, but I seem to have scanned it poorly


I think i'll try something more complicated, maybe from life.

[liam.c]

exelent mate keep it going !

[Rhaucan]

Heres some of my older stuff I did before decided to focus on improving my drawing.

Warcraft has always been a big inspiration to draw. These are mindless copies of samwise's , but some would say even that teaches you something. Since then I think samwise has become one of my if not favourite concept artist. I keep the art of warcraft book always at hand to encourage me to draw.

The second image is a copy of the same concept but put into a different pose. I like to think I could do it a bit better now as I have a little more anatomy/proportion knowledge. Maybe I should try.

[Rhaucan]

Well lets get all these copies and old stuff out the way then


Ancient, in many ways.

From an anatomy book


Diablo 2 graphic novel/comic.


A quick copy of leonardos from a pretty valuable old books on him. Got some about rodin too,I hope to make more use of them.

Right i'll stop littering this forums and start posting more relevant stuff. And when I say posting I meen drawing.

[David York]

Whoa, art at A Level! I went to high-school at a place that used British math textbooks, and I was doing math at A level, or at least that's what the textbooks told me.

So, mate, feel like getting your a$$ Drizzledomed by a 1/2 American, 1/2 British, son of a Texan mother and Welsh father? (BTW I DO hate Bush)

Who happens to live in Seattle?

I'll post the challenge to the official Drizzledome thread. Not to worry, as you should be able to see from my daily sketchbook, I'm fairly new to all this. Seriously, I'm an ex-Microsoft software engineer. HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

[Rhaucan]

Heres a sketch I did from life of an apple tree, and then took home and worked on.

I'm pleased with the accuratness and my understanding of form. I think line weight is something I could work on, thats been an issue in most of my drawings so far. The trouble is I do one bit in a particular way, like i'll use my darkest weight early on, and then just decide it cant be fixed and carry on. Next time I will stop and use the correct line weight on different areas, even if it does end up looking odd.

I'd be interested to hear how any of you deal with line weight problems when there made.

I guess I feel everything needs an outline round it too much as well.

[David York]

I like the apple tree sketch. Regarding lines, perhaps you could lay down faint lines for the whole image, and then boldify (is there a real word that means that?) the image with bolder lines. I'm thinking a process similar to inking comic sketches, where first you draw the image paying attention to form, balance, composition, etc (which are excellent in this piece), ane then go over the lines darkening the appropriate ones as a second, independent step.

Just an idea, there are certainly far more experienced people that myself in these forums!

[Rhaucan]

Thanks , thats pretty much what Ive gone on to do now, and will continue doing for a while. Heres my result post from the CA acadamy on the line weight assignment.

This is originally an image done for the line quality assignment. It hasn't scanned showing all the lines. I didnt adjust the contrast on either of these to show my actual line weight.



I used a 6B pencil. I tried to pick where to use stronger lines. Do you think it was right to try and use stronger lines both to show deaper folds and changes in colour. I can see the importance of deciding first.


This is a copy from the book, "learning how to draw and paint what you see"
It stressed the importance of displaying alot through line in the picture. Like the softness of the skin, the vunerability of the subject etc. I'll post a longer post on it if anyone wants.



The main problem I feel I am having with these is that there taking far longer than I would like, 45 mins - 1 hour. It like I have to charge myself up with confidence before doing each line. We all no the solution to this problem though; practice practice practice.

I was going to ask do you think this is enough but I allready know the answer to that. I'm probably too eager but I wanted to get some feedback. 6B pencil doesnt give sufficient amount of tones. I'm going to go over both of these with charcoal, and also experiement with the pen tools in painter.

[David York]

Hello,

It appears as though the Drizzledome work is supposed to be finished in a couple of days (Thursday). I don't know how that works with the timezone differences, what with Thursday finishing at different times in our respective rain holes.

How is it going for you? I'm not as far as I should be, but I'm happy with my colorless work so far. Anyway, good luck with it mate, I look forward to seeing your contribution to the fun.

[Rhaucan]

Not going to write much, better i just update quickly than not at all

My Drizzledome drawing, never spent this much time on a drawing, great fun


A direct copy from a book called "how to draw and paint what you see", good for confidence and nothing else aparently, I can live with that



My wacom is starting is really starting to be fun - A leaf tutorial


And a mountain tutorial

[David York]

Wow, excellent work!

I have the book "How to Draw and Paint What You See". I haven't been going through it. What de you think of it?

Your Wacom tablet stuff is very good, I'm totally jealous!

[hito]

Hey man. great stuff. The Apple tree is very good. The design of the warhammer is also quite nice. I like the fist motif.

keep it up.

[Rhaucan]

Who said school had to be boring, I managed to get this copy of warcraft 3 concept art into my School project.


I went away camping along with my trusty pencil, tiny sketch book and the book "sketching for pleasure"


It suggested doing 30 of these quick tone studies and you will permanently have learnt something, well its a start, lots of fun, simplifying is something i really want to practice.

And my two rough idea sketches for my UKvDallas Comp, under the title of "the hero returns"

[Rhaucan]

A world without wrinckles would be a sad one.

New scanner, no more excuses. Its only takes like 5 seconds to scan now as well.

This is result for the CA Acadamy Lineweight assignment.
For my rantings and other results http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...937#post346937

[Crunch]

welcome to the family man. you have some pretty good shading but your lines could use some work. try not to outline so much...like the dark hard lines around most of your drawings. it really flattens the image. do drawings from life and you will notice there are no outlines around a person. hope this helps man. keep it up and draw like crazy.

[Xpose]

Hey! Try drawing from life or by useing refrences. As a strugling artist myself thats what I've beein doing and I'm seeing improvement. Keep up the hard work.

[Molly]

Hey Harry!!

Haha - saw ya here, so I'm dropping you a line...
Nice to see you've got yourself in here at the Dailys... You gonna post the life drawing we did on Sunday 7th Nov?

I think you should! Keep at it!

Mollyx

[Rhaucan]

Thanks a load for passing by here and taking the time to post, now i've just got to get some more results.

Yeah, I have slacked off in the drawing from life buisiness recently, what I need is something really inspirational like a big axe of doom.

But I get to do it weekly at my figure drawing class, I'll get on top of my scanning, and just for you molly i'll post some of my work from that meet.

[Rhaucan]

This first one is from the nov 7 Life drawing meet. But to be honest in terms of my own drawing I wasn't to happy with my results. I got all worried about the level of skill of everyone around me and went from the extremes of rushing to much, to taking to much time on the wrong things. Getting in the right drawing frame of mind is a good thing explore.

Dunno why the background cavases are floating, probably floating higher in ability.



I was reasonably satisfied with this one, except it being completly black, must work contrasting tones. You'd think a figure drawing teacher might be able to come up with a better pose.



5 minutes with charcoal on its side, I want a device that induces the same panic and adrenaline of a 5 minute drawing. No worry about results, and focusing only on the important shapes.


And lastly an example of the fun we get up to in my A level Art course. This was a copy of a piece done by Casper David Friedrich. I experimented with 3 different mediums on the different levels of the tree. Acrylic at the bottom with a pallet knife, in the middle inking with a brush (extremly fun), charcoal at the top, and soft pastel smudged in here and there.

[Rhaucan]

Forgot this one, it was from a different life drawing session, I like the skin tone, even if there are a few bumps and dents where there shouldnt be.

[jetpack42]

hey man, you are showing some improvement. dont worry what other people are drawing...in fact, hope that people around you are better. then you can watch them and learn....thats the way to do it. no worries man, keep on going.

[Rhaucan]

UGH.. scanning and hosting really does destroy my enthusiasm for computers.


10 minutes
As you can see my art teacher is getting increasingly outrageous with her poses.


Studying the tone works of other artists, it was a copy of Kaethe kollwitz's
drawing, the expression on his face is comparably eccstatic in relation to the rest.


Tried to apply it to an old man with a conte crayon...this is a photograph of him :p

And here are 3 experimental untidied drawings from my last life drawing session.







I might put some drawings in a thread in the life drawing section, shamlessly asking for critique/ tips. I really find it helpful to reflect on my drawings so i might include some of these with some questions. Having discovered this website and alot of books, my minds cluttered with theory and contradictions. Slowly its becoming clearly and more focused. Maybe my drawings will start too follow my example...

[Rhaucan]

My Portrait and figure class was good this week. I got to destroy other peoples faces rather than my own.

TA DA, my art teacher



the teachers response was "....these are all good"

I enjoyed it though and it was experimenting with a different techniques. I think a lot of drawing is about having alot of techniques/mediums your confident with, and being able to apply them in the right situations. Clearly this wasnt the right situation to use scratchy pen. I suppose its about highlighting the beauty more.


Quick sketch. I'm pleased with this as a technique now for quick sketches, making mass with the side of my charcoal like painting, then going in with the twisting lines. However next week I think I will try a technique with sharp, short charcoal lines.


This was a portrait of my friend, I'm pleased with parts of it, I loved her hair and really tried to do expressive flicks to show this. She's very delicate and pretty so it might have been nicer her to treat her with a softer style. To go over it all and smooth over the charcoal.

My excuse with the eyes is I was squinting to pick out masses in her face, so her picture ended up squinting.

Its all about effect

[Molly]

haha - Harry, your art teacher looks like one mean mutha...

Nice start to portraits. No crits as yet. The portrait you did of your friend, the hair is nice, maybe try and pull out some highlights with a putty rubber..

The old man portrait is cool too, (post the photo will ya!?! ) Id like to compare...

Over all, v nice ...

Mollyx

[zuez]

just looked through all your stuff, your definetly getting better dude. keep it up. I think you need to do some more colour work though and a little perspective study. Exept for that your on your way