Middle aged madness: First signs

[crisimikiwiki]

Really nice work, your improvement is extremely evident. Nice one my friend, keep it up

[AeonPhoenix]

Keep it up sir. And drop by my SB sometime

[Marian Rowling]

Istmin52: Hey Ian, good of you to pop in again. You know I appreciate your feedback. I've had little free time lately so I must catch up with your sketchbook as soon as I can.

ThomasM: Hey, hey Tom I think we could write my fundamental knowledge of painting on a postage stamp! So much to learn and so little time. Thanks so much for the links I'm sure I will find them useful. Hope all goes well with your TAD studies.

llex_paul: Hey Alexandrescu thanks so much for your feedback. I'm sorry I don't understand what you mean by 'knife pallet fell!'.

crisimikiwiki: Hey crisi miki wiki thanks so much for your encouragement it is always good to know that others can see some improvement.

AeonPhoenix: Hey Aeon I will indeed 'keep it up'. I always like to visit everyone's sketchbook who is kind enough to comment in mine. So as soon as I get some more free time I will drop in on yours.





Lavender Hill - Term 2
14.1.13

This week my goal was to achieve just 3 values. Dark, light and a mid tone. I struggled to get my proportions right with this cast and so ended up with not much time to work on the rendering. I am still finding it quite difficult to get even tones so I didn't really achieve goal. Luckily for me I can have another go next week.

[karantina]

hello marian how are you?

you are working very hard. anatomy studies are so nice . please care ! they seem so blur. why? I like to see your progress

[Marian Rowling]

karantina: Hey karantina all goes well with me. Thanks for asking and stopping by. I am sorry but I am not to sure what you mean by them seem blurred? Sometimes I have to take the photos hand held in low light and I can't always get a clear image.


Life Drawing - Term 11
16.1.12

Started another new term of life drawing and felt very rusty after the Christmas break. As always I have much to work on so it is good to be back and drawing.


5 min


40 min



35 min. I really liked this pose but it was difficult to work out what was going on with the head. When I got home I realised I should have thought of it like a cylinder hanging down from the neck.

[Marian Rowling]

Art Class:

Here are a couple of dodgy live demo's I did for one of my students. I really enjoy doing these to try to help them understand but I had a good laugh when I got home and looked at the shocking ellipses I had drawn on the bottles and the wonky sides! I made a note to myself that I need to practice drawing bottles more myself and work on those ellipses.



If anyone is wondering about the odd composition here I have set it up for my student and so I am drawing from the side, not a good angle.


Trying to demonstrate how to start of the drawing and block in the basic shapes with a focus on proportion.

[Marian Rowling]

Lavender Hill - Term 2
21.1.13

Still trying to get my proportions right and struggling this week with the size of the head. Too big on the warm up drawing and my teacher said a little too small on the final drawing. Things went much better with the rendering this week though and I really pushed myself to work quicker. Heads aside I was quite pleased with this weeks effort.

[Marian Rowling]

Life Drawing - Term 11
23.1.13

Unfortunately our model didn't turn up this week, possibly due to the snowy weather. Our teacher kindly sat for us which was fun. I couldn't resist the urge to do a portrait and was quite please with how quickly I had worked on the 20 min poses and dealt with the foreshortening. I found it easy to see the shadows on the clothes. Still so eager to do more and improve.......I am a self confessed 'art junkie'.


15 mins each


20 mins


20 mins

[Marian Rowling]

Lavender Hill - Term 2
28.1.12

This was my first time drawing from a head cast and I found it a lot harder than I thought I would. Mainly because all the shapes are self contained within the head shape and unlike a figure there isn't so many points and angles to gauge from. Also we are all so familiar with looking at heads so any errors stand out. I had quite a few proportional errors in my warm up drawing and my teacher also suggested I should have included the plinth that the head was on. I had already started my main drawing, but if I get to draw it again I will do as he suggests.

I did feel more comfortable with working the charcoal this week and I am slowly beginning to be able to see the shadow shapes and think about what is light, dark and half tone.

[ninaren]

really great work since last time i visited.

[Marian Rowling]

ninaren: Hey Nina thanks so much for the feedback. It is always great to know what other artists think. Much appreciated.


Sketchbook:

Here is what I've been sketching this year. The sketchbook I am using isn't the best as it was a cheap one I brought when I first started drawing. Tends to be too rough and the pages smudge a lot so sorry about the poor quality on these. I did a self portrait to start the New Year which ended up with me looking very 'pouty', possibly due to the fact that I was laying down on the sofa drawing with a cushion on my lap and a mirror on top, lazy drawing!

All these are from life unless otherwise stated and I have been focusing on trying to improve my ellipses lately and my rendering.






From photo refs


Portrait from photo ref

[Marian Rowling]

Life Drawing - Term 11
30.1.13

Class went quite well this week and I was pleased with how the standing pose was going. The seated pose was much more challenging for me due to the out stretched arm which I have ended up drawing too long I think, but I was pleased to be able to get the leg proportions and foreshortening looking right.


5 min


45 min - UPDATE 6.3.13 - I was really pleased today to find out that the model liked this drawing and used it on his business cards.


40 min

[Marian Rowling]

Life Drawing - Term 11
6.2.13

So a very challenging class this week as we mainly focused on one long pose done in two 45 min sessions. This weeks model is not the best at all for staying very still and constantly moves to different positions. I remember that this used to really throw me when I first started drawing but now I try to draw from memory how the model first was rather than keep redrawing as I used to do. I still don't have the knowledge or skill to remember everything but I thought this wasn't a bad attempt. I tend to think the torso is too thick and the bent knee is too long. Also wasn't quite sure how best to render the background to get a good composition with this one.


5 min gestures


2 x 45 min sessions

[Marian Rowling]

Lavender Hill - Term 2
11.2.13

Unfortunately I was sick all of last week and the only drawing I did was at life drawing class so I felt very rusty tonight. I started early with a warm up drawing to try to get back into it. I find this foot cast really tricky to draw and render and it kept feeling like I had the shapes all wrong. Stuck with it though and kept trying and I did manage to make it look better. My teacher came along and softened all my edges again and brushed some light tone over the big toe with his finger which instantly made it look like the toe was behind the joint. Although I find these so hard to do I am still really enjoying them.

[Marian Rowling]

Life Drawing - Term 11
13.2.13

I felt my first couple of gestures this week were terrible, but then I did one I actually liked, so maybe there is hope with these after all ........hehehehe The first standing pose had very subtle movement which was difficult to get right, and looking at it now the head seems a bit too small. The last pose was great and it felt like the model should be in a gondola! The proportions are about right but it doesn't feel right, a bit stiff and not as dynamic as it looked. I was struggling to see the light and the dark so I shall have to just keep going to class to practice more as I'm sure I can improve and do better than this.


5 min gestures


40 min


40 min

[golgonooza]

Nice work Marian. I stopped my life drawing class a while back because I felt like I was treading water with it, but I miss drawing from life, there's nothing quite like it.

[Marian Rowling]

golgonooza: Hey Matthew thanks so much for the feedback. I know that feeling of treading water as my progress is so slow! That said though I would go to life drawing everyday if I could afford it. I hope you get back to it soon and start a sketchbook here, it's a great way to see your own progress and get wider feedback.



Life Drawing - Term 11
20.2.13

It's actually half term this week but we had a class to make up for the week that the model didn't turn up. There was only myself and two other students so after the initial gestures to warm up we did a couple of shorter poses. They were supposed to be 10 mins but one of the other students kept asking for more time so they ended up being 15 mins. I tried to use the direct drawing approach on them that I learnt when I did the Henry Yan course.


5 min gestures.



15 mins each




35 mins. My teacher was discussing the difference between my approaches with this method and the direct drawing approach, so I ended up rushing this as I liked the pose and wanted to capture it and get an idea of the lighting. I think I ended up getting it a bit wrong the proportions, especially the shoulder on the right is too wide and that whole side just isn't quite right. The rendering still needed a lot of work but I did focus on trying to get the breasts looking reasonable as drawing breasts is a weakness of mine, despite being of the fairer sex I haven't a clue how to approach them!

[Marian Rowling]

Lavender Hill - Term 2
25.2.13

I felt quite rusty after having the half term break so I started off doing a warm up before going into my final drawing. I really struggled to work out the outstretched arm and also the hip area above the lower leg on the left. So it took me quite a while to get my drawing and shadow shapes done, but I did feel I had a strong drawing at that stage which captured the movement of the gesture and the out stretched arm. My teacher said I had got the overall proportions too wide but that overall I had done a good drawing. So I was pleased with that, especially after the week off and not really having done as much drawing as I would like.

[Marian Rowling]

Nazre: Wow Nazre thank you for your very kind words. I'm glad you have found some useful information, it's always great to be able to help others. I hope one day I will become a great painter.


Life Drawing - Term 11
27.2.13

I am starting to feel that I have a process for the start of my longer poses now and that I am getting more consistent with the proportions. I'm still finding it hard to see the dark and the light as we have multiple ceiling lights at this class so I still have a lot to do with this stage, but as always it feels good to be pushing to get to that next level.




5 min gestures.



40 min pose.
I feel the torso is a bit too wide on this one, and looking at it now I wish I could check again the size of the feet and hand. I really struggled to understand and draw the shapes of the out stretched arm and hand. All in all though happy with how this one was going.



30 min pose.
Not sure about the length of the out stretched leg, feels to long and the foot looks too small. Happy with the foreshortened leg and the torso.

[p sage]

Hi Marian


Nice work, again! RE: Torso width... a good rule of thumb for front-view is a torso should be about two head-widths wide. It looks like you got it pretty close in that one you're talking about.

[Marian Rowling]

p sage: Hey Chad good of you to stop by. Thanks for the help I having been baring it in mind when I go to class and checking when I get stuck.


Lavender Hill - Term 2
4.3.13

I started to do a warm up of a hand cast this week, which I found very challenging. Then I was asked to move round to the life drawing side of the studio and I felt like a little kid being moved up to big school. It's funny how something different quickly throws you of your game and I really struggled. All good experience though especially as the other students were painting you get to absorb a lot of good information.






My teacher Ann drew over the left hand image to show me how to get more movement into the drawing by exaggerating the angles of the head, shoulders, hips and legs.

[Marian Rowling]

Life Drawing - Term 11
6.3.13




5 min gestures.



40 min pose.



35 min pose.

[Marian Rowling]

Lavender Hill - Term 2
11.3.13

Having found the hand cast challenging the other week I decided to have another go. This pose totally perplexed me for the whole lesson that I never made it onto white paper. The small drawing on the bottom left is my teachers Nick demo and on the right my teacher Joni's demo. I also had help from my teacher Scott so I was pleased to finally get at least the basic shape and proportions right in the end. I really need to do a lot more of these kind of studies to speed up.

[Marian Rowling]

Life Drawing - Term 11
13.3.13




5 min gestures.




45 min pose.




35 min pose.
I got this one a bit wrong. The front knee should align with the stomach, so the legs are too far forward. Also the torso does look weird but time ran out before I could try to fix it. Definitely got the wrong start with this one though, great poses to draw though.

[Marian Rowling]

Lavender Hill - Term 2
16.3.13

I joined this Saturdays class as I missed a class when I was ill a few weeks back. Daisy was taking the class today and there were a lot less students then Monday nights. There was a really relaxed feeling and I had a good time. Daisy told me to just put in line for the brow and the bottom of the eyes first and to ignore all the detail. Then lines to indicate the bottom of the nose and bottom of the top lip and shadow under the bottom lip. Ann also popped in and pointed out that I had the depth of the top lip and shadow under the nose too thin and to just simplify the eyes by putting in a bit of tone looking at the whole shape of the eye that the skull makes.

[Marian Rowling]

W.I.P. Study - 17.3.13

I noticed recently that despite being female my understanding of drawing women's breasts is not good at all. So I've been working on this from a photo ref to get a better grasp. I also want to get some more experience drawing on the cartridge paper I use at life drawing class so I can get a better idea of rendering with willow, compressed charcoal and carbon pencils. Not really looking to do a masterpiece but I did want to get to a fairly finished look.

I think I could do more with this, not too happy with the face and I haven't finished the fabric yet. So if I get time I may come back to it. The photo ref is from here http://www.freshdesigner.com/figure-drawing-reference/ by Marcus Ranum http://www.ranum.com/fun/lens_work/index.html

[kevinwueste]

Great things here recently Marian! I do believe that the more consistent, predictable and repeatable your drawing process is ( I know, it doesn't sound very "artful"!) - the better your drawings will be and the faster you will improve!

Cheers,

Kevin

[Marian Rowling]

kevinwueste: Hey Kevin, lovely to hear from you. Thanks so much for your feedback, that is good to know. It has taken me quite a long time to find my own process and I am still struggling once I get to the rendering stage but I do feel that I am becoming more consistent, so I shall stick at it.


Lavender Hill - Term 2
18.3.13

So it's the end of term again, they fly by so quick. I had another go at drawing on the life side of the class and tried to be much bolder drawing straight onto the white paper and just going for it. I was quite pleased with this effort although it has proportional errors. I started off with the head too small which my teacher pointed out and then later they picked up on the head still being a bit too small and the legs too long.

As I had gone so far with the rendering I decided to leave the errors. Although I feel the forearm seems too long I couldn't really see the other errors as my teacher could, so it will be a good drawing to look back at in a few months time, when hopefully those errors will leap of the page for me. Of course I'm already looking forward to next term.

[Black Spot]

What a delightful SB you have here. I had to read every page and enjoyed all of it. Love the improvement you're getting and the hard work you're putting in.

[Marian Rowling]

Black Spot: Hey Black Spot what a lovely thing to say and thank you so much for taking the time to read every page! I felt the same when reading your sketchbook and I hope you will be going to the Conceptart.org London workshop and that we might get the chance to meet up.



Life Drawing - Term 11
20.3.13


5 min gestures.


45 min pose.
I knew from my angle that this would make the model look like an amputee but I couldn't resist the challenge. It didn't end up to well but it's all good practice.


35 min pose.
Happier with the drawing on this one but not to happy with my rendering. My teacher said I should try to keep the rendering blocky more like my drawing style. Not really sure how to do that yet, so I shall have to keep trying.