AlCo's Sketchbook

[JyonnyNovice]

My burst of motivation ends every time I have to face with my drawing weaknesses; until I just fantasize about how awesome would be to draw some cool shit, I feel excited—when I realize I can't do that, I start to feel frustrated... guess that's a common pitfall.

Yea that's a common thing, at least I feel like that at times - less so nowadays but I still feel it. Don't look at other peoples drawing too much after you've drawn something, and at the end of a session try to puzzle out what you've learned. It's all the mini, tiny little breakthroughs that carry you forward. Even just getting one solid gesture is good.

This is my table easel:







That's A3 paper, so you can get an idea of the size. You can find that one online for around £12 (like 15 euro's or something). It's by winsor and newtown but don't by from their online shop as they charge about 70 euros for it. I recently discovered that it's actually a bit too high for good drawing, so I need to have my chair on the highest setting or stand up - or recently I just rest the paper on the edge of the desk and my knees to draw, so I am really looking down at the paper.

Gestures are looking nice, I am a fan of Ryan Woodward too - I bought conte and tried to replicate his stuff but failed, I got tired of having to use sandpaper to sharpen the conte crayon all the time and went back to pencil.

For your gestures, the poses where they are on the floor are looking nice. You have some nice shape going on (looking at the overall figure as a single shape, helps you be specific about the pose). The standing up ones - try to think about 'what is the point of the pose?' and think about a single line that could represent that. The rest of the body should support that single line. Here's some notes I made for someone else that might explain what I mean: