I’m a digital whore and I feel bad that I haven’t used a sketchbook in years. TheKingofParody, those are really nice drawings.
Figure drawing is fantastical. I get too impatient and lose focus easily at the sessions but I always love seeing what others are drawing. Be sure to go beyond the skeletal and muscular systems in your anatomy studies. You can really bring it all together by considering the surface anatomy including the fat deposits just underneath. Muscles also never naturally act alone…It’s beneficial to be aware of muscle groups in the figure as it will lead to more life in the drawlings.
I’m currently looking for a camera to show you my work.
I’ll thank ViciousSLASH again for giving me the link to the Loomis books last year. The rules are you can draw anything you want, just keep the mediums graphite or black ink. In the other art forum you’ll notice than no one likes discussing art, in fact no one goes there. This really isn’t intended to be a fan art discussion.
People generally don’t like working with graphite or black ink because its hard for a lot of people to produce decent work without adding colour. If you can’t stick to the rules post your work in one of the other art threads… or just post it in the lounge thread.
Lots and lots of practice. There are exercises to help though. I have a book, I think its called “Drawing with the left side of the Brain” or something like that (its in storage, so I can’t check). If you can find it, pick it up. It covers why sometimes art just flows out and sometimes you can’t come up with anything. It also has a lot of exercises to get your creative juices flowing, and I’ve found they work for me whether I’m drawing, writing music, or doing 3D models or sculpts. My favorite exercise is a simple 1 to 5 minute sketch. Take the hand you don’t draw with and lay it face up beside your medium. Then curl your fingers loosely into a bowl forming some nice wrinkles in you palm. Now, without looking at your medium, attempt to draw those wrinkles with one loose line. Don’t worry about how it looks, but try to make your hand draw lines as your eye sees them. Remember to keep it loose, slow, and relaxed. After doing this exercise for a minute or 2, I find that I am much more creative and I can get ideas out of my head much more easily. I had to do it for 10 or 15 minutes when I first started, but now 1 or 2 is all it takes. I’ve also did it by sketching other objects like grass, ears, wadded up paper… anything with abstract lines you can follow. Sorry for the wall of text, but try it, it just might work for you.
I’d post some art, but I don’t want to break any rules I work in charcoal and digital medium almost exclusively these days and all my sketchbooks are in the states. I’ll go through my hard drive from when I was in art school and see if I can find any graphite studies to share.
I guess I did more with graphite back then than I remembered. Here’s some random assignments, but as I said my preferred medium is charcoal so don’t expect anything spectacular.
This is exactly what this thread is about. If you want to get really good at copying images all you have to do is draw anything you see in magazines, over and over again. If this is what you want to achieve this thread is a waste of your time because learning fundementals would be unnecessary and time consuming. I specifically chose the Graphite and Ink rule because I don’t want people posting old work, and old graphite work always looks rubbish whereas coloured work can still look decent after many years. Hectom is the only person to follow the rules correctly, so here’s another rule, No posting work thats older than 2 months.
Nice! that’s the one. To anyone that reads it… it seems like a bunch of hippy bull shit, but some of the ideas and techniques really do help. The only one I use anymore is the wrinkle contour thing, but maybe some of the others work for someone else.
I’m not gonna start drawing with graphite again to post anything, but I’ll stick around to offer advice where I can. I’ve been a student of art for close to 30 years now and I love sharing knowledge. Maybe I’ll even pick up a thing or 2.
.5 mechanical pencil, doesn’t give me the cool shading and texture. Even with finger and eraser assist. I was getting back into drawing, this will motivate me to do more. at least 3 pieces a week.
This thread caught my eye. As someone who’s been trying to learn to draw for 1 1/2 years, here’s some tips:
there’s a myriad of methods of how to construct the human body; use the methods that make the most sense to you. Loomis, Vilppu, Steve Huston, Michael Hampton, etc. all have their own approaches, but they aren’t the only way. I prefer Ron Lemen’s and Proko’s methods.
learn to draw boxes, cylinders, and organic 3D shapes (look up dynamic sketching with Peter Han). You don’t have to draw it daily, but you should understand how to create objects with depth and three-dimensionality and understand why the exercise is important.
drawing people from life is the most useful tool, you can’t go wrong with it, but it’s not a realistic option for everyone as there aren’t always figure drawing classes with nude models available. Drawing yourself from a mirror works, but it can be challenging logistically. Pictures are good, but there will always be the limiting factor of its two-dimensionality. Action/PVC figures can be good if they are anatomically accurate (most aren’t).
Something that I guess some people would disagree with me here, but copying from other artists isn’t bad, so long as you aren’t blatantly plagiarizing. It’s more meant as an exercise to help you observe, figure out how the original artist came to the finished result, and potentially expand your mental library. Most teachers will tell you to look up art books from the old masters (Da Vinci, Rembrandt, etc) and draw from them. They’re called master studies.
there’s no one way to get to where you want to be as an artist, so discard advice at your discretion (including mine). Just know if you go the beaten path, there’s a lot more pitfalls along the way.
Anyway, I can’t show my work here because I draw mainly with a tablet and most of my drawings are porn. HONK HONK
You’re off to a good start with this piece. Your technique, while held back by the pencil, is pretty good and you show a wide range of values. To take it to the next level, try adding in perspective, both traditional and atmospheric.
Using vanishing points for curved lines can be tricky, but it can be done. Basically you move you VP along the horizon as the line curves. Once you’ve done it a few times, you can freehand curves and have them look accurate.
Atmospheric perspective is how air dissipates light. If you can, get up really high and look at distant mountains. The further away they are, the more the atmosphere alters the colors before they get to your eye. I know this thread is about single color images, but air makes objects lighter and adds a blue tint that intensifys as the object gets further away and the light passes through more air before reaching your eye. For monotone pieces, simply making each “layer” in your sketch lighter than the one in front of it is enough to get a nice illusion of depth.
DaVinci was the first artist to put this idea to use, and he still probably had the best application. Look as some of his landscapes to see what I’m talking about. For an example in a sketch, I tried using atmospheric perspective in the viking boat sketch I posted. The mountains weren’t the focus, but even a hinted at background pulls out your subject and anchors it to the page. I’m sure there are tons of resources available online as well. Try googling atmospheric perspective.
first one was simple enough, and more of shading exercise. the next one was me trying to draw my guitar. I have such a difficult time with curves, I’d figure I need to learn how to do reference points without graph paper so things come out proportionally.
Drew a warm-up sketch of Dr Octopus an hour ago. I was using 3H and F grade graphites. The image looks really faint on camera but it looks fine on paper. I’m using a 15 mega pixel camera so I expected better quality images. Not happy at all at how these images came out even-though I didn’t really expect much. Should I use darker grade pencils?
I haven’t had time to draw anything, and I haven’t studied many art books… but a good technique to help understand shadowing, and to train your brain to draw from sight instead of from “symbol” (what you “think” an object should look like, instead of what your eyes are seeing) is drawing by negative space-- Drawing the space between objects instead of the objects directly. (Most of) the art in the Sin City comic is drawn in negative space to create forms
Just draw anything and post it even if it’s a work in progress. Don’t worry if it doesn’t look great now, you’ll eventually get to that level at some point. I didn’t like the way my sketches turned but you’ll see far better sketches from me next month so I’m not really bothered. Studying art books alone won’t make you a better artist.
I work in charcoal and digital medium almost exclusively these days and all my sketchbooks are in the states. I’ll go through my hard drive from when I was in art school and see if I can find any graphite studies to share.
