Sketchbook Vers. 1.0

**Damien Levs** · September 30th, 2011, 10:04 AM

Hi, I'm Damien and I am 27 years of age. I have sought comfort in the dark corners of this forum for too long now. I wish to begin a fresh journey in development of my skills and technique within art. From this I have formulated a plan on sticking with what areas of art I find most most interesting and those in which I wish to develop. These areas are:

Environment
Portraits
Still Life/Life Study

I will study and work as much as I can and I will update when I have the chance too. Lets begin >>>>>

**Damien Levs** · October 2nd, 2011, 08:29 AM

Approval was required for my sketch thread...now we can begin

**Damien Levs** · October 2nd, 2011, 04:40 PM

Staedtler Mechanical HB 0.5mm....

**Damien Levs** · October 3rd, 2011, 02:17 PM

A life study from today - Learnt that I should be shading across the form. Please correct me if I am wrong.

**Pedro Ferreira** · October 3rd, 2011, 02:31 PM

nice start,the crow looks stunning.
(oh btw,they are all too bright ,try to fix it)

**Vins_2011** · October 4th, 2011, 09:37 AM

hey there! thanks for dropping by my sketch book ! its really good to see that there are people like me who started late..and you are doing really great, i really liked the crow and the boots most ...and your shading skill is way better than mine...i am eager to see more work from you

**Damien Levs** · October 4th, 2011, 03:01 PM

pgf95 Thanks for your comment. It is my scanner that scans like this. I do not recommend a HP Photosmart C4180 for scanning. I am collecting a better scanner from my parents tomorrow. Until then...Just photos for today..

Vins_2011 Hey thanks

It is good to see people here starting out a little late indeed. Lets learn together. I have subscribed to your thread...Those boots are my snowboard boots, which put me in casts from breaking my wrists trying new tricks, Ha...Get my casts removed sometime this month. Wrists are still weak though...drawing will help

Some more Loomis, going to stay at this stage and practice this theory until it's nailed with constructing the head in any position. Last is all observational study. Sorry about the photos....when I get my better scanner, I will rescan and upload all in their relevant places.

**Vins_2011** · October 5th, 2011, 10:54 AM

nice update bro ! everything looks great , keep it up. and i hope your wrists are ok now

**Damien Levs** · October 6th, 2011, 06:41 AM

Vins_2011 Thanks a ton! My wrists are ok, and I will be out of plaster on Monday...I am hoping to get some images of my xrays

I wantto do some studies of them....

Ok, I have updated all previous posts with better scans, now that I have my other scanner. Also here's some work from yesterday. Felt frustrated yesterday, but onwards!!

1st - Loomis exercises from memory
2nd & 3rd - Life study

**Vins_2011** · October 6th, 2011, 07:08 AM

good to hear your wrists are ok now

... and nice updates dude , your portrait drawing is looking really nice also good work with loomi's head study too , keep drawing

**Damien Levs** · October 6th, 2011, 03:45 PM

Vins_2011 Thanks for the support man. I intend to keep drawing

Only had time for this today

It's from a drawing book by Giovanni Civardi. I really admire his style. Thinking I can learn alot from him. More soon...hopefully lots more!

**malachor** · October 6th, 2011, 04:22 PM

Nice work! Your facial proportions are definitely improving

**invisibleberet** · October 6th, 2011, 07:08 PM

I love the details in your work. I especially love that bird upthread.

**mariposa213** · October 7th, 2011, 04:40 AM

Wow, I think you're doing great. I love your crosshatching style. Keep it up! We're all looking forward to more!

**Sushy** · October 7th, 2011, 05:29 AM

Lovely pencil work

**Damien Levs** · October 11th, 2011, 09:10 AM

invisibleberet Thank you

I enjoyed doing that bird. It took a while.
mariposa213 Thank you so much. I like the cross hatching method. I want to gain more control with it.
Sushy Thanks you muchly

I think you have some wonderful work.
caaraa Thanks

Not had chance to do much over the weekend. But here's some from yesterday.

1. A page from Giovanni Civardi book
2. Just for fun. From imagination
3. Quick portrait from life.

More later...

**Vins_2011** · October 11th, 2011, 11:08 AM

i love your hatching style..

really liking the portrait you did in post 9 , your quick portrait from life in recent post is also good but lacks a little bit of solidity or i should say 3 dimensionality may be , and that's something i am struggling with a lot

... looking forward for more work

**Marian Rowling** · October 11th, 2011, 01:45 PM

Hey Damien thanks for your nice comment in my sketchbook. I can see you have good pencil and observation skills and life studies are great for this I think.

You may have run out of time to finish it but I think this last life portrait just needs some darker tone on the shadow side to help turn the form. Great stuff though I look forward to seeing more, especially your wrist x-Ray studies if you get them.

**Damien Levs** · October 12th, 2011, 03:05 PM

Vins_2011 Thanks man, yes, it does look a little flat...I wont correct it but I will bear it in mind for my next one. Cheers

Marian Rowling Thank you so much

for your tip also...we didn't have long, so it was only quick. Although I do believe your right. I will get my xrays on a cd

Hopefully soon. Surely there's something I could do with them

ok...some from yesterday. and a plat around in photoshop today. Looking at Sparth's custom shapes technique. So interesting....more just for fun. But, what's wrong with a little fun occasionally?

1 & 2 - Loomis
3. Screencap study
4 & 5 - Enviro fun

**Vins_2011** · October 12th, 2011, 05:04 PM

awesome update dude! wow your environment fun looks really cool , did u use reference or they are from imagination ?

**Damien Levs** · October 13th, 2011, 09:07 AM

Vins_2011 Thanks man, they were done by using custom shapes. Check out Sparth's Depot...the link is in my first post of this thread. They were entirely from imagination. Just keep laying down shapes until something appears. I really want to get better with environments.

Today's upload. It seems my printer/scanner has died a horrible death, so the drawing is a photo

and I tried some digital painting...sooo hard. So, just lots of practice I guess. Any comments or crits to help me improve is hugely appreciated

Really want to get good with digital paint!!

**Damien Levs** · October 13th, 2011, 01:43 PM

Another paint study from life...
...may have chance to get another one in by the end of today....unsure...I suck at digital painting!!!

**Damien Levs** · October 14th, 2011, 06:25 AM

Ok here we go....onwards and onward. Another enviro for fun. I know I should be using my time to actually learn to paint instead of using custom shapes, but they are so much fun. Also, a digital portrait sketch from life...more later...

**Vins_2011** · October 14th, 2011, 10:33 AM

cool so much new stuff..looks great

.. i checked Sparth's Depot , i must say cool technique , your doing really good with digital painting too, the cup you made looks cool but would have been better if you had made the cast shadow ( i guess)

.. female portrait is also good although need a little bit more value variation to make the form appear .. are you doing skull studies?? coz it would surely help a a lot... you are improving really fast keep up the good work

**Damien Levs** · October 14th, 2011, 11:31 AM

Vins_2011 Thanks for your continual support! I will do some skull studies. Be nice if I could get a life size model or something so I can do it from life. But I will try some skull studies next. Cheers.

Another update from today, digital paint from life. I spent the best part of 3 hours on this. Digi painting feels so slow. But enjoying my time with it...

**Damien Levs** · October 17th, 2011, 05:48 PM

Only 3 studies from today...there done from photos. About 1 hour each....I think I'll hit some skull studies tomorrow...more then...I do want portraiture to be my main priority right now...

**Vins_2011** · October 18th, 2011, 11:48 AM

nice nice nice

, you'r getting better at Digital painting too ...

**Damien Levs** · October 18th, 2011, 01:45 PM

Vins_2011 Cheers. Digital is what I want to get good with, along with pencils. They seem to go hand in hand. Bullets and guns, so to speak.

Here's that skull study I promised...fairly happy with it, but with a little dissatisfaction. It took around 2.5/3 hours to do. Found it very hard work to be honest.

**bish0p2004** · October 18th, 2011, 02:25 PM

Thanks for stopping by my sketchbook. Your art looks really good so far. I especially like your environments. I can feel the depth in them...something I haven't been able to achieve yet.

Great head studies as well and I really like the skull.

**Damien Levs** · October 20th, 2011, 04:13 PM

bish0p2004 Thanks for stopping by too! Man, I do like your work. My environments need so much practice. I guess I need to start working with perspective and real world studies, as I just throw down shapes and see what happens. I need to learn how to paint properly first instead of using customs. But thanks.

Today I purchased Zhang Lu's Portrait vid from TAD. Man, so glad I did. Totally insightful and inspirational. The Pro's make it look so easy. However, I really like the method of how he builds up his values. So, I thought I'd give it a try. Here's my first attempt with that method from an earlier sketch. I really want to get confident with pushing those values further. A lot further. More to come...I will keep working and learning what I can!!!

Gona go listen to that video again, and try again...

EDIT: Yay Page 2!!

Thread: Sketchbook Vers. 1.0

Thread Tools

Display