18 April 2021

I thought it was time for a little update.! Since originally working through this course in Jan-Feb 2021, I’ve kept going with my figure drawing practice and am enjoying it more each day. Not that it's without frustrations, but knowing that I'm inching forward keeps me going through the hard days where nothing works. 

 

Important note: I hope it doesn't seem arrogant to post about feeling happy that I'm making progress. I don't think I'm "all that" or that I'm even good yet.

 

But in my first few weeks of drawing practice, when EVERYTHING seemed impossibly hard, I found it incredibly motivating to see other beginners' "before/after" progress drawings. So I'm posting all this stuff in case it helps someone else stick with it  and get over what Kathy Sierra so aptly calls "the suck threshold." (Book recommendation: "Badass" by Kathy Sierra. You're welcome.)

In any case, here is a selection of my practice drawings from March/April 2021. I have been trying different things, from scribbly semi-blind contour gestures to attempting very basic shadow shapes. I *really* like drawing on big 50x70 cm paper, btw...it's a whole different feeling to stand at an easel with big paper than to hunch over a little A4 sketchbook.

 

 I think it's quite striking what I could do in 10 minutes in February compared to 10 minutes now. And see below...I spent 15 whole minutes on the left-hand figure, but 3 minutes on the one on the right. Neither of them are great drawings, but I much prefer the newer one.

 

 

So far I’m not attempting to do "finished" drawings with detail. I did try one longer drawing (which started as a pan pastel experiment!). I now regret doing it on crappy newsprint! See below:

Setup for the above drawing:

 

Overall I'm still practicing a lot of shorter, rougher, gesture drawings because the gesture and overall feel of the pose is the most important thing to me. Without capturing an accurate (or interestingly exaggerated) gesture, it doesn’t matter how much detail you put in, IMO.

But my end goal is to be able to combine nice gesture with detail like in Brent's beautiful example drawings (I just LOVE your style, Brent!). So my work is cut out for me for some time! But that's OK, I'm enjoying the journey :-)

Here are some examples of the kind of rougher drawings I like to do ATM. 

4-minute gesture - 12 April

 

3 to 5 minute gesture, 2 April (the pose at the bottom gave me a lot of trouble...have to revisit that one!)

 

Who else uses almost every piece of paper that comes into the house for my drawing practice? I know I do...I wanted to try pastels, so I used a huge piece of brown packing paper from Amazon and did this (21 March):

 

The past couple of days I experimented with drawing in a more "contour" style, barely lifting my hand from the paper, and trying to keep my eye on the subject as much as possible. It was a fun exercise! I quite like scribbly gesture drawings when they're done well (Don Gale and Richard Powell are examples of what I mean) so I think it's worth trying to get better at that!

17 April contour - pen

 

3 minute pose (this was REALLY mind bending because of the way she's twisting her torso...

 

5 minute pose, mostly done without lifting my crayon from the paper.

 

So where to go from here?

Reflecting on my last couple of months' practice, it's still a constant battle to overcome my brain’s desire to straighten and stiffen poses. And proportions still knock me for a loop. And at some point, I'm going to have to get to grips with details like hands, feet and faces.

I could also be more methodical and focused. Sometimes I’m amazed at how much you can accomplish if you just slow down and try to force your brain to see what’s actually there! Like, really analyzing every angle and shape as an abstraction.

 

But for some reason that takes an incredible amount of discipline and focus for me...I get seduced by wanting to get marks down on the paper quickly, and then my brain’s prototypes and symbols kind of take over.  I need to put a sign saying SLOW THE EFF DOWN over my drawing board! ;-)

 

And stiffness...oh gosh, I’m on a war against stiffness. It’s to the point that I don’t even want to attempt to draw a pose if it looks stiff to me to begin with. I'm not yet at the stage where I can find something interesting or beautiful in every pose, but hopefully that will come with time.

 

Right now I'm not sure if I should go back and repeat the basic gesture course, or give the volumetric course another try (I previously gave up on that one because it seemed too hard and I was worried about creating bad habits). It's been a few weeks since I tried, and I think with the help of my little mannequin (below) I will be able to get more out of it this time.

 

Armature 9 poseable mannequin

 

It's a recent purchase that I bought to help me make sense of where forms are placed in space relative to the eye level, which is a real struggle for me when working from photos.

 

Good luck with your practicing, everybody! And thanks again to Brent for the great instruction and inspiring examples. 

 

Cheers,

Lori

 

 

******Previous Update*******

 

The title says it all...I knew this was going to be difficult for a drawing beginner like me. But after doing all the projects and practice in Brent's "Art and Science of Drawing" course (which was a mind-bendingly amazing experience, btw.) I wanted to at least give it a try!

Note that I am still practicing foundational skills on easier subjects too...in fact, I'm sure I'll be doing that for years to come. I try to practice my drawing every day since I started Brent's basic course late last year. So far I've only had to miss a couple of days of practice, which I'm pretty proud of :-)

 

Gesture drawing progress - from 19 Jan to 3 Feb.

I started this course on Jan 19, 2021. I initially worked on my ipad because I didn't want to waste paper on my initial scribbles.

 

The video below shows the gesture practice I did on my ipad between 19 Jan and 3 Feb. (After the first couple of days I started doing most of my practice on paper, so there is a lot missing from the video.)

 

 

On 23 Jan I received the sketchbook I ordered to track my progress with figure drawing. I use it take notes and do some of the practice exercises. I also do practice exercises on big paper (cheap tissue paper so I don't have to be afraid to "waste" it on ugly drawings). So below I've put some examples of my practice in chronological order.

 

30s primary action lines - 23 Jan 

 

24-Jan - torso practice and notes for center line 

 

24-01 Torso practice reel

The day I did this I also did my best attempt at drawing a whole figure. It is the “before” in my cover photo above ;-)

 

I hung out on the "center line" and torso practice for a few days...below is from 29 Jan on about a3 paper.

 

31-Jan More center line practice (A4 sketchbook). 

 

31-Jan - Centerline practice and notes for legs

 

From late Jan to early Feb I was going back and forth between centerline, legs, and the upper torso practice. At this stage, I'm still getting overwhelmed when I try to put in too much. For example, if I'm focused on the upper torso, I end up with freaky weird legs. Part of learning a new skill is being able to quickly process more and more details at the same time. So I'm not freaking out about these ugly drawings...I am pretty sure that with more focused practice, they will gradually improve. 

01-Feb.

6-min upper torso practice on A2 paper (overwhelmed by too much to think about).

 

 

Legs practice on 31 Jan (I think it was 3 minute practice, but I came back to this later and wanted to try some shading, since I also practiced shading spheres that day).

 

Upper torso 3 minute practice on 2 February (A4 Sketch book)

 

Example of 3 minute legs on A2 paper from 3 Feb

 

Notes about feet - A4 sketchbook

 

Ooops...I forgot to photograph my feet practice... will update that later. I can say that the first time through I got overwhelmed by trying to put in too much detail in the legs...I need to do it a few more times and just do the feeties :-)

 

I'll finish with my notes from starting to watch the "arms" video last night. I find that taking detailed notes right in my sketchbook is very helpful. I usually do this at night as I'm winding down for bedtime. :-)

 

As I said in the beginning...this stuff is difficult. I am making some spectacularly ugly drawings! But to my eye I can see some improvement, and I know that things that felt really overwhelming in the very beginning seem easier now. And even though it's difficult, I find that I'm really enjoying working on this. 

 

Brent...if you read this...If I'm making a big mistake even attempting this at this stage, I will respect your opinion if you tell me to go back and repeat the basics course again before doing more of this. I don't want to develop bad habits!

 

Cheers,

Lori