inertia, (old sketchbook)

[Asatira]

Hello, SSG 50-ers! Glad to see you dropping by.

Demo: Haha. I'm amused that the signatures size keeps coming up. But yeah, I've either dropped them or made them much smaller.

Envisor, FearSelf, Trefle, Demo, katiniki: Thanks for the welcome and the advice. Part of the reason I asked to join is so I will do more studies and drawings from life and reference, and to post more often. I figure if I'm part of a group, I'll have to answer to somebody!

That said, I'm posting something pretty simple today. A back to basics sketch of some rectangular items around the room. Trying to get relearn sighting and work on my values.

[Envisor]

When drawing a box shape, the lines should be parallel to one another. Not pointing in two different directions. Watch out for that next time. Good studies. Nice values as well.

[Demo]

studies are comming along nicely a good little trick for doing straight edges on boxes and stuff in a sketch book is to find a good sturdy business card or like a plastic library card and keep it in your wallet or SB that way when you need to crisp up your lines you can just pull it out and use it its a lot less bulkey then a ruler
keep studing

[Asatira]

Envisor: Yep, trying to work on measuring so I'll quit doing that. Thank you.

Demo: I'll try to keep that in mind. Should help for when I do field drawings.

Not much today. Did some 30sec gestures from Posemaniacs. Normally, I do 1min but I think I waste strokes, alot of going back over lines. Gonna try 30sec to get improve it.

[katinki]

those gestures look really good! your lines look so much more confident than on the last studies. time pressure helps a lot it seems! i would love to see the single figures a bit more separated atm they are a bit hard to read. and some heads are a tad small.

[Envisor]

I agree with kat, you should keep up with these. Your lines are a lot more confident than previous sketches. Use a darker pencil, these seem pretty light, or mess with the contrast levels on your scanner.

[Asatira]

katinki: I'm finding the time limit helps. I'm not consistent yet, but we know what to do about that.

Envisor: Definitely needed to switch to a darker pencil. Hence below.

A pair of sketches of a chair; blind contour and negative space drawing. Again, angling and measuring needs work.


Today's gesture drawings. Again, 30 sec.

[FearSelf]

Good studies, although the gesture drawings look stiff, try loosening up your lines and let it flow. Don't hesitate to add curves, especially for women. Can you do 6 second gesture drawings? They help alot.

[Demo]

Your quicker stuff is looking amazing and practice like that will only pay off in the end u wait and see. only thing i would add is make sure your not outlining the gustures too much work with interior shapes

[katinki]

your gestures really start to improve your lines, but fearself is right, they are a bit stiff.
how about going for this week's spartan camp and producing fifty gestures till sunday?! i'm a firm believer that in such cases mass helps!

[HAJiME]

Nice start... I really like the gesture drawings. I don't find them particularly stuff, but maybe looking at real anatomy more would help inform them.

Some colour observations from life would be really nice.

[Asatira]

Hajime: Thank you for your crits. Anatomy is one of the things I need to work on. I swear, I'm going to make a list and set up some excercises to work on those things. And I'd love to do some color studies, especially with watercolors.

In the meantime, here are today's gestures.

[Envisor]

Nice gestures. You've got confident lines and it just makes them look better. Keep at it.

[FearSelf]

Keep those gestures coming.

[Trefle]

Sorry for not replying for so long

I see a lot of sketching xD nice gestures!
Keep studying and drawing!

[Asatira]

Envisor, fearself, Trefle: Thanks for the encouragement with the gestures.

I slacked off on drawing this weekend. Yeah, lazy on my part. But I did take some time to set up a tentative plan for what to do each day. Gestures are still going to be part of my routine; about 10 minutes to act as a warm up. Then I'll try to get at least a half hour a day of drawing from life (not photos). After that, gonna work through Loomis's Drawing the Head and Hands, do some anatomy studies, and some drawings from photo ref on miscellaneous stuff.

Today... Only got the gestures, a little bit of life (the blind contour), and attempts at Loomis. Those simple heads are harder than I thought.

[Asatira]

Stuff so far today.



This last one is an exercise from Nicolaides's The Natural Way to Draw. I don't think he complete melds with my drawing "techniques", but there are a few exercises that stood out and I liked. This exercise is where you model with a crayon (I used charcoal stick) and model the object, being lightest where the object turns towards you and darker where it turns away. I think I should have used a simpler object, but I liked it.

[katinki]

that sounds like a really good plan! not too much to get strenous but you'll get the basics covered! now it will be important to keep it up really regularly!
the loomis heads look good, just watch out for the eye placement, i think that throws the overall impression off. you can just mark the eedges of the eyes on the brow line, that'll be enough at that stadium!

keep it up!

[Asatira]

katiniki: Thanks for the advice. I thought the eyes would add a little to the dimensions, but I don't think I was wrapping 'em very well. So, as you see below, dropped them for now.

Got some more art done for the evening. Makes me happy because it means I'm getting over my art inertia. Going in stages, but still going.

[FearSelf]

Nice studies! Great schedule, keep to it. One thing that bothers me is in your last post on the right with the heads, the very bottom head I don't understand. And in your hair brush study, is the second hairbrush tilted away from you? Because the handle is bigger than it should be, but the um head of the brush doesn't show that it's further away from you. Be aware of foreshortening.

[Asatira]

The brush is slightly turned away from me, and the handle does curve out a bit. The very bottom head is off because I haven't gotten a handle on the perspective of drawing heads that look straight ahead but the angle is from below.

[FearSelf]

angle is from below? I don't understand, sorry.
To make the brush's head look further away, you have to be sure to make it a bit narrower and shorter. Have you studied vanishing points yet? I think that would help out.

[Asatira]

The angle the person took the photo from was near the guy's knees, so the photographer was looking up at the model.

[katinki]

loomis heads are definitely improving, keep that up for a few more days and you'll produce pretty heads!
and about the brush question - it doesn't matter from which angle the photo was taken as long you don't communicate it.

[Asatira]

Gee, guess the brushes weren't all that great. Anywho, not much done today. Just gestures and a ballpoint sketch done while literally watching water boil. Goes quicker when you aren't looking at a clock.

[Demo]

wow youve improved leaps and bounds since iv been here last those loomis studies seem to be improving your elipices in your other sketches. and those loomis head studies makes me think i should go back and restudie emm i think i half assed mine last time

[Envisor]

Wooah! Lots of new goodies. The figures are getting better an better. And the head studies are great exercises. Keep it up.

[Asatira]

Not much for last night. These are some very rough roughs for concept class thread in the mentoring forum. I'm going to add some colors to them to reflect different times of day. For final versions, I will actually refer to the references I've gathered and take my time. (Image 2 I'm definitely changing the perspective so it works...)

[katinki]

whatever this project is about - it looks definitly interesting, very asian(?)! i don't really understand what these roughs are for - are they beginnings of environmental painting or perhaps thumbnails?
however, i think some have basic problems which make them a bit confusing. the first is good, i can see clearly that it is kind of a temple with sear cushions at the shore. good use of one point perspective. the shore stops too abruptly. the second has interesting wall designs and a way leads through a hole in the wall. but do we see the scene straight from above (like the way suggests) or at an angle (like the wall suggests)? the third takes place in some mountains. but i am terribly confused about the scale. if it is a full blown temple the benches are as high as one level and the tree is bigger than a redwood....
enlight me (visually!)!

[Trefle]

nice studies here!
The head studies..I think the jawline are too short..
and yes, the brush looked weird. I think the front end should be smaller?

and the poses were great! Would definitely love to see more ^^