Just some random life drawings from a newbie...

[sula_nebouxi]

Hey everyone, just posting some of my drawings from life. I drew these a couple months ago. Everything here was done with graphite pencil(my fave medium). I was kinda surprised since I haven't really drawn much for years, just doodling in my notebook in school heh. I only started seriously drawing about 6 months ago.

The one thing I know I absolutely have to work on is my value range. I have this nasty habit of drawing everything very lightly. Oh yeah...I'm also *really* slow when I draw. The sea-monkey tank drawing took me 5 hrs . I know I still have a looooong way to go, but this forum has been a great inspiration for me to keep on drawing

Anyways...I'm a first-timer so be gentle

Link:
Drawings

[emilpaun]

Lookin' good

You should try and post your pics so that everybody can see them easier, that is surround the path to the picture by the [IMG][/IMG] tags, like this

[IMG]http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~atso/Craptastic%20Art/girl.jpg[/IMG... don't forget to replace the dots by ] to produce this



And yes use softer pencils, in fact buy 2B, 4B, 5B... pencils for darker values, my guess is that you are using plain hb?

Keep drawing!

[sula_nebouxi]

Thanks KR33P I mainly used really hard pencils, 2h and 4h. I'm thinking about using some charcoal pencils along with graphite.

Ack...sorry...yeah I should have included the images in my post...

Here's the rest of the drawings and some more I did recently, it's a BIG download. The still lifes aren't exactly done. The new ones were done with black and white conte crayon on black or gray charcoal paper. Oh, and if you're wondering, the guy in the hood is a sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. Sorry for the poor quality photos...the drawings are bigger than my scanner.









Hmm...I wonder how much bandwidth I have...

[emilpaun]

my favorite is the second still life

look forward to seeing more of your posts

[The Crazy Dude]

It's good, the only thing that I might suggest is that you could try to make your subjects have a variety of shades by having the light source at an angle. Also don't be afraid of darker shades. Other than that, the anatomy is good and the figures all look in porportion.

Don't worry or fret, 'cause your going to get better with more practice and pacience...

[sula_nebouxi]

Thanks for the kind words guys I'll try to draw darker shadows. I think I should exaggerate the shadows more since these drawings were done in a pretty bright room. Another problem I'm trying to fix is, it seems that pretty much anything I draw comes out "cartoonish". I'm pretty sure it's because of the dark outlines and lack of depth. Not that it's a bad thing...I'd just like to see if I can render something as realistically as possible.

I'll have plenty more to post in the coming months...I'm taking a figure drawing and painting class during the summer (which start june 1st w00t) and I'm headed over to San Diego for the Comic Convention. I'm so excited about it...getting to meet and draw with my idol, Ron Lemen/fredflickstone hehe It's gonna be fun fun fun!

[Jane Radstrom]

If you want to nix the cartoony look you need - Line weight! Vary the thickness of your lines based on if the edge you are describing is important to show the mass and position of the figure, or if it is just a surface detail such as a wrinkle. If the line describes a strong edge (caused by a bone at the surface such as an ankle) or soft (fat tissue overlapping fat), and vary the weight based on if the area is in light or shadow. Lines used on parts of the figure that are in shadow can be darker, while lines "in the light" are lighter. If you look through many master studies, often they use alot of line and not alot of rendered shadow, and their drawings are very believable and "3-d" because of the quality of their line. Many art instructors I've encountered discourage using much "outline" at all, because quality of line seems to be much harder to teach and to master than rendering shadow. In the end, neglecting to study and practice your line quality will only impede your drawing, though. If you like to draw with outlines, make them the best damn outlines! In addition to line weight, bringing lines into the form and let them describe new masses that are inside the outer edge of the figure and how these masses move in front of one another, then let them fade away. For insance, around the knees instead of just ending the line where the thigh and calf no longer over lap, make it lighter and let it travel into the figure to describe the muscle mass of the thigh or calf. Instead of making the outer edge of the knee one line, see if there aren't details in the knee which could be described by the line of the thigh coming in from the outer edge and showing how the muscle wraps around the protruson of the knee, while a new line starts and shows bumps and folds. Using line weight to push these new masses you've found and show which is in front of another, you can take your drawings out of the relm of cartoon and make them much more realistic.

In case you're a visual person, like me, and all these written explainations really don't make this business of "line quality" clear.. I did a quick search for a post with examples:

line with minimal shading - in ball point pen no less.

I hope this helps.

[sula_nebouxi]

Thanks Velo that helps a lot! I think I see what you mean, although I'll have to try it out to really understand it. I've been looking at some of Albrecht Durer's work. Very little "real" shading but lots of line work. I'm not sure if his engravings are exampes of what you mean though. I haven't found any extreme examples. I do see it with the drawings in the link you gave. I think this drawing showed it best:
http://www.seriks.com/2004/fig-13.jpg

Let me see if I understood correctly...

When to use hard edges:
-edges in shadow
-edges that "stick out" like protruding bones
-edges that show there is weight pressing down on it like the knees

When to show soft edges:
-edges in light
-edges that "roll" over each other, like fat curls, certain muscles
-edges that go into a body part and end.

I know many art teachers who say the same thing. Line isn't as important as shadows. I did have one teacher who tried to teach line weight but I couldn't really understand it fully since I couldn't tell where to place it. I'd like to try and learn both methods though. Line weight first of course

Now I'm wondering, will line weight show in fully rendered work with shadows and all? I can only see it being used with sketches since using shadows would cover up the strong edges.

Thanks Velo

[danteort]

Going along with the issues with lines, don't forget about line QUALITY. I see that in your drawings you are essentially drawing with little flicks of the wrist, hoping the lines end up going where you want them to go. They're very tight, and "hairy." You don't want your drawings to look tight. Rather, your aim generally should be loose, fresh, bold, yet accurate.

To accomplish this, basically eliminate the desire to draw with your wrist completely (for the time being). There's a time and a place for drawing with your wrist, but this isn't it. Use your whole arm, and just get some newsprint and practice big, sweeping, fast lines all over. Get used to working with your arm and shoulder, rather than with your wrist. Don't be afraid of where the lines go, and eventually you'll feel more confident and able to simply "woosh" the lines where they need to be.

Until you're more comfortable with line, I'd recommend not worrying about value at all. Once you find the quality lines that convincingly show volume, you'll be much better prepared to add value. Basically, if you can't show volume with only lines, no amount of value will add any more dimensionality to your drawings.

[Jane Radstrom]

Sula, that's a good summary. I'm glad you understood my ramblings. I agree, that drawing is a great example of what I'm talking about.

In a fully rendered, shaded drawing you may not see the lines or their quality very much anymore (depending on your style). However, knowing how to use them during the sketch phase (every drawing starts somewhere!) will help you alot to place the masses and light more immediately so that when you begin shading it goes better. It's easier to correct problems during the sketch phase than when you've shaded and rendered an area, so if you are specific enough in the sketch and can use line to tell yourself quickly about the form, hopefully you can eliminate problems which otherwise might not show up until later, when they are alot harder to correct.

[sula_nebouxi]

Thanks for the advice danteort and Velo. I'll be heading off to figure drawing class in a little bit and I'll be sure to remember all the stuff about line quality and weight

Hopefully I can get some pics up later today. We'll be doing gestures so it'll be a perfect opportunity to try out some of these tips.

On a side note, I get the feeling that my teacher loves gestures. She thinks they are the most important thing to drawing. Hopefully we can do some long poses too...I think that would help me even more than gestures ever will. Doing short poses doesn't give me much of a chance to study the body. Oh well...I guess we'll have that chance when we go over to the local med school and draw cadavers :eek:

[danteort]

Originally posted by sula_nebouxi
On a side note, I get the feeling that my teacher loves gestures. She thinks they are the most important thing to drawing. Hopefully we can do some long poses too...I think that would help me even more than gestures ever will. Doing short poses doesn't give me much of a chance to study the body.

You'll have plenty of time to study the body, but you need to develop your gestural skills before you get into long poses. A long pose won't do you much good if you don't know HOW to look at what you want to draw. Gestures are about capturing the "essence" of the pose: the action, the movement, the weight. Even when you do a long pose, you start with a gesture, so don't think it's a skill you'll stop using once you get into more detailed drawings.

Also, please please PLEASE don't be one of those people that tries to move ahead of the class before you're ready. In my figure 1 class, 3/4 of the class was trying to add value when the teacher told us specifically that we weren't there yet. Remember that if you don't get the structure of the figure correct, no amount of detail will make it look better.

[sula_nebouxi]

Wow...haven't had any time at all to post some drawings from class...

danteort, you're right, I was just hoping that we would get equal time drawing gestures and long poses. It just didn't seem like we were going to do any long poses any time soon. Anyways...here's some gestures I did during the past week. Sorry for the horrible quality. The really dark ones were done with soft compressed charcoal and the outlined ones were done with soft charcoal pencil. In a few I tried to apply the tips about line weight and quality. I hope they're correct at least in that way. They were all done between 5 and 15 minutes. I'll try and reshoot them tomorrow, they're really blurry.

[sula_nebouxi]

Another dump from the past week...

I really need to work on my composition. But first things first. Gotta get the figure down. For now, I'm trying to loosen up and use more broad strokes. Another thing I need to work on is the face...I can't seem to draw it accurately unless I have like 2 hours. Hmm...maybe I'll get more practice if I do a bunch of self portraits...

Anyways, the first 3 were 3 minutes, the next 4 were 15 min and the last was half an hour. And as always any comments are appreciated. Trash em all you like...