Spilt Ink, Shattered Leads and Scrunched up Paper

[TheButterBunny]

Okay so Hi, I'm TheButterBunny and after spending a lot of free time (that I dont really have!) on here pretty much every night I've finally grown some balls (but not really 'cos Im a girl) and decided to start a sketch book.
Some background info... um I'm 18 and I left school a few years ago destined (well as far as my family was concerned) to do something academic like law or medicine *shudder*. I had always enjoyed art at school but it was far from my strongest subject so I had never ever thought I could be good enough to make it a career.
Then one rainy day last year I though Fuck it; cancelled my university applications and went to the local college to apply for an art portfolio course. And I've never looked back since.

Anyway, ultimately I'd love to do concept art, but I recognise that I seriously need to improve my skill level with the basics... so yeah anatomy studies, basic painting and how to render here I come!

So anyway, here goes... (was anyone elses heart pounding like this when they started their first sketchbook???)
I would really really appreciate any critiques you guys would like to give, I'm here to learn!

Thanks in advance!

[TheButterBunny]

Okay so to be honest I'm still trying to work the attatchment manager XD so I'll just post one image just now as a trial.

It's a mostly pencil (with little bits of charcoal) drawing that took around 2 1/2 hours.

[TheButterBunny]

Okay so i think i might finally have the attatchment manager sussed so I'll post a few more. most of my good work is at college which is all shut for the holidays so there'll be some better stuff in a few weeks!
I know the quality of these photos is pretty poor too, but i should be getting photoshop in the next few days and then I can fix the contrast n stuff.

heres a few two minute posemaniacs, some 60 second figures and 2 five minute sketches.
Critiques welcome!

[Bri Bri]

Wooo look at you with yer new sketchbook! No idea about crits as you know, I'm learning myself. I'm sure someone with knowledge will offer some guidance.

My.......Who is that handsome fellow in the top hat? :>

[TheButterBunny]

Hey,

So I know it's been ages since my last post and I'd like to start by saying that this is not an indication of things to come: Ive been away from home and not had great internet access.

Anyway, here's a little dump (I'm sorry about the blurry shots, photography ain't my forte)

theres a photo of the first real painting I did which ended up in a college exhibition (hence the shitty photo through a frame)

a quick five mintue sketch of myself

some hands done wth a ballpoint pen

then there's some sketches of my boyfriend that are all around the 10-15 minute mark.

a self portrait (>2 hours) that I was quite happy with the time because it was a lot more subtle and gentle than my other stuff however I can see a lot wrong with it now!

and some drawings of animals from photos bri took at the farmpark!

I'd reall appreciate some crits guys!

[Bri Bri]

About time you updated this!! Couldn't help but laugh though. Some of them are upside down and out of focus. If only you had the magical setting that is 'P', eh.... What on earth were you doing?

Okay, that aside. The hands look ace. You know I love the painting too.
Hmmm, yeah the little 5 min self pose looks good to me. Looks proportionate enough and your quality of line is getting better. Just keep practicing baby.
Maybe do some of your cool colour doodles!

[TheButterBunny]

hello!

okay so here's some otters that I sketched from life (and then worked into later without reference) at the sealife centre. Otters move fast!

And a few hands that I just did, the top two were about 20 minutes each and the bottom two just about five minutes each.

[TheButterBunny]

here is some stuff from my life drawing class at college; the first two are gesture sheets at three minutes per figure, the next was a twenty minute pose and the last was 1 hour.

This is my first ever attempts at life drawing and because I missed the first term of it at college I wasnt given any instruction so I'm really just trying to feel my way around and crits would be very very much appreciated!

[TheButterBunny]

what's this??? two updates in one day???
well I'm making up for missing yesterday

okay so here's some anatomy stuff. now I know these kind of studies are important... but am I doing them right? what should I be focusing on; skeletal? muscles? or should i be working on like gesturey figurey things first?
also is it improtant to have these studies all rendered and things or are they really just for reference?

An apology for the crappy quality of the last photo: Im trying to teach myself to skecth nice and lightly but obviously the downside is that it doesnt photograph so well so I had to quickly mess with the brightness a bit (any tips on doing that as well?)

[DoubleThink]

hey there, good to see you're motivated.

Your painted stuff looks really solid & confident but your pencils seem a bit hesitant.
Try doing some excersises (drawing hands for instance) where you don't lift your pencil from the paper.
it should help you feel the lines more & make you see your subject more clearly.

As for the portraits:
Try & get some depth in your faces, remember that some stuff is further away (eye-sockets) & some stuff is closer (nose)
These'll be affected by the light it hits.

Keep up the hard work

[DannySketch]

ello

In terms of the best way to go about drawing the figure, its a mixed bag of gestures, full figure studies, anatomy studies and life drawing. With gestures you should be looking at rhythm, the way the biggest masses of the body (upper and lower torso, head) interact with each other, and getting the balance of these masses right. Anatomy studies are helpful once you have that base structure of the figure down and can apply the different muscle groups to each mass, and full figure longer studies help you understand how each area of the anatomy knit together. If its important to you to learn how to draw figures from your head then you need to be keeping an equal balance of half from ref/life and half from imagination. This will really hammer home the lessons your learning from your studies and help you improve more quickly.

Hope thats of some help

ta

[TheButterBunny]

Hey folks,

DannySketch: thanks for taking the time to write all that out, it was a huge help: after reading what you said I'm thinking I should spend a bit more time on posemaniacs etc. before moving on to in depth anatomy stuff so I'll make a point of doing some 60 second stuff later tonight

DoubleThink: thanks for stopping by I really appreciate your feedback. I hadnt noticed the lack of depth in my portraits but after you said it and I scrolled up to look at that self portrait I was like "HOW could I NOT have noticed??" it's definitely something I'll keep an eye on in future.
I also took on board what you said about doing some continuous line stuff so there's a couple of pages of hands in this update and also a random one of my pencil case...

Also in here we have a still life acrylic painting from college (probably around 10 hours, but that includes all the time I spend eating bacon rolls =P)
and we have two 45 minute pencil studies - one of Jack Nicholson (since uploading I've noticed his neck is too long) and one of my cat and I. (the rendering on the fur is pretty bad, but she's a black cat!)

[TheButterBunny]

tiny update tonight since I forgot to photograph my work at college today and I just couldn't get into a flow tonight...

so here's three crappy pencil pieces (done from ref. of course) the first was half an hour and the other two were only ten minutes each

[TheButterBunny]

quick update this morning before I get down to some real work

we have some 60 posemaniacs poses which, I know they're not good but I think they're getting better; my line more smooth etc. so I'm quite happy! I'd still really appreciate some crits and pointers though.
And then there's a few gesture sketches of my cat (I swear she wriggled around more in those five minutes than she has in the last eight years!)

[Bri Bri]

Can see a large improvement with the 60 sec gestures. Should maybe try capturing the cat gestures with a similar pen? In a few sweeping lines. Let it flow my dear. Or as the late great Bruce Lee would say, ' Be like waaaaaaaater'. Don't resist the paper. Become the paper. Don't try to force the pen, but perhaps let the pen guide you. See the form, feel the form, be the form but from a formless state of mind. Break on through to the other side. Ride the snake..... To the Lake.... The ancient Lake baaaaaaby............ Eh.... Yeah.

You could try varying line weight to create a sense of form..?? Keep plugging away!

[TheButterBunny]

Hey guys, sorry i've got a big deadline at college this Friday so I've been spending my evenings working on that and a birthday present for my mum (also for this Friday!)
I'm not really going to post the college stuff because its mostly experimental sketchbook stuff but here's some basic black and white texture maks that we screen printed...
And here's a quick watercolour hand I did the other day as practice for a big painting i'm going to start at college tomorrow...
And then here's the painting for my mum(it's of my sister and i at my birthday party) there's a few shots of different stages (I dont know why) The face on the right is still Waaaaaaaaay out and I can't fix it, HELP!!! someone...

[the_original_sean]

thanks for the post.

i looked through your stuff, i really like the still life paintings. some things seem a little disproportionate. well not really disproportionate, but some things look a bit off. when you're copying pictures try to use some kind of reference points so things line up. for example in the last post, the figure on the left, check the relationship that the right end of the right eye has to the corner of the jaw, or the chin. use comparative measurement. i dont think that link is as thorough as i'd like, but it gives you an idea. you can used angles or distances between points to figure out exactly where things should be placed. i used to copy pictures of cartoons when i was a kid and kind of had my own primitive system of comparative measurement. cartoons were easier cuz there was no tone and they were just real simple (like mickey mouse or bart simpson). simple but so engrained in the psyche that if something was off, it was easy to tell that SOMETHING was off. figuring out what it was was another story. try it. draw that basic mickey mouse using this system.

[TheButterBunny]

Hey guys,

the_original_sean Hey, thanks for stopping by, I had a look through that link and I think you're right! I havent had a chance to actually do the excersise yet but I promise it'll be the next thing I sit down to draw =)

Bri Bri see I'm acknowledging you =) you're right about the gestures I should keep going instead of stop start 'cos I keep losing my momentum.

Here's a couple of paintings (acrylic) they're from college so i didnt have an awful lot of say in what I painted but anyways.
They both were only about 6/7 hours work, the hand one was kinda an experiment (I was bored with the usual stuff I paint) but I kinda knew even before I started that I didnt have the skills to pull it off (yet!).
The idea was that it would be thick impasto acrylic at the bottom and fade out to being watercolour at the top... but it didnt work so well in practice!
I painted the hands mostly without reference 'cos I was holding my pallette and my brush (didnt really think it through!)

[YihyoungLi]

Wow there's an obvious improvement already! Especially in your gesture drawings--they're cleaner and seem more confidant.

One thing that might help in your figures is to locate the structure underneath the forms. This helps in drawing figures from imagination. I drew up a quick example to show you what I mean:


Drawing a line between the shoulders and the hips and then a line connecting the two really helps in identifying the "pose"/"balance" of the figure. From there identify the limbs. After that it's identifying the shapes that make up the form on top of that structure.

I would get this down well before poring over anatomy. All those muscles and bones are just a matter of memorization after you understand the body's balance.

I'm pretty sucky at drawing the figure too...so I'm right along with you haha. My advice might only work for my crazy unorthodox/unorganized head.

[TheButterBunny]

Hey guys, I stopped updating because I was getting so frustrated with myself and I basically did the cowardly thing and buried my head in the sand because hey I was doing fine at college so that was all that mattered right?? (wrongo...)

So here's a a painting I just finished (just to get the ball rolling again!) It's acrylic done from a photograph and probably took about 4 hours to paint but it took me hours and hours and hours and hours to get the chessboard drawn out! It was soooooooo off before - I mean don't get me wrong I know it's still not accurate but it's a hell of a lot better!

I know my desertion doesnt read well but i really would appreciate any crits you'd be willing to give

[LtPlissken]

Hi, what's up in Scotland?
Nice start, maybe you should pay attention on not to draw with such a scratchy lines on those pose drawings and to put a little more patience and details into your realistic drawings. Paintings and life studies are great.

[TheButterBunny]

Hi, what's up in Scotland?
Nice start, maybe you should pay attention on not to draw with such a scratchy lines on those pose drawings and to put a little more patience and details into your realistic drawings. Paintings and life studies are great.

Hey not much happening in Scotland, just snow!!! How's Serbia?

Thanks for your input: my poor line quality is definetely something I'm very aware of and I am striving to improve it.. just not quite sure exactly how to do that. Just repetition?

Thanks again!

[TheButterBunny]

Oh and here are a few self portraits from the past couple of days...

The first sheet: the top one was an hour and the other two a half hour each.
They look kind of alien (I actually watched Lord of the rings before drawing the bottom one and is it just me or does it look like Pippin???) and just "off"

The second one was about 45 minutes and the actual line drawing started out pretty strong, nice clean lines etc. Then I completely killed it with the rendering!

And the watercolours are baaaad... not sure how long they took, my guess would be around the one hour mark. And what more can I say, they suck...

[Bummer6]

You're making progress. Don't really know what to say... You could probably work a bit more on your faces, the structure feels kinda off.

[m.j.]

Hi there!
First of all thanks for visiting in my sketcbook,I appreciate this.
For your sketchbook I don`t have any strong advice `cause I`m beginner like you. Only thing I could say that I like hands and animals,for portraits I think they need more anatomy studies just like mine...
That`s it for now... Keep on posting!
Cheers!

[TheButterBunny]

m.j and Bummer6 thanks for stopping by, your advice confirms what I already knew so...

So following the advice of everyone on here I started doing some head studies today. I have never done any before so i started with THE most basic of basic in the Loomis book and I have to say I am really struggling...

Just can't seem to grasp the actual shape so I'm really struggling to turn/move it guess I'll just keep plodding away at it. Rome wasn't built in a day after all!

But if anyone knows of any even easier ways to start I'd much appreciate the help...

[TheButterBunny]

More Loomis heads...

[drgnelf]

Looks like you are getting off to a good start. I must give you major props for your sudden mind set to go for the gold and attend art classes in college.

It's kind of annoying at first (at least I thought so) but repetition is the key to success in anything. The facial structure practice is something that I do all the time, just sketching different faces all the time.

The best advise I can give is draw every chance you get, even if you don't feel like it, draw whatever is near you and especially from life since it's so much better to be able to turn and hold and feel the actual object.

You are doing a great job!

[TheButterBunny]

drgnelf Thanks for stopping by dude! Yes I agree with you, I am certainly feeling the frustration right now but I think my determination to succeed will outweigh it (I'm hoping anyways!! XD)
I do need to work on "always drawing". I need to start carrying a sketchbook everywhere and stop making excuses like "I'm tired" or "well if I get up and work tomorrow I don't need to do anything tonight" WRONG KATIE: it should be always!!!

Thanks again

And what did I have for breakfast this morning? Ah yes, more Loomis...

[Scribble King]

Heehee, Loomis can be frustrating (believe me I know), but stick with it and at the very least try to comprehend what he has to say in the text.

Seems to me that you're having the most difficulty with just the basic shapes of the head, so maybe try drawing interlocking balls and cubes at different angles for a while. That should help with getting comfortable with setting up the structure. Then the next time you attempt a Loomis study, try using only straight lines... took me a long time to figure that out, but when I did, it certainly made everything a whole lot easier.

You're doing really good, so keep hacking away at it!