Martijn's book

[Lumens]

drawings and an old painting.. i think it was my first try with oils.

[Lumens]

[Lumens]

Lion painting




and simplefied statement, inspired by Nathan Fowkes.




''If you put anything in your drawing that varies from its simplest shapes and values you'd better have a darn good reason.
Variations in shape and value that don't convey form to the viewer
are the first and fastest step to drawings that dont hold together.''

[Lumens]

I've tried grouping the values more in places of interest.
gotta paint something with a better value range next time.

[Lumens]

long study.

[TylerDonnelly]

I love the mood of this last piece! Such a good silhouette!

[pnate]

Oooo cool work! I like your style

[Mr. Toodles]

Making breakthroughs i see :D cool value control dude

[matt_radway]

Wow! Amazing work and studies! I love the demonstration on how Nathan Fowkes influenced you lion study, keep posting:)

[HarbingerofIllRepute]

Damn!
You're really awesome.

[Lumens]

Thanks guys!

I bought a drawing clipboard with toned paper and charcoal pencils.
Its time to stop neglecting my poor drawing skills.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ProkoTV

http://www.youtube.com/user/ronlemen1

Aside from anatomy and proportions, i've lost confidence in my linework when trying to handle the charcoal like your supposed to hold em.

[pnate]

The colors! so beautifullll

[YOLOLEX]

man i love this sb, went thru every page, some incredible color studies :) love the way u r really pushing the edges, but sometimes wish u would include some harder edges. still great work so beautiful cant wait to see what comes next.

[Lumens]

Appreciate it Pnate! you got sweet colors yourself!

Yolo, *giggles* thanks for the heads up, the way i normally manage edges is by starting with hard edges , then soften some up. easier to soften hard edges than starting all soft and making crisp ones IMO anyway. I quess its whatever you'd prefer.

my first mediocore attempt at some charcoal portraits. had a lot of fun though some proportion and anatomy issues. these where not from photo ref but from some youtube demos.

wow..now that i look at them on the screen the second one has insanely stupid mouth, looks like batman level of kissy face.







oh well..off to the drawing board.

[lungcell]

Your eye for beauty is really inspiring :)

[Lumens]

Lungcell, my hand starts to hurt, like really bad from using charcoal :(
so thats it for today.

[Jamesxwu]

Awesome stuff man like the painterly quality of your work

[matt_radway]

<3 ur use of hard vs soft edges :D so nice

Also ur charcoal drawings were so nice they inspired me to pick up some charcoal pencils and give it a shot! Any tips?

[jneumann26]

Last figures are looking sick! so is the Woman in post #148, so rad! Keep at it! How do you get that grain effect you have in some of the pieces in #146?

[Lumens]

James, thanks! you inspired me to use white pencils for highlights.
Matt, sure you can start by looking at some of these: http://www.youtube.com/user/ProkoTV/videos?view=0

http://www.youtube.com/user/ronlemen1 < gesture drawing

I bought this nathan fowkes demo of portraits in charcoal: http://laafa.org/art-classes/nathan-fowk...d-version/ well worth it!

Jneumann, thank you. The grain effect is from using big chunks of charcoal , not the charcoal pencils. use the whole side of the chunk to create all kinds of textures. wipe it with the side of your hand or with a cheap brush to smudge/blend. I used willow charcoal sticks, cut them in half for better handeling.

note they will crumble and leave alot of charcoal dust all over the place.