Peter's Sketchbook

[darktiste]

If i had a question for you is what are you trying to achieve exactly i see you do alot of study but i don't see alot of direction or exploration beyond that.It one thing to like to draw it an other to draw what you really like.I think you need a bit more of creative exploration and personal project but that my opinion.Seriously sometime the only thing you need to do is step out of your confort zone.Alot of people fall into the my study is my work but there not really injecting any personality into there work.

[Tristan Berndt]

How married are you to the specific techniques used at watts?
Your figurative work seem to have some consistent issues that I think are a byproduct of the kind of vague and modern approach Watts pushes on their students. I think with a more traditional and analytical approach to drawing, these issues would quickly melt away and you'd easily be able to self correct your own work. I don't mean to convert you to a ultra traditional way of drawing or anything, just that maybe some experience in a stricter manner of drawing could help give you greater control when you're using more experimental techniques.

[Peter]

If i had a question for you is what are you trying to achieve exactly i see you do alot of study but i don't see alot of direction or exploration beyond that.It one thing to like to draw it an other to draw what you really like.I think you need a bit more of creative exploration and personal project but that my opinion.Seriously sometime the only thing you need to do is step out of your confort zone.Alot of people fall into the my study is my work but there not really injecting any personality into there work.

not a problem darktiste, my main goals are book illustration and poster design, both being heavily figurative based I wanted to get really competent in drawing the figure before tackling finished work. I asked Jeff this same question as I didn't feel ready with my current set of skills to do the type of work that I want to do and he told me to work on my fundamentals, get really good at them first before exploring personal work so that's what I've been doing the past year.

I do hear where you are coming from, I asked Erik for his opinion on practicing and he tlaked about the 20% rule where 20% of your time should be devoted to personal work of sorts so I'm going to force myself to stick to it and force myself out of my comfort zone.

[Peter]

How married are you to the specific techniques used at watts?
Your figurative work seem to have some consistent issues that I think are a byproduct of the kind of vague and modern approach Watts pushes on their students. I think with a more traditional and analytical approach to drawing, these issues would quickly melt away and you'd easily be able to self correct your own work. I don't mean to convert you to a ultra traditional way of drawing or anything, just that maybe some experience in a stricter manner of drawing could help give you greater control when you're using more experimental techniques.

I'm open to other approaches of working, mainly stuck with Watts as their way of working lends itself to ilustration and imaginative work which is what I wnat to do ultimately.

What kind of training would you suggest? Are you talking following an Atelier approach of cast drawing and spending alot of hours on a single piece or something like sight sized?

[Peter]

Fell of the posting wagon so to speak and mainly been playing catch up with taking photos of my work the past 2 weeks. Not sure if I will post everything due to the amount but we'll see.

Mainly been working through Proko's Antomy courses (again). My original plan was to have 1 day a week to work on anatomy and the rest of the week I'd work on different aspects of figure drawing but now I'm thinking of just purely focusing on anatomy for a few weeks and try and get to a basic understanding of all the muscles and go from there.

Anatomy

Started at the beginning with the pecs, going to stick to how Porko has the videos layed out.

Tracing






Corrections






Invention






Corrections






Drawing




Quick Sketch

I'm making sure I do atleast 3 hours of quicksketch a week like a regualr Watts class. These are a mix of drawings from photo ref and drawing from Erik's quicksketch drawings.






Life Class









Sketchbook

Some pec invention and a quick figure from imagination. Still not sure how to approach figure invention, I try and think of a pose but it always comes out weird looking. Not sure if I'm best just focusing on specific actions like "standing" or "sitting" and do a bucn hof fig invention trying to come up with as many different ways to show those "actions" as possible?





Watts

Week 5 h/w. Still find standing poses tough. Seem to struggle more here with proportions and measuring. Only realised afterwards I drew his left leg too short, I forgot to correct my inital measurement.





Spoke with Erik regarding a practice schedule and what he normally reccommends to students. He talked about the 80/20 rule. 80% of your time should be studying and 20% should be personal work of some sort whether it be a finished piece or just drawing in a sketchbook. i'm going to change my schedule to match his. I have an old poster idea that I started work on so I'm going to try and improve it and finish it.

New schedule will be 3 weeks of studying and 1 week of personal work. Atm I'm just going to focus on poster design and hold off on book illustration until I have more painting experience.

[Peter]

Some more work from this week.

Portrait Class

Decided to do a head drawing this week rather than a drapery study so I don't get rusty. Thought I'd be able to get a finished (or somewhat finished) drawing but had alot of problems with her proportions, mainly the width so this is actually my second drawing and even then I'm not happy with the proportions. Gonna try and work slightly smaller and see if
that helps.




Life Class

Completely cucked the drawing up, think I was working too quick and not checking my plumb lines properly, had to abandon finishing the head as she changed her head position completely. Still want to use these 40 min poses to work on my lay-ins and work on my speediness.




They've started doing single posed classes on Wednesdays. It's a single pose for 3 weeks and each week is a 3 hour class (9 in total). Want to use these classes to work on my painting skills but for this first 3 week block I want to get a fully rendered drawing finished as I never get the chance from life, so first 2 weeks will be drawing and the final week I'm gonna do a monochromatic underpainting.




Anatomy

Some more pec invention and corrections and then before moving on I decided to give the assignment another go to see if I truly understood it.

Invention






Corrections






2nd Attempt




Live Streaming

long overdue but here are the corrections from Erik for the past few weeks.










Here's the poster design I talked about in my last post. Not sure how these 3 week classes are gonna go, there might be a break inbetween or it might be continuous with a new model but once this first class is complete (so in 2 weeks time) I'll spend a week completeting this personal piece.




Gonna keep the same design but redraw the image using what I've learnt since to hopefully make it look better then prob do a notan study to work out how I will be inking this along with a colour study limiting myself to oly a few colours since it's meant to be screen printed, and go from there.

Note.

Forgot to mention that I've signed up for some short courses at the Edinburgh Atelier in August, an academic drawing course and a colour mixing course so hopefully that will be insightful. If I like it ten I'm prob goiong to arrnage another trip up there next year.

[Peter]

Quick update for the past week.

Still mainly focusing on improving my figure drawing. The 3 week posed class I'm currently taking ends this week and there is a 1 week break until the next 3 week pose starts so i'm gonna spend all of next week working on the poster idea in my last update and get that to a nice finish. Works perfectly with my schedule of 3 weeks studying and 1 week persoanl work :)

Life Drawing

Finished the figure drawing from the 3 week class. Had abit of trouble as the model kept fidgeting, just need to darken some areas to finish it off.






Figure work from the usual life class. Wasn't having a good night as I was having trouble concentrating. Not stressing as much now over my quicksketch skills as I know it's going to be a slow process of improving. I've already gotten abit quicker in drawing overall which I'm pleased with so I know I'm heading in the right direction.




Portrait Class

Still have some difficulty with the portrait class, I think it's becuase I'm working much bigger since a head here is taking up most of the page where as with a figure drawing it's quite small. Mainly a proportion issue I'm having from wokring so big but I'm actually starting to get into rendering in the time frame alotted which is cool.




Anatomy

Decided to leave the body for now since my main problem areas are arms and legs. Starting with the bones of the arm and will make my way through the muscles.

Attempts












Proko Trace Overs












Attempt 2




Live Streaming

Week 6




Crit




Week 7

[darktiste]

My biggest concern is the porportion.I think you might be suffering from impatience and visual measuring problem.I can see some corner being cut.For example try to observe how you over simply the leg by indicating the bone instead of actually looking at the silhouette.My advise would be to create a solid shape first and than build on it.I know you probably limit your time on those so it understandable that you rush toward a finish but remember that a solid base will probably accelerate you more than any rendering would ever.

One problem i see and that a recuring problem i see in other artist is that we unconsciously show more of the side of the face away from us when doing view of the head that not a profile or full on view.

I hope you find this critic to be of any use.

[Peter]

My biggest concern is the porportion.I think you might be suffering from impatience and visual measuring problem.I can see some corner being cut.For example try to observe how you over simply the leg by indicating the bone instead of actually looking at the silhouette.My advise would be to create a solid shape first and than build on it.I know you probably limit your time on those so it understandable that you rush toward a finish but remember that a solid base will probably accelerate you more than any rendering would ever.

One problem i see and that a recuring problem i see in other artist is that we unconsciously show more of the side of the face away from us when doing view of the head that not a profile or full on view.

I hope you find this critic to be of any use.

Thanks for the crit it's much appreciated :)

As you said I do limit myself on these drawings, usually between 2.5-3.5 hours to try and mimic how much time students at the physical school would have. I have been trying to draw the silhouette more with my figure drawings, tired it on the last drawing actually and I think it helped me with the upper part of the figure but not so much with the legs since I don't really know the anatomy or construction all that well.

Yh I was unsure about the face, I drew it how it looked in the ref but it just looked so weird to me, just didn't look right to me haha. In the end I decided to invent the left side, wasn't sure if it was the right choice or not.....maybe not.

[Peter]

Decided to take last Saturday off which kinda messed with my posting schedule as I was playing catch up on work. Just gonna post work from last week this weekend as I'm focusing on the poster idea that I want to take to a finish this week.

Here's my original sketch from last year.




Colour Comps




Yesterday and tonight I wanted to work out my colour scheme for the entire piece so hopefully when it comes to inking it should be easier for me... I hope. Limiting myself to 5 colours on this as it's meant to be a screen print.

Trying to give off the feeling of night time with this and give it a warm/cool fibe leaning on the warm side as i'm trying to go for an inviting feeling (if that makes sense).

Atm I'm feeling number 7, might play around with the yellow once the inking is done and the colours applied.

Tomrrow I'm going to re-work the original sketch and try and make it look alot nicer, change the background if I can since I don't like it, maybe simplfy it some more so that all of your attentin is on the woman.

[Fedodika]

i like the colors of 1 idk whats up with the hand pose, mainly the one going behind the back

and i dont think the pose is all that great, though i like the concept; dont be afraid to kill your darlings and try some other poses and explore more for illustration pieces. my buddy grego kari did some sketches like these and i wanna try it too to get loosened up

https://www.deviantart.com/gregor-kari/a...-802062940

when i look at your sketch i dont feel all that intrigued, its just a girl standing there with a light, theres no real tension or story. itd almost be like a comission or something, or maybe a bouguereau. but even he could convey a lot of story in subtelty,

https://springfieldmuseums.org/wp-conten...0x2096.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c...889%29.jpg

these are really simple paintings in concept but the expression shows a lot of story and narrative, but he can only pull this off because of his super high technical skill, but ya, id reccomend just keep exploring, i did that a lot on my raven piece and it payed off big time

[Peter]

i like the colors of 1 idk whats up with the hand pose, mainly the one going behind the back

and i dont think the pose is all that great, though i like the concept; dont be afraid to kill your darlings and try some other poses and explore more for illustration pieces. my buddy grego kari did some sketches like these and i wanna try it too to get loosened up

https://www.deviantart.com/gregor-kari/a...-802062940

when i look at your sketch i dont feel all that intrigued, its just a girl standing there with a light, theres no real tension or story. itd almost be like a comission or something, or maybe a bouguereau. but even he could convey a lot of story in subtelty,

https://springfieldmuseums.org/wp-conten...0x2096.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c...889%29.jpg

these are really simple paintings in concept but the expression shows a lot of story and narrative, but he can only pull this off because of his super high technical skill, but ya, id reccomend just keep exploring, i did that a lot on my raven piece and it payed off big time

Thanks for the link, I'm gonna check them out now before I re work the drawing, see if it helps at all.

Yh I remember having difficulties with her back hand when I originally sketched this out, my figure skills weren't as good back then (clearly), she's basically meant to have her hands out as if she had just set the lantern off (which I forgot to sketch out).

I still like the idea of the girl and the lantern but as you said I can do a much better job of protraying it.

[Fedodika]

also post your sketches on the discord in the critter cave on the daggers discord those guys can give you great tips but theyre really honest so prepare uranus

[Peter]

also post your sketches on the discord in the critter cave on the daggers discord those guys can give you great tips but theyre really honest so prepare uranus

Wasn't aware there was a discord group, just search for critter cave or would it be crimson daggers?

[Fedodika]

its the crimson daggers discord, and its in the left side called #critter cave

[Peter]

Update on the poster design.

Reworked the design through some rough comps trying to get across the feeling of her embracing the lantern loveingly. Still finding it tough inventing poses from imagination apart from the basic standing or sitting pose.








I liked how no. 3 looked so did some quick value and colour comps to see if would work and then tried doing a more refined rough without reference, just seeing how far I can develop it before I bring in some photo ref.

Having a difficult time with the background/scenery,trying to make it look like woodlands without it being too busy but I still prefer the look of the rough comp compared to the more refined versions. Not sure if I should scrap these refined comps and do another that is more faithful to the rough or since I have the idea down just start taking my photo ref and rework it using that?

[Fedodika]

its def a good design but the hands look pretty bad and the face isnt great; id id keep exploring but youre going in the right direction, good energy just find a less awkward hand position push yourself think MORE!

[Peter]

its def a good design but the hands look pretty bad and the face isnt great; id id keep exploring but youre going in the right direction, good energy just find a less awkward hand position push yourself think MORE!

Yh I don't know why i'm having so much difficulty with her head, thought rht would be the one thing i'd be decent at since I've spent the most time studying it. I used some ref in the end to help with the hands since foe the life of me I couldn't think of an interesting way to position them. Definitely going to work on hands and feet once this is finished!

[Peter]

Firstly some things from last week.

Anatomy

Some deltoid tracings. Want to spend abit of time just wokring on arm/leg anatomy since they are the wekest areas of my figure drawings.










Live Stream

H/W for week 8




Life Class

Painting I did in the final week of the single pose class I've been attending. Should of worked larger since I was having such a hard time with her head since I was workin gon a 9x12 inch panel. Will definitely not make that mistake with the next figure painting. Paint seems to still be drying unusually quick on my boards, parts of this painting where practically bone dry not even half way through the 3 hours and if I was reworking an area I had already painted I couldn't rework those areas unless I either added more paint or used turps to erase areas. It should definitely not be drying this quick, I'm going to ask on the Watts forums and see if someone there could possibly help. Anyway this one was 2.5 hours.




Poster

Spent all of yesterday working on the poster some more. Tried shooting some photo ref using myself as the model but was bloody difficult since I'm relying on the timer of my camera and had to keep getting up after each shot to see if the pics where any good. I'd love to be able to use someone else as a model but none of y friends are willing.








Still having a tough time with the head, don't know if it's the slight down tilt that's throwing me off or maybe it's becuase my figure is still in the rough stage but I definitely need some useful ref to work from to help me.

Spent abit of time before messing around in Daz and posing the model to fit my inital comp but not sure how I feel using a 3d software to help with reference, feel like it's taboo really. Usually from artists I've seen they do their rough comps and work on one as much as possible without using ref and then they hire a model , pose them to match their idea and use those pictures as an aid when doing the final piece but I feell ike 3d goes against that somehow?






I was going to inquire next week at my life class how much they pay models that pose for us. There's a girl that models for us and she's a tailor and makes all these outfits for cosplay etc, if it's not too expensive I could hire some models for future work.

[Fedodika]

3d is like using a model thats free in many ways, you just have to have the fundamental knowledge to use gesture and anatomy to make it not look like a 3d model and like it fits in an illustration