sketchbook journey

[glutamat]

Hi,

I´ve created this thread to push myself in getting better at drawing and painting. I will try to post each day from now on and would appreciate any kind of crit or comment very much. Thanks for dropping by...now let´s start!

[glutamat]

okay first off some ball-pen studies of birds I did from photo reference. Normally I am more into pencils but for quick studies and sketches I prefer the pen.

[glutamat]

some studies from bridgman´s constructive anatomy...

[glutamat]

some gestures done from http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/figuredrawing.php

I need to get a deeper understanding of anatomy, therefore I´ll continue copying bridgman and vanderpoel. I am also visiting a studio, that´s lead by a russian couple, once a week. The guy told me to read bammes and also have a look at the drawings of jeno barcsay.

[glutamat]

again, some more bridgman stuff...What are you doing to improve your anatomical skills?

[glutamat]

gestures...

[Rhubix]

Very solid clean stuff in here!
Best advice I can give is to draw the whole gesture- don't skimp on hands and feet, in the long run you'll be glad you did , right now your getting about half of them.
at times your stuff is a little stiff, but over all there's good weight and volume in there
Happy sketching!!

[p sage]

It's really good that you're drawing a lot; it's a great attitude, and your studies look fine.

A word of caution about jumping in to a new sketchbook and then psyching yourself up with words like "journey" and "post every day"--

"Journey" seems to be a word that some artist students use to convince themselves to stop procrastinating. If you have to convince yourself to start drawing, your drive is temporary and you will lose interest.

"Post every day" is the same kind of thing; you shouldn't have to psych yourself up to post... you shouldn't even have to psych yourself up to draw. The fire should burn within you.

Something I found that re-lit my fire after years of having it be buried under so much disappointment and failure was drawing in a simple sketchbook-- little doodles for me myself and nobody else.

There is no pressure to make them good; just sit down and get the pencil moving. Don't have any ideas? Sketch a line. See where the line takes you. Maybe another line joins it... does it look like anything? Ideas will flow as long as you are not brain dead.

The fire is stoked by good instruction; seek out understanding (like you're doing with studies), but keep looking in all directions--not just anatomy. Find Ron Lemen's free tuts (and the ones to buy as well)... he's very very good.

Anyhow... just get your inner fire going and you won't need a "journey" or "post every day". Good luck dude!

[glutamat]

hey guys thanks for the replies, I`m gonna check what ron lemens gotta say.

s-page; yeah I can definitely understand what you mean. But at the moment I feel the need to get things going. Maybe I should call it "odyssey"?

[glutamat]

...bridgman...

[glutamat]

some more gestures....this time I tried to give more attention to the hands and feet, as long as they fitted into the frame

[glutamat]

Some quick b/w studies of screenshots from movies. I shared them a while ago, but thought they`d fit better in here.

[glutamat]

more bridgman.....I know that just copying these wont make me a better artist, but somehow it makes me more confident. I´m attending life drawing tomorrow evening, hope I can put some of the stuff I copied into my own drawings. Otherwise I´ll still do gestures and stuff. What else can you recommend to improve...?

[glutamat]

monet copy I painted some weeks ago. I painted oil over an acrylic underpainting.

[glutamat]

and some charcoal studies, sargent, vanderpoel and hogarth...did these also some weeks ago

[glutamat]

hey guys, here are the results of yesterdays life-drawing group. And also some more bridgman stuff. I am still trying to understand how the arm and it´s muscles fit together and work.

[glutamat]

some more quick studies from http://www.pixelovely.com/
I think they´re coming along more fluently than the first one´s I´ve posted...

[glutamat]

and some more bridgman studies about the arm....

[p sage]

Whoa, holy smokes. You're out to show me wrong, aren't you?

Great drive. Keep it going.

more bridgman.....I know that just copying these wont make me a better artist, but somehow it makes me more confident.... What else can you recommend to improve...?

Bridgman's anatomy stuff is all well and good; but something even better lurks in his pages.

FORM

It's simpler, and presented more subtly.

See all the figures he draws in his book? Beside each, he draws the simplified forms, in a different pose. THAT is worth more than any of his anatomy drawings, IMO.

Why? Because those are the BIG shapes (anatomy is the smaller shapes) and big shapes rule over little shapes.

Start seeking out shapes in all Bridgman and anybody else's work you can find that is good. Bridgman is actually easier to study that way. He's a good jumping off point for further study of form.

I'm currently studying the hell out of form and it's making a huge difference.

Anatomy is a detail best saved for later. You will understand it better when you have FORM in the bag.


EDIT TO ADD: When doing life drawing, look for the big shapes first. Close your eyes and barely open them until you can just see large chunks of color... the silhouette of your subject. Try hard to see large shapes (3D shapes if possible). This will help.

[glutamat]

Thanks for dropping by again p sage. I´ve had a look at your sketchbook and I have to admit that you´re a psych by yourself Just kidding. Keep up the good work and keep disciplined.

yeah, your right about the big shapes, general to specific, isn´t it. Do you know the book written by anthony rider? He´s explaining this process quite well. First he creates an overall envelope consisting of 5 lines maximum that surrounds the figure; than breaks them down into a general block in and from that he creates the contour ( or is it ouline).

Today I finished the last bridgman pages about the arm; now I think I gonna spend some time with drawing the head and the face. Hogarth is a great help for that, at least in my opinion. The main goal is to draw heads and faces from my mind. After working my way through this it´s time for some drawings I make by myself...so there will finally be something for you guys to be criticized

[glutamat]

okay, so here are the first pages of hogarths "drawing the human head" and a jeno barcsay study...

[fenixx]

Welcome to CA. Got a great start... and really loving the approach of your anatomy studies !! I recommend Loomis books too... I feel the head breakdown in his books are better than Hogarth.

Keep drawing

[glutamat]

hey fenixx, thanks...I am going to have a look at loomis.

[glutamat]

another one

[glutamat]

hogarth and vanderpoel....

[glutamat]

more hogarth stuff and a sargent portrait...

[glutamat]

almost halfway through the hogarth stuff, gonna post some own studies tomorrow...

[glutamat]

okay some more hogarth and some heads I´ve drawn from my mind...

[glutamat]

hogarth

[glutamat]

did some head studies today and although I got more confident with each head I encountered some tremendous struggle with certain parts of the face. Especially the eyes ....I will move on with studying hogarth and after that I switch to loomis. On my way I keep doing these drawings to manifest what I´ve learned so far. Any suggestions would be nice