First sketchbook(attempt) UPDATED APRIL 2ND

[Dwezz]

Hey everyone, I'm Kevin 19 years old (left handed) and I just love drawing, I just suck at it...
That's why i'm starting a sketchbook , so i can get C&C from people who are actually good at it.
I posted them in chronological order.



This one is inspired by a fellow sketchbooker here on this forum, i hope he/she doesn't mind.(if so, PM and i will put it offline)









Also inspired by a fellow member of this board. But it's the last one.
I know i'm way off with the hips (it's supposed to be a female)












3 times 5 minutes

[Zelaron]

Welcome to CA, or the sketchbook section, anyway.
Anatomy studies are good, I like the arm muscle and bone studies. Just watch the proportions of what you draw a little closer. The hands look very short. Keep studying planes like you're doing in the 2nd sheet from the bottom, they will help you get a better understanding of form and how light falls on it. Keep it up!

[T-Raktor]

Hello, i see u r studying Loomis. Keep drawing the simple things at first, get to the others later. Anyway u r doing good here. Keep drawing and have a positive atitude.

[dmitri]

You seem to be just drawing part by part (that one lady just keeps getting smaller and smaller when looking her from head-to-toe)... Watch out for that. Sketch the whole figure first, then go on into details.

[Dwezz]

@zelaron : thx for the quick response, I will keep your c in mind. I have indeed some serious problems with proportions, i will work on that.

@T-Raktor: Yea, Loomis all the way Thx for the compliment. I will try to keep the positive attitude

@Dmitri : I will keep an eye out for that. thx

[Dwezz]

did this one today, working on another one which i will put online tomorrow

[Chandan]

Hey, good start!

I see you got some loomis and Hogarth in there...good job!
Some points -

-draw from life as much as possible...even if it seems boring
-try to feel the edge of the object you are drawing or image its a road on which you are driving your car...this is just a way to fully "see" the edge
-draw everyday...
-do it now or never
-compare one aspect of your object to another to get the proportions right
-compare angles to each other

Hope that helps!

[Dwezz]

Way off with proportions AGAIN, can't seem to make em right... anyone any tips?

Will update another one later this evening.

[rsnurkle]

Hey just another commenter here, looking good on the studies, keep it up! Chandan's got some good advice to follow, too. For proportions, check out what they have in any anatomy book - they'll probably give a lot of tips: ears/nose line-ups, eye widths, general facial stuff - and after the basics it's going to take a lot of practice on faces (and specific features) from life and reference and at all sorts of angles. Practice! Practice! Practice!

[Madfishmonger]

You're already off to a great start, this part of the process is pretty tedious, but that's why we have the support group Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain has been an enormous help, it's a book I suggest you pick up. If you're having a hard time with faces, get a good picture of someone (National Geographic is great), turn the book upside down, and draw it that way. Force your mind away from thinking about drawing a mouth or an eye, just think about this line in relation to this line, and how far away is it from that line? It saves you from the nasty habit of drawing things the way you think they should be and making them the way they are.
Some nice eyes up there, and keep drawing your hands! Don't forget to date your drawings, so you can go back and see the difference.

[FlatHead]

Nice going. Pick up a good book or two and practice - not much more to say, really

Madfishmonger, I really like that idea. I'll try it out later today.

[Dile_]

or take the buss into the city
( if you dont happend to live central)
anyways, life drawing is my tip.. a good book is also good,
but if you really See what your drawing thats alot better
Keep it up!

[Dwezz]

Thx for the c&c!
Sorry for the lack of updates at the moment, but a big update is planned in 2 days (friday), please come back then!!!

[EKU_11]

The best thing I can say is keep practicing but the work I’ve seen show that you have potential.

[smat-math]

not bad, not bad at all. the only advice I can give you is to draw each day and every time you can. you have a 30 minutes break to eat ? take your lunch , a pencil and your book. try to see why something is made in this way and not in an other. look people around you. If you are in a particular state of emotion, try to draw it. if you are frustrated or relaxe, you will see it. the mind is mysterious and emotions are misunderstood most of the time.

keep like this, you are on the good way.

( I almost forgot: I hope you take a look at mentler's work, it is hallucinating and very instructive )

[LukeTores]

You're off to a good start!
I agree with everyone, especially about drawing from life or good photos. Try looking at conceptart.org's Wiki for nice links to life reference.

I'm left-handed too, hehe.

[Dwezz]

as promised, here's my update






Ok, this one was REALLY bad, but i decided to put it in anyways, it was my first attempt to draw a portret (ref. photo)



This one also sucks, waaaaaay off with proportions (and i do mean way off)
STEROID ARM!!!






This is supposed to be Shakira, photo ref


Did this one today

[Got Lawrence?]

Hey Dwezz, nice to see someone else who's recently started up a sketchbook as well ;-)
anatomy studies look great, some other commentors has said loomis? and something else? i'm assuming these are anatomy books.
Personally, i've found that i progress much more effectively when drawing from life. i suggest that you draw almost exclusively from life for the next week or so to help your mind kinda ajdust to the proportions of the human form. take it from me: this is the hardest part- dedication. just take your sketchbook and draw yourself in a mirror, draw your siblings passed out, draw your pet, draw any figure you can find. i would also suggest you limit yourself to under 5 mins for each sketch- DON't attacch yourself to them- they are simply excercises, not finished pieces. don't be afraid to completely erase and start over. one thing i found helpful for this was to take a cd player or mp3 player (depending on whether or not you have dinero :-)) and start a drawing at the beginning of a song, and try to finish it up within that song or the next (usually 2-5 minutes). do a bunch of them on cheap paper if possible *cuz i know it's hard to "waste" paper in the sketchbooks since they're so freakin expensive when you're a poor student*
this is just my advice to a fellow artist who is also trying to improve his grasp on form/proportion. :-)
hope to see updates

[Dwezz]

@Got Lawrence! : Thanks alot for the tip mate! I was planning to do loads of life studies for some weeks now. I like the mp3 player idea alot! I will try it for sure!

[Madfishmonger]

Your hands are looking great! I'm seeing an improvement, is there anything you're doing differently?
You might want to try the drawing-upside-down trick to get some practice on faces, find a nice picture in a magazine or something and turn it around, draw it that way. Got Lawrence also have some good advice Don't worry about it looking "good", practice is more important than finished results.

[Mitchell]

Glad to see you are usuing hogarth to study. He is a good teacher. Keep with those loomis studies too! He helped me quite a bit. Read about how Loomis does his eyes becuase your eyes are looking a bit flat. You'll improve immensly
keep it up.

[Dwezz]

@Madfishmonger: Thanks, will try the upside down trick asap!
@Skeiff : thanks, i love hogarth too. I will try to work on the eyes! Thanks for the advice

[Dile_]

hey, thx for looking into my little sketchtown
you improving fast to, compare your first picture to the newest!
and like madfishmonger said, your hand looks MUCH better now!

[rsnurkle]

Kudos from another person on your hands! I'd say in your anatomy studies (but don't freak out and try to do this all at once) do take a look at the skeletal system as well as the muscles. On your female nude the waist seems a bit pinched and low, making her ribcage too long. Stuff is looking good, keep it up!

[Sepulverture]

You couldn't have picked a better place to start. Keep it up, man.

[Dwezz]

Here's some stuff i did this week







and here I attempted to draw my girlfriend from life... I'm not happy at all at how it turned out, she's waaaaay cuter in real life. I even doubted if i would put it in my sketchbook. But hey, bad drawings are also drawings.
Could use alot of c&c on this one please!

[ngnorden]

Hi thx for the comment, looking through your stuff and I like the way you captured the leg in scan00387go.jpg, very dynamic. Personally after having gone to a few life drawing sessions I'm starting to dig the way the human form bends and the bending of the shinbone is a fav... heh

[rsnurkle]

It seems like you're still looking at things alright when you go to study - but do make sure to check out you ref for anatomy so you can recognize what parts of the body you are seeing, and are they foreshortened/hidden or what have you. I found that made ears look a lot simpler for me (even if I still don't draw them, I can see them... go figure). On the from life of you girlfriend: do the a portrait multiple times over. Right now I'm having that issue where it's hit or miss to get my portraits looking reasonably like the people they're supposed to be, and I've found things get a little better the more times you try and finish up - you see new things, or modify old stuff that you saw.

But mostly for from-lifes just make sure to draw what you are seeing. In this one,for instance, try taking a closer look at her eyes (you can study your own eyes for that matter, just get a mirror and get up close). They're pretty good on what you submitted, but I'm sure you can find a lot more detail if you study 'em - and if she's your girlfriend I'm sure she won't mind you staring deeply into her eyes... =]

[Madfishmonger]

The smaller studies are looking good, definately more eyes, do more eyes.
With the picture of your girlfriend, I think the issue is with proportion and also that all-too-common mistake of drawing what we think and eye or a nose or a face should look like (left-brain) instead of what it actually looks like. This is where life drawing comes in, and experiments with losing that idea of how things look and learning to see. Pick a feature, say, the eye, draw one eye and measure it with your fingers or the pencil and then use that proportion throughout. So say, her cheek is three eyes long, or her nose is an eye and a half, or something. Hard to explain, not hard to do. The upside-down trick is one of the right-side experiments, give it a try, and keep working

[Jakian]

Nice. It's great that you're studying Loomis. Make sure to apply your studies to something new and different.