JUNE 10--The Hermit is a slackerrrr

[hala]

EDIT: Better stuffs on the last page. Thanks to you all!





I finally got the courage to start a SB here. I know I have a longgggg way to go before something great happens.

My whole life I've drawn, but it wasn't until last year that I decided to take on art as a career, and going through my first year in art school, I realize how ultra n00b i am. T_T

I have big dreams and ambitions, so Ive put my work load on full throttle!

Here 'goes!!


I love the community here on CA, you guys have the best advice and motivation.

[hala]

Not much today because it turned to be a bad morning and lost my time for figure study xx But I purchased a MB download of Zhang Lu and Jason and started doing the studies. Bad days don't mean you stop making art.

I will do hand and feet studies tomorrow, because I know I hardly draw them, and mostly because I know that they will turn out bad. I need more practice!!!
And in pencil, I need to go back to traditional and get my foundation skills back up to par.

The zhang lu portrait studies: The first one done without a ref, you can tell it's UBER PHAIL.
Second one with a ref, and came out much much much better. I will continue making more portraits tomorrow from that awesome tutorial.

[snootchy]

Hey Hala, great start and you seem to have done this before. definitely doesn't look like the work of someone just starting out! Man that Zhanglu vid must have been really inspirational and definitely digging the tonal structure in the ref portrait in your last post, man once you put that color overlay on, I think there is definitely going to be some magic happening =)

As for life drawing, search Craigslist and the web because I'm actually from NJ but living in NYC right now and found a place down in Princeton NJ that had life figure drawing even though it was really tiny. I think it was like $20 or 30 for a 3-4hr session which is wicked expensive. But better than nothing in rural juhzey! And if you ever make it to the city definitely check out spring studio down in soho, usually only like $7-8 for 3-4hr sessions and also michael alan's drawathon which is kind of funky live theatre figure drawing where they got costumes and stuff.

Can't wait to see more of your traditional works once u feel up to par!!

SSG 69 ARTGASMIC FORCE
Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.
Eon l grenappels l snootchy l Peetaer l bleupencil

[hala]

Thanks snootchy!
I appreciate that ^^

Hmm, thanks I will definitely look into that. I didn't even think to look on craigslist. Lol that is wicked expensive , but beats the closest thing to my house which is a once a yr event at a local museum, 40 bucks to get in xx. I really want to check out those venues in the city, the costume one sounds interesting!

XD oh lawlz "rural juhzey" its so true !

[hala]

nn nothing really proud of in this dump. I'm gonna work some more tonight on studies. I know I really need them.

Sketches, and unfinished studies.

[vardoburrito]

oooo... sweet b/ws dude.
And I always dig the feel & look of sb-007 type sketches.
I'm still scared to do hand studies.
[I assure you, if you see my current state/level, you'd be scared too. blahahaha.]

(random pooh text) -transitions; the world in between. See it before it disappears, again.

[hala]

thanks dwardo

lol i was scared to do hands too but this morning i got up and was like "fk it. You'll never get better if you don't".
my past hand studies always looked like either marshmellows or bones x.O

haha getting philosophical again?

[hala]

I went to the library today!!

Got a burne hogarth book on dynamic lighting, anatomy for artists...sargent's works..etc etc

so here are some small studies.
couldn't do any digitial work today because of leg problems preventing me from sitting down at my normal pc

These are all referenced from Anatomy For Artists.

[frozenbean]

I am digging those hands for sure.

[hala]

Thanks frozenbean!

I love doing hand studies, even tho they are challenging.


I've been working on my newborn entry (in the contest thread), so not much speed paints to show >< I need to work that in, they are my goal.
Just an updated WIP on the character design from post 1, and some more studies because "anatomy for artists" is wonderful.

I really hope to find a space in my house to get some larger charcoal drawings started.

[a la bapsi]

i dig the dedication!
i like the work in progress in your last post. :]
one weak spot i see in the painting is the pelvis. it appears very front view, even flat. I did a paintoverish type of thing just now, assuming her hips are facing the same direction as her upper torse.
again, i love your dedication. keep up the good work in your sketchbook. it's only been a few posts in and i already see progress!

[hala]

thanks so much for the red line! I was having a lot of trouble with the pelvis, your red line makes it much clearer, thanks! I understand the shape of it now at the view much better

[JailHouseRock2]

Some nice work in here hala!

Really dig the pose work, and the anaotmy studies (Hogarth or bridgman?).

And the portraits are awesome! Really good work there, values look good so far!

Keep at it, and thanks for the visit to my thread!
matt

[hala]

Thanks man,I look forward to more from you

The studies I've posted are from Jeno Barcsay's book "anatomy for the artist"
I'll be dipping in to hogarth's book soon

[snootchy]

hey hala, great ref'd anatomy sketches! I really like the hands and feel it's one that takes a lot of patience to get the right gesture, which i think you've captured =)

I agree with a la bapsi, that you are already showing improvement and that it's very useful to approach anatomy constructively, as basic as it seems the basic building blocks of building up form is pivotal for really understanding how the body is constructed; I've done studies of muscles and such but I feel like I get lost in all that detail so I always go back to the basics; i'm not sure if they have constructive anatomy classes by you, but I took 2 classes with Dan Thompson over at Grand Central Academy of Art and he is just simply amazing at breaking the body down, sadly he's not there anymore but I think he teaches workshops but the others at GCA are freaking awesome as well

I mainly use the hard round brush set to a flattened brush shape (you can change that in the roundness of the brush in brush settings) and also have the shape dynamics checked with the angle jitter control checked for directional, along with opacity and flow set to pen pressure and if i need texture I'll turn it on in brush settings, I like to try and paint things out, rather than use a lot of crazy brushes trying to simulate traditional paints and also it gets really chaotic when you have like a million brushes

If you like to build up texture I highly recommend checking out samsonreaper, he is a beast when it comes to building up texture, actually here's his vimeo speedpaint videos and youtube

happy painting =)

SSG 69 ARTGASMIC FORCE
Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.
Eon l grenappels l snootchy l Peetaer l bleupencil

[hala]

thanks snootchy for the tip with the brushes and the links! nom nom nom tutorials
Thanks also for the bit about constructive anatomy. I can totally understand getting lost in the details of the muscles. When I was drawing today I started to get flustered because I was losing the actual shape of the body parts. xx

Sadly the only art related classes around here are water color painting, oil painting, and scrapbooking. : ( my town is full of chemists and art is not really supported. In highschool the art budget got cut to the point where they couldn't even provide sketch paper. *face palm*

I might make some trips into the city though since you seem to know of some great resources there!
Thanks again ^^

[Adrian Wilkins]

hey there thanks for stoping by in my sb!

I ssee you're working hard but we wanna see tons of anatomy studies

I like the greayscale study in post no. 2!!

keep it up!!

[hala]

Thanks Hygami!

Gonna try and double the amount of anatomy studies from now on.

I also tried the multi-joint thing today that you see often in Jana's thread (her awesomely amazing godly sb) I realize i chose two really stiff poses. xx not the greatest for that kind of study, but they were hella fun, i want to do more.

Some ink wash gesture studies, i know, the face is UBER tilted.
And some charcoal 1-2 min gestures and male portraits. I suck at males Tried to make them all of diff. race.

damn i need practice.

[snootchy]

hey hala, great to see you working hard! LoL i'm actually a pharmacist, not sure if that's what you meant by chemist (at least that's what they call em in London) but that sucks that there aren't any classes, but still it's great that your continuing to do the studies on your own; yea definitely let me know if you hit up some classes or life figure drawing, i'm always looking for other artists to bounce ideas off or grow as a community; it can be difficult finding other like minded art crazed folks that just want to live inside a paint tube =)

the multi joint thing actually, there's a really great book you might be familiar with it, hogarth that has similar style of teaching the movement and positioning of limbs and body, might not be as stylized or cool looking as jana's sketches but might be worth looking into

as for sketching, i think you capture very nice gestural lines, but one instructor told me that going over the same line darkening it or redrawing a line shows lack of confidence or knowledge of the subject matter, so he told me 'to slow down and observe before laying down a stroke, even with paint, don't overwork a stroke to death and lose the energy created from the brushstroke'

I know in fast gestural sketches it doesn't seem like a whole lot of time and really just trying to capture things fast but when you do more timely sketches take time to observe whatever it is your sketching. I do the same thing so I'm criminal to it as well! I think constructive anatomy really helps where your measuring things out or taking it into thought in the back of your head in the beginning and may seem like more work but will become a lot easier and faster as you do it over and over

SSG 69 ARTGASMIC FORCE
Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.
Eon l grenappels l snootchy l Peetaer l bleupencil

[hala]

lol snootchy, mostly people that work in government biotech and chem labs. stuff like that. One of the biggest pharmacutical companies in the country is located just a couple miles from me xD But half of them aren't cool like you and into art. ;p

So true: it's so hard to find motivated and willing people!! why!?

THat's some interesting advice about the line, I never thought of it that way. I'm gonna experiment with that.

I've been trying to get my hands on Hogarth's books, i need a job to buy it (my library doesn't have it sadly ) ! College drained all my money, adn yet I've learned more in my short time here in CA than I did the entire year of college xx

Thanks again for the help and comments snootchy, i really appreciate it more than you know. ; D

[papervampire]

you're getting better and better! i like how you handled the figure as a silhouette in one of your early posts. the latest batch is great too especially the blue sketches and multi-limbed figures. have fun and keep it up.

[Leonor]

I like your attitude and your commitment and dedication to your studies.
You're doing a lot of good work in a day too.

[KarylGilbertson]

Nice work, it's nice to see all those studies you're doing. Keep that going and you'll go far.

[snootchy]

sup Hala, where's our update?! hehe j/k but here's a free link to Bridgman's constructive anatomy book, and thanks for the last comment but I'm a bum with only thing art on my mind.

I guess constructive anatomy is more into the technical aspects of drawing the figure but helps a great deal when trying to concept the figure from your head. Like I'm sure your aware of this and can even do it on yourself to find key markers for the spacing of body parts so that it's proportional to one another, for example usually the human figure is around 7-8heads tall or the width of the face is usually 5 eyes across, knowing those kinds of things help a great deal in seeing where things might be off in a sketch; not just proportion but rhythm and balance is also a big component to constructive anatomy which bridgman is great for, happy sketching =)

SSG 69 ARTGASMIC FORCE
Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.
Eon l grenappels l snootchy l Peetaer l bleupencil

[hala]

Papervampire: Thanks so much! : )

Leonor: Thanks a lot !

Ookchk: Thanks, I sure hope so!

Snootchy: Omg my stupid computer died on me and took me three days to fix the bitch. xD Thanks a lot for the link!! I understand what you were talking about now.


So--finally a return from my PC being broken. Not many studies because I spent most of my time fixing the pc.
Some experimental speed paints as well. Studies based on Hogarth and Bridgman Now that everything is back to normal, I hope to dive deeper into these studies and books.

[JailHouseRock2]

Hello again,

Wow you've improving fast! Nice sketches, your really getting the flow/energy of the form down, but watch those proportions!

The gestures will help heaps, same with the multi-limb drawings!

Great work, love the apple up there too,
Keep at it,
matt

[snootchy]

hey hala, great update totally digging the bridgman and hogarth studies and showing a lot of improvement, i agree with Jailhouse on the proportions, i think a great way is to start off by looking at yourself in the mirror or picture of body and hold ur arm straight out with the pencil in ur hand and measure the length of the head with one eye closed (important to use the same eye or else it will be distorted and to keep the arm straight) then measure how many heads tall you'll have ur length to get width use the width of the head usually it lies about 2.5x same goes with features on face use features on the face for instance the eye, it generally runs 5 across for the width of the face

i know this sounds really technical but the more u practice this, will help u naturally produce proportioned figures; poses can also get real stiff if you utilize this too much and lose that great gestural quality you have so i think finding a nice balance in between both is important

oh i also forgot to mention glen vilppu's drawing manual is really f#@!ng awesome for figure developement, i think he has videos of his lecture as well

Keep them pencils moving!!

SSG 69 ARTGASMIC FORCE
Mission: To push our skills to evolve to the point of giving you visual orgasm.
Eon l grenappels l snootchy l Peetaer l bleupencil

[Inversion]

Inspiring Stuff Hala, I hope you pursue your career as an artist. Keep up the great work!!!

[hala]

Jailhouse, thanks! You are right, I definitely need to watch my proportions and be more conscious of it. thank you for pointing that out

Thanks snootchy! You are always a wealth of information, I can't thank you enough

Inversion, thank you! I will never give up--I gave up art for most of highschool, and that was the most miserable time of my life. I'll be pursing and art career till the day I die





Ai ya, well a really crappy update for today. I haven't had much time the past two days to do any studies, so I tried to fit in some 30 sec gesture studies, they are absolute CRAP though. I'm not used to the weird perspective of posemaniacs. At least it is challenging though

I have a question: at the point that I'm at now, is it better to churn out more quantity, or more quality? I have made a goal to churn out more figure studies and drawings monthly, but I'm wondering if all the focus on quantity will take a toll on quality? What is your experience?


And I broke out the oil paints today--to do a simple still life. WIP--just blocking in the colors--I need to change the hue of the red though. it is just not right. ANY ADVICE WELCOME. Oil and acrylic paints have intimidated me for years (though I've gotten a stronger hold on acrylic from churning out 16 paintings a week in art school x___X)

[JailHouseRock2]

I think its good to churn out as much figure drawings as possible. But make sure you spend some more time on things like still life's. So maybe have a longer, more quality based drawing or painting on the go as well as the quick studies.

Oil paintings looking good. And try experimenting with thicker paints as well. Don't be afraid tho try new things with acrylic and oil, there great to learn with!

Keep at it,
matt