Right side of the sketchbook

[Sleepy_Head]

I've just started back to drawing after a four year break. I had spent quite some time working on Manga type line art but wasn't producing any quality work. So I took some advice from someone here (can't remember who, sorry) and started to work on real life art to improve my cartooning.

I began Betty Edwards book "Drawing on the right side of the brain" and improvements were forthcoming, unfortunately so were final year exams, a final year project and a new job. And the art ended there.

Since then I have moved to New Zealand and have finally found a job that gives me the weekend off. So amongst other hobbies I have taken to drawing again and dug out a new copy of Betty's book.

So without further ado, here is exercise one part one, the self portrait. Please critic, I need all the help I can get.

Sleepy

[NobleSnowball]

Cool, i know im not one to critize but the eyes do look large compeared to the rest of the head and the pencil work looks a bit flat.
But it's good, better than my self-portrits

:
www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=98947

[Sleepy_Head]

Thanks NS. I'm not a big fan of faces in general, because I'm not too good at them. The eyes are my biggest Achilles Heel (no pun intended).

I've moved to the next part of the exercise (well I actually skipped the second one "draw someone from memory" because I had artists block )

So here is my left hand (2B pencil in 20 minutes)

S

[Sleepy_Head]

I've found a few minutes here and there over the past week or so to do the missing middle part of the first assignment from the book. I have tried to draw my best friend from memory and it's turned out a bit better than I first thought it would. I've had to think so hard about what he looks like that I've found a bit more detail has gone into the finished sketch. It's amazing how little you can remember about someone you know so well.

Crits if you will, please.

S

[Lee W]

Nice start on the sketchbook Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is a good book and hope to see you complete all the exercises within it.

[costas]

nice start... i like your stuff... just try not to push your pencil so hard...

[N D Hill]

Congrats on starting a sketchbook. I would go as far as to say that not only should you not push down on your lines to hard, but not to worry about contours at all for the time being and focus on studying values. Working on getting a good range of lights and darks out of pencil and, through observation, learn where to apply them. I hope that helps. Good luck and keep hammering away.

[Vaei]

Thanks for dropping by, and congratulations on starting on a long but rewarding journey!

Betty Edwards' book was a good starting point for me too, although once you're through the observation stage it'll no longer be very useful. Jumping directly into faces is tempting but difficult - on top of observation, it requires a set of anatomical knowledge to make a convincing likeness - perhaps spending a week or so with a half-dozen simple objects would be worthwhile.

If you insist on faces (who doesn't? ), have a look at a book by Maughan (I think!). It's on portraits with conte / chalk, and very informative. It's a good example of what ND meant with using values and not lines.

Good luck!

Vaéi

[silvestri99]

I would echo the other posts and say to lighten up with your lines. Also try not to focus on the detail so much and spend time with the overall shape,form and proportion of your drawing. And just keep drawing!!!

[CouchPotato]

Hey Sleepy_Head. Thanks for leaving a calling card in my sketchbook! I'll just share a few comments here and there if you don't mind.

The hand that you drew is out of proportions. Generally, the fingers should be shorter than the palm. And there is some slight perspective problems with your fingers. The middle finger should be smaller in terms of thickness than the fore finger, and so forth. Draw size according to what's nearer or further away from you.

As for your second portrait, if you don't mind me saying, you have some fairly serious problems with proportions. Ideally, the shape of the head should be an oval shape, much like an egg. The one you have is closer to round. It's not
wrong per say; there are some people that have that kind of head shape. But if you're drawing from imagination, probably it's best to stick to the ideal shape.

The rest of the features you have are not quite right. Your main face shape isn't quite there, so it stands to reason. I think maybe you should work on proportions first. I see you have went ahead to render some of your stuff. My advice is, not yet. Save the time you use for rendering and work on your proportions. Draw sheets after sheets of practice drawings to get the proportions right first, then worry about rendering.

Keep on drawing!

[Th.]

my congrats on starting

and my crit..no..not really a crit..just little advice. draw the same model (head,arm,etc) in different views to get a form . it helps much.

sorry for my awful english, and hope u understand

[alesoun]

Just a suggestion, Sleepyhead, but break your line up sometimes; it will give a suggestion of where the light falls on a face. (Where the line is broken is the place where the light hits)

[drd]

Thanks for the sketchbook reply!

It looks as if your smudging graphite with your fingers; I used to do that, but that really only works with charcoal. With graphite it just gives you rather frail shadows.

Apologies if you aren't, and you already knew that =P

[Windmaker]

Hello
Drawing is nice. So yeah - cheers for taking it up again!
As people are saying, try to concentrate on describing form with value. Think of objects as a collection of 3D volumes and not 2D shapes. As it is now, the eyes and mouths in your drawings look like they're made of paper and stuck to the head. Try to understand the relationships between the 3d objects.
A good exersise would be to just draw simple compositions of cubes, spheres, cones and so on to understand how they interact with each other (when one is infront another etc.).
When drawing the head try to build it up from simple 3D primitives and when rendering it, do it in such a way that each of those primitives keeps its volume.
Good luck! And keep having fun

[Sleepy_Head]

OldNoobie - Hope I get through it too. I didn't get much further than where I am now last time. Gonna have a good go at doing that this weekend.

costas - I've stopped pushing quite so hard now, seems to make life a bit easier. I think I may have dome it again in the Dog picture. Thanks for the tip.

N D Hill - I'm going to give the contours a miss this weekend. I'll try to focus on the tones only and see how it goes. Thanks for the advise.

Vaei - I've put the book in my Birthday wish list . I'm going to try to push through the whole book in order, but only because I'm a bit picky that way. I'm looking forward to the face stuff as it's my weak point and I like a challenge!

silvestri99 - I'm going to give the shape idea a go this weekend too. May be just get an A4 pad and plow through a load of figure references and see if I can get them close.

CouchPotato - Thanks for the crits. I have to admit to rushing the first two, and then over thinking the face. I've made notes and will try harder

Th. - Your English is fine mate and the tip has been noted. I'm planning on getting together a plan of studies to do over the next few months and I've noted you comment on it. Thanks.

alesoun - Duly noted and I'll give it a go this weekend. Broken lines it shall be

drd - Err .. yes, guilty as charged. I've seen artists doing the old smudging, but you're right, it doesn't seem to work as well with graphite. I'll slap my hand if I catch it doing it again!

Windmaker - I've never really thought of it as 3D on paper, but it seems quite obvious now I think about it. Thanks. I'll add it to my studies list and give it a go. Cheers.

Now. onto some drawings from the last couple of weeks. Not had a lot of time to do much, but here it all is.

First up is an upside down drawing I did as part of Betty's book. It's referenced in there, but I can never remember the name of the artist or drawing. (I'll edit in the references later).


The next two a partials. Still using the upside down method, but I ran out of time on each of them. I set a strict time of 40 minutes. Rubbed out way too much whilst doing them




Lastly here is a sketch of a dog from a Getty Images stock photo reference. I'm quite proud of this one, even if it did take 3 hours. There is still a lot to work on and I will follow a few tips from above to better it in the next one. Thanks again all for the posts and tips. Muchios appreciated.

S

[Dan Valkar]

hey sleepy head, nice studies, i think the doggie its ur best, keep in that line, and i have the same crits and advice about proportion and line thickness, but keep it up man, and thanks for the post

[NobleSnowball]

Hay man, add me as a friend! Or dont, i geuss its really your choice....

www.myspace.com/snowballwebcomics

[Cup of Joe]

Hey man, nice stuff!
My main crit is to just draw more. The best way to improve is to do it every day, and unless there are things you aren't showing us, that doesn't look like it's happening.
Also, the general "Draw what you see, not what you think you see." Your brains flat idea of what an eye looks like is overriding what it is that your actually seeing. Remember that the eye is a ball.
Overall good progress. Keep it up man!

[h2rra]

I second cup's opinion, draw and post more, although i can see the progress already

[Sleepy_Head]

I was looking forward to a bumper weekend of studies for the past week. I'd got a load of references, planned some quite time and then I have to spend the whole weekend configuring a server. I bloody hate being good at computing! People keep asking things of you, on weekends cause that's when they're not busy.

Anyway I at least got a couple of quick quite half hours on Sunday night. Read a bit more of Betty's book and did one of the exercises with perspex viewfinder (framed with cross hairs) and then did three attempts at sketching my own hand in three different ways.

The hands are a bit rushed as the server was wining in my ear at full blast which would put just about anyone off.

Harsh crits please. Where have I gone wrong with them??

S

[Sleepy_Head]

Spent an hour and a half starting a copy of a head from a reference.

I'm quite pleased with the progress, but it's not looking quite like the reference.

Crits welcomed.

S



Reference image from GettyImages.com (Free to download stock photo)

[Sleepy_Head]

Was a bit rude of me to go off on one about the weekend and not reply to posts.

Muchos apologies.

Dan Valkar - Thanks man. I loved the doggy too. Very proud of that, and it just goes to show how much improvement can be made by just concentrating a bit harder.

NobleSnowball - Added to my buds list.

Cup of Joe - I'm trying my hardest to get time every day Your getting to see everything, good and bad. Just wish there was more to show. I've taken the draw what you see not what you think you see on board. I've still not got it (above) but it's getting better. Thanks.

h2rra - Thanks. I hope the improvement continues too.

Cheers

S

[funfetus]

Nice work, man. It's good that you're working on fundamentals. The Betty White book is good for teaching you to draw what you see, but it helps a lot to understand what you're seeing as well. To that end, I'd recommend that you do some anatomy and general figure-drawing study. Download the Loomis books and start on "Figure Drawing For All It's Worth" -- it'll take you far.

Keep it up!

[Smarty]

That last one is showing a drop of developing grasp at core shadows, keep at it. You notice that you actually analysed and recorded the point at which a shadow begins and ends around the eyes as a pose to the smudgy, blurred and overgradiated render you had on your first image.

[D@niel]

Thanks for stoppin by my SB, nice start you have here, its great that you are following amethod to learning drawing but I would say the one aspect you are neglecting a bit is life drawing, one can never underestimate its importance! But hey, thats just my opninion! Good luck and keep at it

[Hyver]

we need updates! go....................get!