The Sketchbook of AdrienneRose

[AdrienneRose]

I am just going to place this here NSFW just in case. And I have started doing some nude gesture drawings. Who knows when better renderings will come about. Just play with caution peeps. lol

Kind of sounds like a horror flick, right? Haha. "The Sketchbook of AdrienneRose"!

I am now editing this to add a little bit of an about me to here.

Looking back, I am no newbie to drawing. In high school I took as many art classes as humanly possible (drawing, painting, photography, pottery), followed that into college. I've taken all basic drawing classes in college as well, and even an architecture class. Not that I am bragging, nor saying that I am actually "good". I think I do have a talent though that can be continuously built upon.

I haven't drawn really since 2010, my architecture class in university. With that being said, I've recently purchased myself a Wacom Bamboo Tablet because I really wanted to create some hand drawn elements for blogs and posters to share with the world. I have a zazzle store that I put some of my stuff I do for fun in, to hopefully make just a couple of bucks, nothing really to write home about. But that's what really made me want to delve into digital drawing. I found a love of using this medium and have been using it every day since I bought it Dec. 27th 2012, this is a big accomplishment for me.

I have worked with pencil, pen, colored pencil, and even dabbled in some acrylics in the past. But I am loving the freedom of digital drawing. I will probably use my physical sketchbook pencil/pen at some point, but I can't guarantee when... Maybe when the shimmer fades from my tablet.

Right now, with this new medium, I am working "back to the basics". Having quite a lot of fun with it. I am even excited to learn some anatomy and stuff like that, and now see the benefits of learning it. When in the past, I was like, MEH whatevers, I am awesome. .

At this moment I am reading Andrew Loomis' book: Figure Drawing for all it's Worth (started Jan 6th, 2013). And am hoping to get through the whole thing, something I haven't done before is read an art book cover to cover... So that's a goal of mine. I hope to edit this first post with each art book that I finish.

Thank you for stopping by! I may add more 'about me' in the future.

I am not 100% sure where I want to go with my drawings. But I definitely want to go more digital. I need to learn my Bamboo, and line drawing, and illustrating.

Attached is my very first digital painting.

[Incinerated]

Hello and welcome to the site may your stay be productive and inspiring.

looks like a good start, keep drawing.

[Staal Sander]

I think traditional vs digital is more of a medium then a style thing. You can easily do both!

Good start here! Be sure to keep at it, and do some studies. Work throught some books by andrew loomis, bridgeman or Hampton if you want to improve figure drawing or learn how to tackle new subjects.

[Cojac]

I think you should draw daily. Like one page per day, constantly and don't give breaks like one week. I don't know your ambitions, but if you want to be a professional illustrator so you should draw more.

[AdrienneRose]

Hey thanks for the comments guys! I appreciate the quick responses and helpful tips!

@Incinerated -- Yes, that is exactly what has been happening the past couple of days! I have been going through MindCandyMan's journey from way back and immediately felt inspired! I hope I can feel the same determination and excitement!

@Staal Sander -- Thank you! And you're probably right about the medium thing! It is very new to me! But, I was enjoying it last night. And I know there are benefits to continuing pen to paper drawing as well! I wish I could afford books right now, but maybe I can find some good ones at the library! And hopefully find some really good stuff online, I am sure it's out there! Haha.

@Cojac -- That's what I am trying to do, draw daily. I am not 100% sure what I want to do with it all. But I really like the idea of developing little graphics to share (I'm into blog designing, a little, among other little graphics). I also would like to be able to make cute designs to put on products and wall art and such. Thanks for your input!

[Black Spot]

Actually I think you should keep with the pencil until you know what you're doing and can draw what you think you're drawing or you're get into bad habits.

PS If you remove your blog link and use the attachment manager, you posts won't go into moderation every time you post - just until you hit critical level.

[AdrienneRose]

Unfortunately I should know what I am doing. I just haven't picked up pen to paper in so long. I am a bit rusty! haha. I understand where you're coming from though. I am having fun working on both for now.

But, what do you mean by "Critical level"? Is that until I have reached a certain number of posts? Also, I did use the attachment manager (the thing to upload photos, correct?), perhaps I did it incorrectly?

EDITED TO ADD: I know where I have been (skill wise) in the past, and I know it's going to take A TON, and I mean TON of work to get back what I've lost. lol. And build some new skills on top of it.

[AdrienneRose]

So I found a pretty neat website that has a 3D skull that you can rotate 180degrees all the way around. And thought that would be perfect to do a little bit of skull studying on. To work on placement and such.

I had a lot of fun working with my tablet today.





I see a LOT that I can improve on, and plan on going to the left with the skull maybe tomorrow. I might need to take a mini break on it and work on something else tomorrow, or both! Though, husband and I plan to do some traveling this weekend, day trips, maybe I will find something fun to draw along the way!

PS. I see that my images are a bit big, I had them at 800x800px, I think next time I will try 600.
PPS. I saw some great threads for "beginner's" works and I think I am going to give some of those a go with my tablet, to really get it down. I am pretty excited. Also the Concept Art 101 post. I am pretty excited to give that stuff a go. At least it will give me something to draw when I cannot come up with something on my own.

[Rhubix]

Unfortunately I should know what I am doing. I just haven't picked up pen to paper in so long. I am a bit rusty! haha. I understand where you're coming from though. I am having fun working on both for now.

When in doubt, always go back to the basics, perspective, form, anatomy, gestures. Carry a sketchbook and draw from life, use a pen so you don't waste time worrying about mistakes or erasing. Erasing is not sketching.
Draw everything, objects, people, animals, plants, machines. Don't leave out hands and feet in your gestures

the best thing about the basics is you don't need to think about what to draw - for perspective studies it doesn't matter, draw some bottles, boxes, grab some bowls and cups from your cupboard and draw those- doesn't matter.

As for the digital / traditional debate. Digital only hurts if you use the program to solve problems for you that aren't available in traditional mediums. Erasing isn't learning- neither is undoing.
The best think I learned in school is your studies don't need to be pretty- they can look terrible, have tonnes of fixes carved over other fixes - but if you learned something form it- it was successful.

Happy sketching! and welcome to CA

P.S - love the raccoon.

[AdrienneRose]

When in doubt, always go back to the basics, perspective, form, anatomy, gestures. Carry a sketchbook and draw from life, use a pen so you don't waste time worrying about mistakes or erasing. Erasing is not sketching.
Draw everything, objects, people, animals, plants, machines. Don't leave out hands and feet in your gestures

the best thing about the basics is you don't need to think about what to draw - for perspective studies it doesn't matter, draw some bottles, boxes, grab some bowls and cups from your cupboard and draw those- doesn't matter.

As for the digital / traditional debate. Digital only hurts if you use the program to solve problems for you that aren't available in traditional mediums. Erasing isn't learning- neither is undoing.
The best think I learned in school is your studies don't need to be pretty- they can look terrible, have tonnes of fixes carved over other fixes - but if you learned something form it- it was successful.

Happy sketching! and welcome to CA

P.S - love the raccoon.

Thanks for the suggestions! I definitely plan on doing some basics stuff as well. I just am having a little of a hard time disciplining myself and not letting myself do some sketches of bodies, I am finding them quite fun with the tablet! Hehe.

Totally agree about the erasing! I should learn to stop. Though, I don't erase too much on my figure drawings lately, but I do know I do SOME. But I quite like how the little scraggly sketches come off the main sketch and make it feel authentic! I think I will work on more layers with darker colors each time so the final can be just the outlining. Still trying to figure out my path on this thing!

Thanks for saying something about my raccoon! They're so cute! I want to draw some more... I will probably be googling some raccoon photos tonight!

Thanks much for stopping by!!

[Rhubix]

Totally agree about the erasing! I should learn to stop. Though, I don't erase too much on my figure drawings lately, but I do know I do SOME. But I quite like how the little scraggly sketches come off the main sketch and make it feel authentic! I think I will work on more layers with darker colors each time so the final can be just the outlining. Still trying to figure out my path on this thing!

This can be one of the dangers of working digitally, if your working in a sketchbook you have to work with your mistakes, and make the best of what you get. With layers you can fix, and fix and fix. Try to keep as few layers as possible and try to utilize the pressure sensitivity of your tablet by using opacity - or go the light to dark route all on one layer - it's harder and harder = learning more

also, it's good to avoid special brushes- for my latest painting I just used the boring old circle brush.

meanwhile, thanks for your super motivating post on my sb I figured I'd answer your question on here,

So when you're developing characters of animals, I have heard that some people pull up some reference photos and try to really memorize it, put it away, and then try to draw from memory to create that sort of fluid animal. Is this how you do it? Or do you already have all these animals in your memory bank?

For this it really depends on what I'm doing. sometimes I'll go to the zoo or something and draw from life- and by sometimes I mean like 4 years ago lol, really should do that again when it warms up. Sometimes I do gestures from online sites or books- just to improve my animal anatomy. With gestures I work from reference about 80% of the time.

If I'm cartooning I'll usually just draw from scratch and refer to reference if I feel lost. Like some of the bird-men I drew I kinda knew what a generic bird beak looked like - but I didn't know what an eagle beak looked like- or owl feet. IN that situation I'll draw a few quick sketches from reference before going back to my cartooning.

For line work -I got my first wacom when I was 15 (first job ftw!) so I've been at it a while. And more recently I've upgraded from an intuos 3 wacom to a big ol Cintiq in post 439 of my sb - which makes it easier.

For improving your wacom line, I usually recommend copying a few mazes from google images (make sure to do some round ones!)and going through them with the pen.
It's a very directed exercise, trying to follow ruled lines in different directions - and you can scale them smaller to make them more difficult.

Happy sketching

[Incinerated]

800x800px is fine just, IMO max width is about 1000px or 1200px across and about 800 or 900 height.

its great to study a skull or anatomy in general, but getting the essentials shape, light and color down is always the best way to practice.

[Incinerated]

800x800px is just fine, IMO max width is about 1000px or 1200px across and about 800 or 900 height.

its great to study a skull or anatomy in general, but getting the essentials shape, light and color down is always the best way to practice.

[AdrienneRose]

So, this digital drawing thing is pretty difficult! I don't hate it or anything, but I feel like I don't really know how anything works. Right now I have the programs SketchBookExpress (free), GIMP, and Photoshop Elements 8 (it came with the tablet). I haven't really tried working with GIMP on the tablet, I should probably give it a go. And PE8, I haven't ever really used before, ever... lol. I have used GIMP for photo editing and some basic design stuff.

Brushes kind of confuse me. Haha, SketchBookExpress (SBE) is pretty easy for me to navigate, so I guess that's why I have been using that program mostly.

Anyway, I have been going over a lot of the "beginner's threads" and found the New Artists Seeking Help Come Here! thread. So I went through it all and copy/pasted all the assignments down, and will be practicing on those.

So here is Topic 1: A page with a cube, cylinder, sphere and cone on it. Picture them as if they are all one the same surface. Then set a light source, say coming from the top right corner. Then focus on the shade and value of thes objects. Including shadows both on themselves and the other objects.


I used blur a lot to try and bring the colors together on the top of the cube, the sphere, and the cone. I used the SBE program, pencil for lining, and then the paintbrush tool. Been a learning experience...
I also wanted to ask, I've forgotten how to show a line... Oh wait, if I had the background grey or darker, I could "erase" where the white should be, to create the line. NEVERMIND. Answered my own question!!

Anyway, I also plan to do some assignments from the Concept Art 101. Cant wait!

If you have any suggestions or tips on where to find some good tutorials on how and what the brushes do, and how to work with them, I would be most thankful!! I'll be experimenting until then!

[AdrienneRose]

So last night I was working on some full body sketches of some weird poses, and yoga poses (I am on Pinterest, and I pinned a bunch of interesting poses there). Anyway... I did three, the first two are totally meh.




So this was the first one I did from this photo, and I thought she was in a really interesting position. I thought I did it more than once, a gesture of her, but... Apparently I forgot to save shame on me.



Then I used this photo for this one, and it turned out okay. So since I was happy, I was moving on to another one.

HOWEVER. My dumb ass... *Sigh* I didn't save as I went (In which, I should know damn well better than that...). I was in the process of saving and WHEN I CLICKED ON SAVE... Fucking SketchBookExpress crashes on me. No where to be found the sketch that I am so excited to share with everyone! Lame.

Husband is going to see if he can work his geeky magic and see if my sketch was saved in any temp files. He's the best, I hope it is because I was really happy with it.

[Incinerated]

I suggest you try doing Yoitisi-Island theres a ton of good shape execises in there

[Staal Sander]

Those skulls and figures look pretty nice! These figures already look a lot better then the early ones.

For the figure drawing, of the books I adviced before Loomis can be read online:
http://www.fineart.sk/photo-referenc...-andrew-loomis

[AdrienneRose]

Thanks for the suggestion Incinerated (Can I call you Mark? lol)! I will definitely look into those assignments!

Thank you so much for the link Staal! I very much appreciate it and will give it a good look-see!! And thanks for the encouragement!




Also, husband took a good look through my computer, and my sketch was no where to be found. Stupid SketchBookExpress for eating my sketch!

[Incinerated]

go ahead, the nickname is getting old anyway.

[AdrienneRose]

Husband and I did some Geocaching today, and all I could think about was coming home and drawing on my bamboo. Man o man, I am hopeless. At least I got my favorite Thai dish out of the venture.

Anyhoot. I came home, and got going with some drawing. I find it pretty fun and relaxing on my tablet. I don't have to worry about smudging up my work with my hand, and then my hand getting all kinds of messy. I think that's my favorite part about it.

I know I should be doing some other things, but I am just having a grand ol' time doing some figure drawing. *le sigh*

Found this great photo to use as reference, and I was pretty excited.


Then, I just had to re-do the sketch that SketchBookExpress ate last night of this photo.


And, while I don't think I got the same reaction out of myself as I did last night. I am still VERY happy with it. Especially after playing around a little and adding a tiny bit of color. hehe


I love the way it looks with the yellow top, like in the photo. Hehe.

Had a ton of fun with these. I think my first or second sketches of the day are pretty rough and basically warm ups. I think I need to find something else to "warm up" on.

[Lucarky]

Hi to you Adrienne and welcome to CA! From the racoon drawings it seems that your line is almost secure and strong. I'd like to see some pencil studies in addition to digital. Some studies on perspective and figure. Go on and never quit drawing!

[AdrienneRose]

Hi to you Adrienne and welcome to CA! From the racoon drawings it seems that your line is almost secure and strong. I'd like to see some pencil studies in addition to digital. Some studies on perspective and figure. Go on and never quit drawing!

Thanks for stopping by Lucarky! I appreciate the advice, I may begrudgingly work with pencil... Soon, maybe... If digital hasn't been so much fun in the last three days that I've had this tablet... Haha. I can't believe I am actually drawing so much. I think the last time I drew so much consecutively was when I was in college! haha.

Definitely working on some back to the basics stuff. I've got all kinds of things going on in my brain, and copy and pasted (assignments) to my notepad. lol. Mostly though, the basics stuff will be digitized because I am learning this brand spankin' new medium. So much to leaaarrrrnnnnn! Thanks again!

[AdrienneRose]

Been trying to work through the "assignments" in some of the threads. To work on my "basics" with my tablet.
This one is Assignment#2 from New Artists Seeking Help Come Here! Thread by Infinitum.

"Topic 2: So the the topic will be to draw a small object from life. Choose something small but interesting such as a watch, mp3 player, memory pen etc. Then put it on a table or similar flat surface and try and draw it as accurately as possible. Keep in mind the skills used and learnt in the last topic."

And then, I got creative and wanted to try adding some block coloring in.


I had a lot of fun with this. But I realize at some points I do get really lazy. Shame on me.

Excited to work on "Assignment #3" working on a clear item. I have a clear blue bottle ready and waiting for me to draw it.



Off topic: Looking back at the skulls I did the other day, it reminds me of when I was doing some blind contours in my Architecture class back in 2010. My teacher would always complain that I used colors (instead of pencil or black marker) to draw these. But I always thought they were way more interesting to see three blind contours of my face, all in different fun and bright colors. I find it way more fun for me, and interesting to use colors instead of plain grey or black. And it makes me like, way happier when I go back and look at them.

[AdrienneRose]

Been trying to work through the "assignments" in some of the threads. To work on my "basics" with my tablet.
This one is Assignment#3 from New Artists Seeking Help Come Here! Thread by Infinitum.

Topic 3: Now that we have drawn solid surfaces I think it would be a good idea if we did a transparent surface.
So, find something made of glass and do as accurate a drawing as possible. Try and include all of the reflections and refractions that you see. It helps not to think of your subject as an object but just a collection of tones and shapes.

So here we go. I firstly wanted to try my blue glass, and I goofed off with it... And tried my hand at "painting it". Hahhahha. What a joke. Well, I thought I would give it a try.


And then on a more serious note, after messing around with the "paint" brush... I tried again... and it... Kind of turned out. I think I will have to give this exercise a few more tries.

[AdrienneRose]

I think I know what you mean Rhubix. That's what I pretty much did on my clear glass thing last night. I actually only used one layer, because I forgot to get a second layer for the actual drawing. Oopsies! lol.

I used the brush last night, I have only SketchBook Express, GIMP and Photoshop Elements 8. I haven't tried drawing with gimp or PSE8 yet... I don't know why, I am like scared or something! Haha. But Sketchbook Express seems to be pretty use friendly but... It has been crashing on me, so that's not cool. I think today, I will give it a go with trusty ol' GIMP.

AH! The ZOO!! I love the zoo. Le sigh. I need to go back to the zoo.

Thanks for stopping by again! I really appreciate it!

[AdrienneRose]

I've been trying to draw a little every day!

31 Dec. 2012 - Skull study.. This one took me about an hour.


1 Jan 2013 - With the help of Pixelovely I tried to do some dogs. I did 10 - 30sec, 4 - 1min, 2 - 5min, and one 11 min. I forgot to save the other gestures.



2Jan2013 - Again, using Pixelovely to work on some human, woman gestures.
This time I remembered to save the short ones!









I think I did a pretty good job in my last 10 min drawing. I feel like the face position was spot on with photograph, and I was pretty proud of that one!

The first 5 min one was pretty difficult, there was a bunch of drapes all... draped over here, and I realize I made her too tall.

I really like that Pixelovely site, it feels like I am really in a classroom. lol.

[AdrienneRose]

Oh goodness, I worked on this drawing for a large part of my day yesterday, and it still... Is not right. lol.
I felt like I could not draw what I could see.

I think I need to go to the eye doc. lol.

Trying to figure out this "painting" thing, and I have been using PSE8 instead of SketchBookExpress (SBE) due to SBE crashing when I am trying to save things. So I said fuck you to SBE.

[AdrienneRose]

Yeah, I forgot to trim it down. And I noticed that my forehead seems too short, and the spot between nose and lips, too long. Boo. But, I was on a roll. lol. I think it looks decent for not having drawn myself in a few years. You should have seen the last one I did when I was in my Architecture class. lol. My eyes were all buggy! I think the eyes are decent on this one. Still practicing with the tablet.

[V3T]

Hey Adrienne, we spoke on FB through the CA page. 'Swaga Mcdaddy' . I thought I would pop in and see your work. Can't wait to see how you progress =]

[AdrienneRose]

Hey Adrienne, we spoke on FB through the CA page. 'Swaga Mcdaddy' . I thought I would pop in and see your work. Can't wait to see how you progress =]

Thanks for stopping by!! I am glad you did!!