Mr. Ed's sketchbook

[Mr. Ed]

I'd just like to start by saying that as intimidating as I find this place, it seems to me to be the best place on the net to get advice about art, so I've decided to take the plunge in order to improve.

I'm 22 years old, I live in Australia and at the moment I'm scraping by making websites. I've always enjoyed drawing ever since I was a child but I wouldn't say I've ever really developed as an artist (ever seen The Royal Tenenbaums? I'm like Ritchie). I like to dabble in a bit of writing and I find it very frustrating when I can picture a scene or a moment in my head and then go to draw it and it comes out looking like a dog's breakfast. I've got no skills in shading, depth, colour, light, anatomy, you name it. So I've come here to show what I can do and hopefully improve with your help, I intend to enroll in a drawing class as soon as I can find one.

Anyway, this first picture is one I did of Robin Williams from the cover of "Good Will Hunting" DVD that I had lying around (that's another thing, I've got no references to use, I'd prefer not to use refrences from a computer since I spend so much time on one as it is, are there any magazines or books that are good for this sort of thing?)

There are about a million things wrong with the drawing that I can see, so I'm wondering where should I start with improving? Should I try to forget everything I "know" and start from scratch? Any comments would be appreciated and I hope I keep this up, I really want to get better. Be Brutal.

EDIT: Here's a pic of the reference, it was darker on my cover but I don't think that makes any difference at this stage http://www.impawards.com/1997/poster...ll_hunting.jpg

[gigglepixie]

The first advice I was given in my skerchbook was do some anatomy, from a book or a live model, it seems to work so I thought I'd pass it on.

You're doing something right because your sketch is recognisably Robin Williams, but it needs a bit of work on the structure.
Keep going

[Beershite]

mr. Ed!

I just got here but already noticed that this is a good place to learn!
So keep posting your drawings here!
As for the drawing, it seems you are just drawing the lines from ref as you see them.
Try to approach this in a different way. You have to see the things you draw in a 3d shape. Knowing what your object in your looks like from different sides will greatly improve your drawings! Try to sketch big outlines first and work further form there, rather then trying to copy a nose, mouth and eyes and see afterwards that your face looks crooked and off.
Hope this helps a bit! And waiting to see more from you!
Cheers

[Mr. Ed]

Hi again, thanks for the comments guys. I'll start posting more regularly because from next week I'll be pretty much unemployed again for a while, so I have plenty of time to draw. I went out and got a book called "Anatomy for Artists" and it seems to be pretty good, it's got all stuff about proportions and there's something like 1200 illustrations in it so hopefully it'll be useful. I also picked up a book called "Phaidon Portraits" which is just a book with about 300 portraits of people from all over the world. I figured that I'd rather learn practise drawing from photos rather than other drawings like in the "How to draw" type of books. There are some really awesome photos in there and hopefully by the time I get up to them I'll be better.

Anyway, I've only drawn one picture so far, it's of a boy from Timbuktu. I probably can't post the picture because of copyright, but I still think it's critable (is that a word? It should be):



I didn't shade the skin because that always ends up looking like a mess and I'm more concerned with learning about where things go at this stage. I think it looks like the nose is not on the right angle but it may actually be that the rest of the face is at the wrong angle because in the photo he was looking fairly straight on. I think the eyes are the wrong size too because the space between his left eye and ear seems pretty big. Oh, I used a HB pencil too, in the last picture I used a 2H. Anyway, go nuts.

EDIT: It took about 20 minutes if that helps with anything.

[Mr. Ed]

Did a few sketches the other night and today, I might do more later but incase I don't I figured I'd upload these now. I've got mixed feelings about these one, I hate the face I did which is why it's not very detailed. The arm I don't mind, I tried drawing it differently that usual, I drew boxes that had lengths and widths of things then outlines and then shading. My shading needs heaps of work. Anyway:

[Mr. Ed]

A few more pages from my sketchbook. It's only been about a week since I started this and I'm feeling a bit better about my drawings, I don't think they're actually getting any better but I'm enjoying doing it:



I don't know what happened here, it's too squished and crappy looking, oh well.



Another sketch from the Phaidon book, this doesn't look anything like the kid, the proportions on the face are all way off. I wish there were more smiling people in the book, I'd like to draw a happy person. I approached this one differently than the others by drawing a circle and then blocking the chin area, it was only very basic and I didn't get any depth when I did it and it shows.



Random doodling of some stuff in my room, I find my hand shakes when I start drawing so it helps to "warm up" a bit.



I tried to draw some noses, I have a lot of trouble seeing them in 3 dimensions which makes me stare at people which is a habit I should get out of. I think I'm kind of okay on profile and front on, but 3/4 and every other angle I don't understand at all.



More doodling, I know these pages are rubbish but I figured I might as well include them.



Trying to learn proportion from my anatomy book, I'm not sure if everything is in the right place and the right distance from everything. After I did it I drew a skull over everything to see if it looked right, I still don't know if it does.

[Mr. Ed]

Still plodding along. I got a new job which will start in a few weeks, so this bout of unemployment was surprisingly short. The good thing is it's a regular job so I'll have a steady income and it should only take up three or so days a week, which means I'll still be drawing lots.



I was practising learning where things go on the head and how things change when you move them. I think I have a bit more of an understanding of them now.



Phaidon book sketch, I hate the way I draw eyes, the always look so flat and I can never get the eye on the left to look the same as the one on the right. Again I didn't shade it, I should get out of that habit.



Just learning about how many heads high people are. That looks massive to me, so I can only assume I got it wrong.



A few doodles using a 2B pencil instead of a HB. I think I like these one more than my others and I might use that pencil more. I don't think I like the paper I'm drawing on, it has a funny texture.

Anyway, til next time.

[Mr. Ed]

I've been sick for the last few days so I haven't been drawing much. Actually, that sounds really stupid, I've just been lying around so I should've been doing something, oh well.



This is a self portrait. Was it successful? Well, I don't look like that, so no. The eyes seem to be too big and in order to keep some sort of proportion that made my nose too big. The lips are "okay" but they're still rubbish. I shading all my work now because there's no point not doing it just because I'm crap at it, I won't get better if I don't practice.



Yet another sketch from the Phaidon portrait book. I'm really glad I bought that because having about 300 different faces to draw is pretty cool. This is probably the best one I've done yet but it still doesn't really look like the photo. I got the angle of the head wrong so the eyes are off (they're supposed to be pretty much level), the nose isn't fantastic but I think I'm getting it a bit and I'm fairly happy with the lips, though the angle seems to be wrong they look a little more three dimensional than they usually do for me. Shading's crap.

[beckerda]

Hey, I figured I would check out your sketch book since you dropped by mine. There is one thing I noticed though that might help a little. The focus on your faces seems to be the typical features, eyes, nose. and mouth. I would suggest, maybe trying a couple faces while focusing on the shapes and form of the face itself, without worrying to much about the actual features. I'm probably not explaining this well without the proper terminology, but I would say maybe focus on the depth of the face and the actual form of the face. Chin, cheek bones, under the eyes, the brow, the area surrounding the major features.
Keep it up! Your post inspired me to draw extra today, so hopefully I can do the same for you.
Thanks again!

[rmore]

hey nice work on the studies, i can see improvements keep working at the structure and anatomy and you'll see more.

[Mr. Ed]

Been a bit busy for the last few weeks. Thanks for the comments guys, I really appreciate it. I've enrolled in some life drawing classes for the next five weeks, hopefully I'll be able to learn a few things from the instructor. I'm feeling pretty crappy about all my drawing at the moment so I'm not sure what to do, just plow through I guess. Anyway, here's a few things I've done:









Hand's down the worst thing I've ever done. It was a picture from the Phaidon book and I just couldn't get anything right on it at all so I gave up.

[term8or]

Hey man, you've been doing a good amount of work. Only two pieces of advice:

first, make your pictures larger... they're postage size, and you can't see anything without clicking...

Second, have a read of http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=14119

[Mr. Ed]

first, make your pictures larger... they're postage size, and you can't see anything without clicking...

How do I do that? I'm just using the attach function from the forums and that automatically makes them like that. Unless I viewed the pictures and then got their URL and used the IMG tag...

[term8or]

1. Click on "Go Advanced"
2. click on Manage Attachments in the "Additional options" box.
3. Click on the browse button, and find your file...
4. Click on the upload button & wait until the manage attachment box refreshes
Repeat 2 -4 until you've uploaded all your images.

Then go back to the "Reply to thread" box and submit reply.