3-25-10

**pennington** · October 4th, 2005, 11:51 PM

I've been doodling for a number of years and i really have a passion for drawing. I've taken a few classes in high-school and college, but the majority of what I know has come from this forum

. So recently after watching mindcandyman's progress after only a few years i have decided to force myself into getting better and practicing everyday.

i just bought bridgeman's complete guide to drawing from life on saturday and have been going through it like a textbook. but i don't really know where to start in this whole process.

here's my second watercolor ever done last december.

this is my first self-portrait besides ugly little cartoons that i was compeled to do after seeing MCM's first few pages last week.

**L. Scott Knight** · October 4th, 2005, 11:56 PM

Go man go!! MCM is a great inspiration isn't he? Really good for you, I hope you keep at it. You can do it!!

And you're off to a great start. Looks like you are studying the right books too.

**armando** · October 5th, 2005, 12:22 AM

The water color's good, I can easily see it being put on some tissue paper packaging. The first thing to study in art is perspective, so make sure you have a tolerable understanding of that before studying figure drawing. Also make sure to peep a bunch of different figure drawing books, they've all got something different to say, the same with perspective books.

**pennington** · October 5th, 2005, 12:22 AM

hey thanks Scott,
i was afraid people would be like oh no not another wannabe

thanks a lot Armando what perspective books should i get?
i already know quite a bit i just need experience i guess.
i hope the images aren't too big.
here's some more from last week.

these next are Just copies I did of the first pages of bridgeman and pencil exercises

last is some eyes and figure practice. one eye i copied from andrewley and the others were from my imagination.

random girl in one of my classes, the prof, a guys eye at the caf. and mouths a la phusion.

a terrible tree study i haven't ever really done trees before i'm gonna try and do one every day or so.

speaking of perspective here's a shadow perspective practice

and lastly for today some falcoon inspired heads cause i can't do bodies very well :'(

**Gloominati** · October 5th, 2005, 06:55 AM

hehe, yeah mindcandyman, a real great inspiration but I must say that u have one advantage over mindcandyman : You re much better than he was when he started drawing, so keep up the hard work and I mean this exactly the way I say that : HARD work. You've got a great start, rock on dude!

**Mikko Voipio** · October 5th, 2005, 06:57 AM

love the colors of the first drawing. the pencil drawings are not
perfect but you obviously have the talent. keep posting.

**pennington** · October 6th, 2005, 03:39 AM

That Fat Kid - Thanks a lot for all the encouragement
Gloominati - Danke, i see you have been working HARD too, you're doing great! Stien auf Dude!
Placeboast - thanks a lot

it looks like we're all in the same boat

here's my first painting since arts and crafts in kindegarden (oil on thick paper, too bad it wont last. dec '04)

oh yeah i couldn't scan todays yet so i just put up some stuff i already had.

**pennington** · October 7th, 2005, 12:06 AM

Thanks TFK

more MCM inspiration i tried different angles and tried to do them faster

brigdeman from last night

working on contour and perspective and shading here. i want to learn to cross hatch better so i drew the fish thing from Wesley Burt's SB. he's amazing.

**pennington** · October 12th, 2005, 12:48 AM

Been real busy this week and away from home so i couldn't post but i got some new stuff.

bridgeman on balance

kinda sp from memory,"the way things work" sketches(really cool book)

bridgeman on rhythm

added to the random practice, perspective, view-finder of my mouse charger. the guy is from wesley burt's sketchbook page "checkered" gosh it took so long.

last is a korean comedian mansama who my friend told me about.

ahhh! I need direction. i don't know what to practice... there's too much variety and no guidance o_O. ahhhhhhh!

**ChrisMayernik** · October 12th, 2005, 01:33 AM

Working so hard! You are improving lots I can see. Just keep doing life drawings and sketching tons. Cool stuff

**gibsini** · October 13th, 2005, 09:16 AM

wow great improvement through out your posts keep it up an keep postin

**pennington** · October 13th, 2005, 03:17 PM

thanks a lot guys, very encouraging.

todays stuff is terrible. my selfportraight is way off now that i look at it and the head studies are just dumb but i guess they help specially if you do hundreds of them.

**Badger** · October 13th, 2005, 03:50 PM

Good improvement, you are definatly doing the right stuff. Stuff i can never be bothered to do. When shading try to be confident with your graduations. Also remember the lightest tone in the shade should never be lighter than the darkest tone in the light.
Keep on drawing, tiz the way.
-B-

**bengonzalez** · October 14th, 2005, 03:04 AM

Man I though I had already posted here. anyway. The SB looks very nice so far. the last self portrait looks good but the foreshortening may be hurting a bit. Your eyes look sleepy in it. Hair was nicely handled. The rendering on the face looks too uniform. Did you use different pencils on it, it looks like you only used one.

The studies are what keeps the mind images fresh. So keep at them and continue to work on the heads under structure.

**pennington** · October 20th, 2005, 11:26 PM

thanks everybody! i have a ton of stuff for to day. i was thinking about it and i should really get a big pad of cheap paper and practice loosening up my technical skills cause i can only draw thumbnails pretty good.

bridgman

i tried to do the portraits as fast as i could. the one of me looks just like my dad when he was my age. the one of my friend is the ugliest thing i've ever drawn, she's really hard to draw

not finished with this.

i was surprised to get the girl bending over so well from imagination, but when i tried to put a skirt on her it looked like she was a dwarf. really bad.

i got a tombow brush pen to do gestures and i copied some gestures i have. then i did some on my own. not sure if i'm doing them right.

a kness picture i copied then a photo reference i changed into that style

**pennington** · October 27th, 2005, 03:32 AM

i wish things didn't take so long! but i guess that's what make beginners beginners huh.

i'm borrowing a graphire from a friend and actually after only a few uses i notice that my arm doesn't hurt as much after using the computer, awsome. so i tried it out in painter and i have no idea what medium to start with. i like watercolor so i tried it and it's soo different from photoshop. i don't know how to work with it. then i went to the painter forum here and saw davi's comment about goauche black and white on low opacity. so i tried it and here's the result. (a no ref apple. enjoy!)

**Sawa** · October 27th, 2005, 03:40 AM

you have a nice sb here. your sp are kickass! i also like the bridgeman studies. keep doin lot of them.
the last one seems a bit blurry to me but u got nice volume in it.
keep on rocking!

**pennington** · October 29th, 2005, 01:32 AM

so more testing out the tablet. i have no idea how to use painter! plus it doesn;t help that i don't have a ref. but it kinda helps my other wise i go into to much detail and mess up the whole pic anyways.

this and the last one are from memory of the drive home from work. i'm still gonna work on them summore. the middle one is a copy of Bengal's "chat". crit's very welcome!

**Sim** · October 29th, 2005, 01:52 AM

I'm impressed at how diligent you're being with the reference sketches.
Working from Bridgman's is a good idea...I need to do that more. Also check out as many different artistic anatomy books as you can find, seeing slightly different takes on the subject will help clarify things faster.

Peck's atlas of human anatomy for the artist would be a good addition.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...93514?v=glance

**timpaatkins** · October 29th, 2005, 02:29 PM

Hey Pennington!

Checking throught your SB, liking what Im seeing, I agree with some of the posts, you dont really seem lika a COMPLETE noob at drawing, you got a good grasp on form and value. That equalls a great foundation to continue building on. I also like your enthusiasm, Mindcandyman is an inspiration to us all, and hopefully, someone will say the same about us in a few years time! Keep it up, ad keep posting.
Critwise I cant really say much, except that id recommend not doing digital just yet, but continue with traditional coloring, itll pay of bigtime in the end I think. There is such a difference between work from people who go digital before knowing color/form basics, that it shows in their work in a differnt way. but thats just my opinion.

Cheers Tim

**pennington** · November 5th, 2005, 09:45 PM

an update...
i'd love some overall crits. actually i'd love some suggestions about schools in southern cali or something.

**ApolloNuevo** · November 6th, 2005, 12:03 AM

really good start to your SB. keep up the anatomy studies! the chair is nice at the bottom, good sense of depth and an understanding of the form.

-apollo

**L. Scott Knight** · November 6th, 2005, 12:53 AM

Pennington, it's been a while since I've checked in but you are doing real good. Forget about the Wannabe thing. This place is about encuraging honest wannabes (you want to actually work at being better then you will get lots of love here).

Keep on rockin'!

**Qxzi** · November 6th, 2005, 04:00 PM

Good update here pennington, the anatomy is excellent, and also the furniture too. No real crit though, sorry. Maybe i better go off and do some drawings, whoops, lazy me ! Keep on posting!

**B-Man** · November 10th, 2005, 12:55 PM

Nice SB Pennington!

I realy like the first one she's sweet! I like how you draw faces but maby you could clean up your lines a bit, you seem to draw the same line to many times, I sometimes tend to do the same thing. Its the only advise I have for now, oh exept, You would gain alot from handstudies, Draw as many hands as you can for about a week and it wont be a problem.
Nice sb I enjoyed it a lot!

Cheers!

**Eytan** · November 20th, 2005, 05:57 PM

excellent studies! I'm loving the gesture on this one. Keep up the good work, I gotta do what you do and copy some antomy pages

**Bohh** · November 20th, 2005, 06:42 PM

Hey,

Nice stuff here. I really like your studies, are all your Bridgman studies from the same book or do you have a few of his?

Thanks

**pennington** · November 22nd, 2005, 01:38 AM

hey thanks guys - bohh all from the same book
quicksketch thanks man i tried to do the guestures as fast as i could, still prolly took 5 min.
B man thanks i know my lines are horrible i have a really shaky hand and i get so meticulous that i have to get it right. i need to learn and practice the different draftman strokes if that makes sense.
qxzi thanks man keep practicing.
tfk yep the whole gamut and that perspective stuff has been incredibly helpful in my regular drawing.
l scott knight thanks so much for the encouragement.
apollonuevo thanks i really apreciate it.

just doodled a quick perspective car and thought i moght try to color it. i kind of like it even tho i know it's terrible.

**pennington** · November 25th, 2005, 12:30 AM

wow sorry for that last post. heh heh. oh well, just practicing. i've been doing a lot of persecrive stuff and i wish i could post it. i don't have a scanner readily available, but i'm still tryng to post. so here's another...

i was just doodling cause i really want to practice with color since i don't do it much. i know it needs more shape but i need more practice with "from life" stuff to get that better.