Faust's Relaxation Exercises

[~Faust~]

Go to the last page to see newer stuff..........................................

Well, I've been lurking here for quite some time now and now I registered so that I can comment on the works of all my heros in this forum. But since there are so many, I'll just stick with just another sketchbook .

Basically, I just started drawing everyday now, so 3-4 months earlier and it's just too much to express it in words, especially not in another language. It's jsut been great and it gets better every day. I wanted to write a whole rant here but actually I'm kind of tired from all the scanning and need a rest

Something from my first sketchbook that lasted 1 1/2 months 8) :

[~Faust~]

Since they only allow only some images in a post...

Some more recent stuff (means with my new sketchbook ):





And some pencils. Those are actually SEVERAL months old... but it feels like years that I did them. I hate pencils.






I'm kind of intimidated right now, I usually never show my smearings to other people but I think for the sake of the course it's good to know that someone sees it. Even if it isn't worth a comment. Whatever........... I'm just moody I guess....

[Sunny]

dont worry, you need to figure out drawing for yourself but everyone here can help and give some insite on how to improve. Your art teacher should have some good things to say and should be able to help you get better. As for what I have to say. Your sketches are lookin decent, you can definitely draw better than the average joe. I think you need to keep practicing, draw from real life and draw from references. Practice makes perfect!

[~Faust~]

@Sunny: Hey thanks for the kind words! But unfortunately I haven't got an art teacher to help me getting better and I didn't find any art courses going on here in my town. They are either too expensive or too non-existant

I heard the name Bridgman in some threads here and thought I should get some books and study anatomy a bit . Sorry for the flood of images, It's what I drew the last week out of my little Bridgman book "Constructive Anatomy". Can't say yet if it helps me, but it's sure fun and relaxing to do while your sitting outside in the warm weather just chilling .
These are for the most part done in my A5-sketchbook where I just draw shit like that. I have it for 5 weeks or so and it's almost full already! (130 pages)










Hehe, I even wrote some of the muscle-names on some of the pages hoping It would help me remember it.... it doesn't

[Gloominati]

Hey, man thanks for checking out my stuff!

Nice things going on here! As an advice: try to keep your lines clean! Don´t make many pencilstrokes define one line, just try to let your hand flow over the paper, have faith. If you understand the shapes and values you won´t have that much problem to keep your sketches loose. I do have exactly the same problem, just keep at it!
Your last update is very good, especially the headstudies!

Give us some more!!

[~Faust~]

@ Gloominati: Thanks glad you like it! Since I'm drawing with a pen, I can't erase what's looking wrong at the first sight. I have to draw over it and since I'm kind of new there's always a lot I draw over. I will take your advice tho and try to look a bit more after my lines but letting my hand make the drawings in epileptic seizures is so much fun that I'll stick with it until I feel that it's damaging my drawings. But I hope that it will go away anyways as I get better and more confident with my drawing abilities. Thanks again for posting!

Didn't draw very much today, I'm still working my way thru my Bridgman book and got to the eyes! enjoy:



Then I drew a thing that stands on my desk. suppose it's an elephant


Then some studies from paintings:


That's all for now, good night!

[SirGreenSock]

Wow, your sketchbook shows a whole lot of improvement throughout.
This one is my favorite so far: http://img169.echo.cx/img169/4946/scan230ys.jpg

What are the blue lines done with?

[nmcleod]

hey
you've really improved a lot from the first pages you posted to the last. good stuff

it looks like in lots of your drawings you build them up with a lot of very small lines, like you're redrawing your lines and sometimes it seems to take away from the structure and the quality of your drawings.
a good exercise to do to avoid this and become more confident with your lines is to work on a really big sheet of paper, and draw something from life, but try to get your whole arm into drawing it. use big long lines and dont worry about mistakes. this will help you to loosen up more and should help you a lot.

keep up the good work.
-nate

[Darolan]

Hey Faust,

Of course now it's time to check your sketchbook! Man, I feel a bit lame with my two sketches as first post, while you must have been scannig for a week.
Anywayzzzz McLeod here does have a point here. Longer strokes will make your work less 'fuzzy' looking. This can be pretty intimidating at first but remember these words spoken by a true legend; There are no mistakes..........only happy accidents

[Sunny]

Def good advice from nmcleod.

Your studies are superb, def keep it up. I have been too lazy to do muscle studies but your work has inspired me.

[~Faust~]

@ SirGreenSock: Thanks, I also feel that I'm growing and it's great! The blue lines are just drawn with a common blue pen. I'm not that picky when it comes to what utils I use to draw with. I usually steal or find my pens and have 2-3 separately because I kill them on a regular basis. If my reserves are running low, I walk into the supermarket and buy me a sixpack or so with new pens (preferably black ones, then) so that last for half a month or so I did buy me a real ball point pen lately, but that piece of shit was smearing like hell and lasted only a week or so until it refused to draw any more. Killed it on the lama.

@ nmcleod: Thank you for the reply Yeah I always draw in tiny little strokes. Must depend on how I learned to draw. I always picked one detail or another and jumped from detail to detail hoping that in the end it would look good. Good thing about that is that I got a good eye for the relations of the forms and I realize pretty fast if something's off when I draw from ref but the bad part is that I'm not learning pretty much of the structures and of course what you ment the little strokes it brings. I now try to make outlines and concentrate some more on the overal image but certain habits are still there I'll follow your advice and draw some A3-A2 pictures. Once drew my hand on a A2 with a marker... looked horrible!

@ Darolan: Well, I didn't spend a week scanning 2 hours or so ! About the accidents... it's surprising (or not, heh), I don't feel that I draw less shit then some months ago. I just have the feeling that between the ordinary shit I draw there's more often something that's worth looking at. I can actually chose now between pictures that look like shit and those which doesn't. Earlier only the latter existed. Well, my english-module has some serious malfunctions now so I leave it that way... Thanks for your post!

@ sunny: Wow, thanks! Since there's so much inspiration flowing from the forums to me it's nice to hear that I can inspire someone else, too! 8)

So, I'm at the nose and ears. The ears were surprisingly hard to do and I definately need some more practicing on that. Unfortunately Bridgman didn't get too deep into that subject so I haven't got much studies yet. But they'll come




Some lifedrawings in the cafeteria of our university. I was surprised how young some of those netherlanders look but people here start earlier on their post-highschool education than we germans so it probably isn't that surprising



Then some studies of other drawings/paintings (mainly for rendering practice):



Finally, I had made some quickies on the computer. I saw that all you professionals here spent hours on making a digital painting and that pretty scares me for I have the attention-span of a common housefly. But I spent some 10 minutes on some digital paintings myself to see if there's a feeling for form, color and shit there. Was an extremely fun exercise Gotta do more of them in the future.

[AndrewLey]

Hey man - nice improvement throughout - your lines are getting more confident - keep pushing!

[darkarts]

I agree. Your lines are getting more confident. I was about to post saying that you ought to work on that, since I saw your first sketches, but then you atomatically solved it. Great work.

[B-Man]

Great stuff man! I like this alot, the face studies are soilid and realy good for you

The only thing I see Is that you might want to clean up your lines when you draw bodies. When you go over the same line to many times it sometimes look like they are all hairy. You should paus and look and exicute a line in just one confident sweep. It rarely gets the way you want but in time you be the master of lines..
Keep em comin!

[USER777]

i see solid improvement here! nice forms, faces, anatomy studies. keep on doing them, bridgman is really sweet!

one thing you could improve is your overall line quality, the lines are a bit too shaky from time to time.

keep at it.

[Icey]

i see a lot of work and a very good improvement!
keep it up!

[Cobi]

Hey Faust (like the name by the way). You have some really nice stuff here. Have already seen a huge improvement in the faces! I'm happy to see somebody else using blue ink, too!! (blue pen is my fave!) Anywho, your ladies are very well done.. but I think JLO needs a bigger butt! (HEHE!)

Take care and will be back soon!

[Spooky Tonberry]

youre sketchbook's really interesting, great collection of studies! you can really see your improvement from the start, hope to see more up here

[~Faust~]

Wow so many replies after so few posts, thank you very much guys!

@AndrewLey: Thanks man I will! I'm honored that a pro like you is watching my stuff!

@Darkarts: Yeah, but the habit is still there and it takes some more time to get rid of it. I didn't understand that you said my lines got better but then I looked at my old telly-Sketch upwards and understand now what you mean! Still a long way to go tho...

@B-man: Thanks I will practice, I promise

@Lim: Yes Bridgman is very nice to do. Although I don't understand shit of what he writes, so much unknown words So I just draw what he draws and read my own rules out of the drawings

@Icey: Thanks man! I will!

@Cobi: Thank you very much! I don't know if blue pens are better for drawing than others but I also like the colours they bring. Basically i like all pen-colors except red... can't bring on very much contrast with red... BTW: No JLO here, almost all nudes are domai-studies I'm afraid. Thanks again and see ya laterz

@Spooky: Thanks man! I try to learn something new every day!


So, I'm afraid I can't give you real regular updates on this sketchbook since I just don't have daily access to a scanner. So all I can bring you is something old that's floating around somewhere here on my HD :



Tomorrow I'll post some more recent stuff!

[MarkHarchar]

Hey Faust,
Thanks for dropping by my pad (get it, my pad...). I have definitely seen big stridesin your sketchbook. Someone posted not to use so many lines and after that, your stuff looked alot tighter, alot cleaner. I don't have an art teacher either. I ended up enrolling in at my community college for Graphic Design. There are many art classes in that major and I'm going to do it at night while I work my day job. Maybe you have something like that where you live, even if you only take the classes you want. Community college is generally cheap and I realize that it probably isn't the caliber of some of the schools that people have attended here, but sometimes you take what you can get. Keep drawing. You have some good stuff here.

[darkchild]

You have some very nice sketches here. I like the progression of your work. Keep posting.

[Sam256]

Some of your light and shadow studies are looking really promising. But as people already said, practise your lines and get loose over the paper. Just try to freak out with long and fast strokes and find the forms in the loose mess. I do draw like that sometimes and it develops kind of a certitude with your linework.

Continue!

[Fellah.]

Nice work with the studies dude! Putting hard work into it - nice to see!
A lot of good advices already given, so ill just say;keep drawing dude!

[ChaoticKnight]

great anatomy dude. Since You were cool enough to post in my thread Ill post in yours.
The only things I can really point out to you are foreshortening and deeper values. Alot of people are afraid of going too dark, and if you look around you in life, alot of things are extremely dark. The ascension from dark to light creates the true feeling of 3d and realism. Forshortening is frustrating, but is amazingly useful once you get a true sense of it.
Overall great study work. Keep it up!

[Gridur]

Heya there faust!

Great stuff you got here, one can see great improvement on your stuff when looking through the SB, at the first the line work and shadeing feels a little sloppy but later the shades smooth out and you get a better light feel in the posts, great to see improvment in sketchbooks like this, i'll keep on watching!

[Darolan]

hey Faust,

I see you're quite busy here. As for crits on your last post
;;;;;;;; I think the proportions are a bit of;;;;;;; The head seems way too big, or the arms and legs way to small. When drawing from ref, keep looking at the relative size of each element compared to the others..... ( you can even use your pencil as a ruler) That way the final piece won't look as if you drew every part at a different size and pasted them together........
The rendering is quite good tough!


-----------------Keep fighting the good fight buddy!-------------

[~Faust~]

@ hylandr2: Thank you, yes I try to make something out of every tip I get here. I'm glad you enrolled at your university. I tried to find some courses at my place, too but only found art-history classes I'm still looking, tho. Heard there are some paint-classes somewhere here... Good luck with your courses!

@ darkchild: Thanks, I will!

@ Sam256: Hey thanks! I don't quite understand what you mean, tho. Like I just make scribbles on my paper and try to connect them?

@ Fellah: Yeah, thanks dude!

@ ChaoticKnight: Yeah it's a cheap trick of mine to get ppl see my sketchbook, by writing comments in other's hehe Gotta share some love if you wanna receive it! About the light, you are definately right! The diversity between dark and light is basically all we see, not forms or planes or masses, just light and shadow... It's sometimes hard to have deeper values when you only have a blue pen, though But I'll try to work on it nonetheless. Thanks for your post!

@ Gridur: Thank you very much!

@ Darolan: Hehe , I try to tell meself that she's a midget but of course you are right. When I draw from ref I still have the bad habit to jump from one detail to another and loose the overal feeling for proportions. The result is shit like this. About the shading... this was done with a 7B-pencil! Messy as shit I tell you! Thanks again for watching my stuff!

So, now that I have regained acces to my scanner I will scan:

At first some Bridgman goodness! (I'm not happy with the last Torso...)





short people-drawing session at the cafeteria (Note to self: Make those more often and longer, dammit!):



And my Painting-study:



That's all for now!

[darkarts]

Great studies. You're most definetely improving. Linework is now starting to rock. Keep on going!

[Tetsuo]

haha. Though you don't like graphite that much I actually like that stuff the best...I guess cause im partial to that sort of stuff. Keep it up man =)

-TeT-

[Sam256]

@ Sam256: Hey thanks! I don't quite understand what you mean, tho. Like I just make scribbles on my paper and try to connect them?

When you want to draw something then don't stop your lines, but let your hand flow over the paper, creating strokes without you thinking about it. In other words: do not construct the image, but use your natural sense of forms and shapes to draw a bit messy and then step by step you will lay down smoother lines that are also much more precise and will describe the forms more efficient. It's hard to explain as you just have to do it and go loose without thinking much about it.
If you want I could try to do a WPE (OpenCanvas Event-file) wich would demonstrate the idea behind this loose messy drawing.