Tan's Art Journey

[Tan-Sau]

Hi Tan-Sau,

You're doing great. I especially like the figure studies. In previous post you asked how one goes about studying. First of you need to ingrain what is studying for. James Gurney in one of the interviews stated: "In art, a study is a drawing, sketch or painting done in preparation for a finished piece, or as visual notes." I would recommend first doing a personal artwork as far as you can and then when you are stuck, look for reference of things you are not sure how to draw/paint. After you find said reference, study the exact thing you don't understand in the study.

For example you have painted a dude with an armour, but you don't know how to the armour reflects light, so you find reference for a piece of armour and study how the light reflects, nothing more. You can choose couple of things to study at once from reference though, but I would recommend to do it after you advanced further. After doing the study you apply the knowledge you gained by studying the reflection on the armour to the personal piece. And it is a really important step, when you study something, studying alone won't help, the moment you finish studying you need to apply it so it would be ingrained into your brain.

Additionally I would like you to watch these video, they will be a big help:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kfK46nruKM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQfF-P70V2Q

Hope it helps!

Thanks for the advice, Dom. Before I rendered the banana in both graphite and colored pencil, I took some time to study the form of the banana in preparation to the renderings, since I really wanted them to look solid. Mind you, this is probably the first time I've ever really done this. And now, I think I know what to do now. Thank you so much.