Joseph's Drawings. [Occasional Nudity]

[Jason Rainville]

Slow down, especially on the things you want to render out in more detail. It really looks like you just need to go at it slower, look longer.

[TASmith]

I think you've got the same problem as me, that you want to use your pencil more like painting than drawing. Try switching mediums like Dile said. Try charcoal and watercolor, and draw more from observation. Go outside and try some trees and houses. Devote a sketchbook just to that and then see what happens when you go back to pencils.

That one cartoon dog was awesome! - try going over things like that with black marker.

[Basham]

Heya', folks! Well, a couple of weeks and a massive amount of procrastination later, I'm back. Seriously, the procrastination is amazingly bad, it'd make sloth green with envy.

Anyways, here's basically everything I've drawn since my last (And final) post in the advice boards, not a whole lot. Mostly, I promise myself to draw a lot in the morning, procrastinate until late at night, then create crappy doodles because I'm so tired or nothing at all. Gonna' need to stop that.

Some sixty second sketches
\


Something that Jason Rainville, a much better artist than I, suggested for me to do: Draw a few figure sketches from reference, then do a few from imagination. Naturally, being Joseph Basham, instead of devoting at least a day to his sage advice, I did one. You've probably met cats more disciplined than me. How do I drawn girl crotch? I will soon know!


Finally, some fun.




Rainville, I'll slow down as soon as I stop jacking off (metaphorically) long enough to sit down and have a proper draw.
Smith, thanks, I'll follow your advice as well as soon as I've gotten my ass thoroughly in gear.

[Basham]

Still around. Still drawing. Disciplining myself is probably the hardest part of this, and the most worthwhile.



Making an attempt towards slowing down, but my attention span is shit, it feels uncomfortable to work on something for more than a few minutes at a time. Will have to work on that.

[Reaping]

That's a lot of studies, mate! As far as i can see, you have developed a much sounder understanding of anatomy. I wish I had the same determination for studies

[Basham]

Reaping, I do barely anything compared to some of the better artists on this site, and my knowledge of human anatomy is anything but sound. Thanks for the encouragement, though.

I've just worked myself into a new daily ritual. The ritual will change each week, you guys can help me decide what I'm drawing next week, if you'd like. Current schedule goes:

One page of sixty second sketches
One environment
One anatomy study page
One fully rendered portrait
One life drawing page
And at least one "free page", that is, pages filled with whatever I want them to be filled with. Here's the last two day's work:

[Basham]

I think I'm going to update this thing weekly. Well, here is nearly everything I drew this week; the good, the bad, the horrible and the half-assed. I've also started a separate sketchbook in which I draw exclusively in charcoal and from life, the results of which I will post when it is full.

I messed around with these a little in GIMP, to make the lines a little darker.

[Basham]

Remember when I said I was going to update this thing weekly? That was fun. Here are a few digital things I've been doing, open canvas.











Painted an onion. Didn't really know what I was doing. Will have to do more. Still open for suggestions as to next week's schedule.

[Samszym]

Nice stuff. It's good that you're trying to keep yourself dedicated, keep that up. Maybe some master studies would be a good idea.

[Blondebeard]

Thanks for stopping by. Good to see the practice going!

Some tips for figures would be to use a lot of simple 3d shapes (spheres, cylinders, boxes). For example if you're drawing a cylinder leg, be sure to put a box around the cylinder to give you a feel for the direction/orientation. Also draw a string wrapping around them to get a feel for the cross contour.

Before that though get a nice flow of gesture lines going since the gesture is essentially what you're building on top of. Put arrow heads on the lines as well or off to the side. I found that helped me a lot.

[Basham]

Vertical, I've started a Gustave Dore' study, I'll post the results here when I'm finished.
Blondebeard, thanks for stopping by. I tried imitating your warm up technique and played around with adding arrows to my gesture drawings, as seen in the following pictures. I don't think I'll post these warm ups more than once, since I'm probably going to be doing them often and they aren't too interesting to look at.

I think I'm beginning to understand the source of my long lasting, seemingly intangible and unnameable problem with art, the same problem that has spawned three "need advice" threads. I don't really learn from my constant scribbling or follow the wisdom of my companions because I don't think about what I'm drawing. I just tell myself to make lines and I make lines. I think that I don't think about drawing or invest myself in it because I either don't care, or don't enjoy it any more.

I don't know what I can do about that. I guess all I can do is keep drawing, and hope that it eventually goes away. It's August again. It's been a year, now, since it's started. It's lasted a year.

[Spideriser]

wow, very very nice poses.
Im not just saying this because its nice but your poses are coming together real nice. They have a good natural 'human' feel to them. I especially like the painting of the girl in your last post. keep it up.

[Basham]

Spideriser, if you think my poses are nice, you need to draw a lot more poses. Thank you, though.

Nothing really meaningful in this post, just some thumbnails from a summer assignment thing I'm doing. It's one of three pieces I have put off until the last week of summer. Three finished pieces due by the end of the week. Would be an easy task for most artists, but I haven't finished anything in over a year. Really, this post is just here for me to rant without having to make another god awful advice thread. Feel free to skip it, hell, skip this whole sketchbook. It's not likely that I'm going to be posting anything meaningful in here for a long time.

Still nothing. I still get frustrated every damn time I put pen to paper. One year. Maybe my problem is that I have a terrible attitude, maybe my problem is that I'm not an artistic type, maybe it's much simpler than that, I have no god damn clue. I've wasted a whole year on this funk. A whole year of accomplishing nothing. I've never came across anyone else on this or any other forum who has had such a long and stupid struggle with nothing. Maybe I'm just the only one stubborn enough to keep drawing through it. I don't know.

I probably have the power to end this funk, maybe if I told myself to stop being frustrated and focused on the picture instead of this self induced funk, I'd be over it; but I have no faith in myself anymore. I've told myself that I'd be able to get over this, I've told myself that I was out of it, I've told myself that it would pass so many times. I've said so many things, made so many promises that I never made good on. My word is worthless.

I don't know why I'm posting this. I guess it's so I can distract myself from drawing, for a moment. Anything is better than drawing, right now. I doubt that any advice I get will help me, because I shoot it down, I'm the problem. As long as I keep telling myself to fail, that's what I'll do. But if it's as simple as that, why can't I stop?

[Basham]

I'm back. I've largely meandered around artistically for the last year or so, and it shows in how little I've improved. My attitude is still awful. What should I do, Conceptart.org?

My scanner is down. Everything I upload will be digital, for now.

[Basham]

Took a month off of art. Getting back into things.

[Basham]

Here is the program I'm using for my references: http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/figuredrawing.php Drawing an hour a day, and feeling good about it.

[lohes]

Good to see you're getting back into drawing My only advice is to read a lot, study a lot, and draw a lot!

[Basham]

Thank you very much, Iohes. Sound advice.

[Basham]

It's been a long time.

I'm getting back into art, permanently. I intend to set a hard schedule on my birthday, on the twenty sixth, but before then I'd like to start ramping up so it doesn't come as a shock. What's a good art exercise schedule to follow? What are some exercises I should do every day? Thank you very much.

[Basham]

This is, perhaps, the third time I've redrawn this image. I'm challenging myself with things I draw infrequently: pretty women, faces and facial expressions. I'd like to move on to paint this, too, but I seem to be having trouble putting down the truth of the image. I am having difficulties creating any sort of proportion or resemblance.

[Wingal]

DUDE! Stop leaving! Ill be back to make sure you're here >=|

[Basham]

Oh, alright, I'll stick around. Since you asked so nicely. I've been setting a goal of drawing every day, though I'm not entirely sure what I should be drawing; I exercise every day, and that's pretty straightforward: run two miles, do so and so pushups. Art's a little harder to plan out, so I've just been drawing something that challenges me every day.

[JFierce]

I see a lot of figures, tried still lifes? Life drawings are what most people don't do as much which is probably the best practice. Actually typing this kind of makes me want to do one.


There was a thread in Art Discussion on here which someone asked what should I do figure drawings, anatomy etc or life drawings. The general consensus was. Both duh.

[decayindecline]

nice anatomy studies!

[Basham]

I have tried still life drawing, but I can always do more. Here's a drawing I did of my wooden doll-thing just for you, JFierce. Thank you very much for the support, Decayindecline.



I did draw more today, but everything I drew was either on paper (I don't own a scanner) or inappropriate for posting on this forum.

[Basham]

A drawing I made of a cheap, plastic Halloween skull I bought.

[Basham]

Getting closer to the truth.

[Basham]

I am attempting to learn the skill of values. It's a skill I've neglected for too long, and it's necessary to learn how to paint. I did three passes of values on this skull, drawn from life; how can I improve at my values?

[Basham]

[Basham]