Dan's Sketchbook

[DanBK]

Cheers :) its actually oil paint on canvas board, was planning to turn it into a painting but then stopped :P yeh you're right, just keep doing as much as i can and it should keep getting better :P thanks for stopping by :)

wow, bit of a generous comparison! maybe one day :P
ill have the strongest pimp hand in all the land.
well, were about the same level atm i reckon (give or take) so in three years you'll be just as awesome I'm sure :D its an encouraging thought, cheers man! :)

small amount of sketchbook stuff, got exams coming and so I've been revising like a nutter :P

development through a portrait, from construction to line and then shadows


Attempting stiff from life again :'( view from my desk...ish


quick figure drawing pose maniacs / other sources - planning to more of these, seeing as they're really bad and are meant to be incredibly helpful :) any tips on this would be awesome


5-10 min quick iceberg studies

[Ursula Dorada]

Nice paintings!
Love your color pieces - that self portrait is very nice.

But here, looking at your sketches, seems youre holding the pencil very tightly, your lines are very stiff in result. This last thumbs in graphite are a step in the right direction!

A line in itself holds a lot of information, its much more than a simple line. It's the whole theory behind line quality and all that. So try to be gentler with your pencil, maybe even trying to hold it in a different way just to it's easier to slide the pencil on the paper surface. Let those lines flow :D Feel the paper you're drawing on through the pencil, you know?

Or maybe that's just me babbling :D Haha feel free to ignore me, some people hate feedback like this, so...

Anyway, good work! Keep it up!

[DanBK]

Thanks Sula :)

yeh that makes sense, i need to loosen up when sketching.

that makes a lot of sense, definitely not you babbling, i definitely appreciate the feedback :) ill try to take it into account thanks
And besides, you seem to know what you're doing, your work is awesome!!

From life, the view out of my window:

gouache in my small moleskin - 15 mins


Pastels - about an hour

[DanBK]

Updating twice in one day - crazy :P
trying to do as much in between revising as i can

Speeeeed!! some from [URL="http://www.posemaniacs.com/thirtysecond"]posemaniacs[/URL], some from [URL="http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/"]this figure drawing tool[/URL] and some from [URL="http://www.freshdesigner.com/figure-drawing-reference/"]this good reference gallery [/URL]
Varying lengths



Another portrait, from the same good reference gallery. again, trying to get quicker, probably 10 - 15 mins using a brush pen

[DanBK]

Abandoned self portrait from yesterday. it got dark far quicker than i was anticipating so had to stop it at this stage :/ I was going to continue with it again today but the lighting is completely different. now i doubt whether ill be able to continue with it again but if i get the opportunity i will :) now its time to move on :)

[JakeB]

Looking good bro, the paintings are coming on really well. Nice trees! Keep it coming. :)

Oh, and that painting with the trees by the lake on the last page. Fuck. Nailed it. Nice one.

[DanBK]

Cheers man :)
haha, that one did take fucking ages, was so sick of it by the end :P

Had nothing to do today so just spent the entire day painting :D

Finished off this rose that i started ages ago.. well, i say finished i still need to do the background as i don't think leaving it white is really an option, but the actual flower is done


Super quick self portrait, about 45 mins. went straight in with the painting - no construction, no lines. this made it incredibly loose and fun :)


Another portrait from the good reference gallery, man i love that website now :)


Painting from a photo. i was really loose with the background but had to be really tight when doing the boats in order to get them right. probably should have let the background dry before doing the boats as i couldn't get very dark colours coz it was just mixing with the white paint already on the canvas. still fun, just took longer than it could have done

[DanBK]

Internets been down for a while and I've got it back for a bit before it goes away again

Another reasonably quick self portrait


7/8 hours ish screen cap painting from lotr


Very quick volcano painting


Another painting I've done at school (i did tweak the front end of the boat to make it straight after taking this picture, but this is pretty much finished)


Life drawing - head, hands and feet week




Sketchbook page. Day 1 of the February sketchbook challenge (page a day)


Im now constructing the head every time i do a portrait regardless of what it is (from life, photo, self portrait) seems to have helped tons! I'm glad its finally clicking into place :D

[JakeB]

That last sketchbook page is fucking crazy man. The bottom 2 are awesome, great value range. The rose looks sweet as well man. Keep it coming!!

[DanBK]

Cheers :D i have a feeling you'll like the portrait in this update too ;)

I got an offer from De Montfort Uni ti do game art design! :D so excited now. anyway, the first year of the course is nearly all observational drawing and they dislike drawing from photos so I'm going to be doing far more stuff from life from now on :)
gonna ba carrying around a little sketchbook with me and sketch everything

starting with these





Cars are impossible. more of these to come, but i think you can see why i stick to my portraits haha


I started this guy a while ago but then i got ill and so I've just got round to finishing him. so much fun the render the hell out of something for hours on end :D

[DanBK]

a variety of stuff from the last couple of days

a few more quick car sketches



quick, poor self portrait


Rembrandt study


Lets call this one 'abstract' ;) playing with a sailing scene on an a5 canvas


Doing some work on eyes, as i clearly needed to after that self portrait. check out Stan Prokopenko's videos on youtube [URL="http://www.youtube.com/user/ProkoTV?feature=watch"]here[/URL] for how to draw features - the ones on eyes [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6-bCgRmcko"](this one in particular)[/URL] were incredibly useful!





and some more portraits in the sketchbook for good measure


trying something a little different with this one - here are the first two stages of lines and shadow block in

[Adzerak]

Man. That rendered head up there is sick! ;D Did you work from reference, imagination or a combination of both? That piece really inspires one to want to render a face for hours on end!

[DanBK]

Thanks, all from reference. do it! it was so much fun :D

A large update as I haven't posted in a while but been doing quite a lot of work

Finished the portrait i started in the last post


Another portrait, this time trying some cross hatching for some experimentation


Sargent study


Life drawing




Landcapes from life, no idea what I'm doing, more practice!!




Vehicles, trying new things

[DanBK]

i really should post more often to avoid these large posts!

life drawing



Sketchbook. finished one and started a new one :)



last page


new book begins

[DanBK]

FUCK. well that was a rather large cock up. so some of my stuff got deleted off my photo bucket account, by me, because I'm an idiot, and therefore all the images have been lost from here as well. obviously i didn't realise it would have that effect, but it did and theres no way I'm going back and re uploading images because i don't have anything organised on my computer and therefore it would take far longer than its worth. so i guess ill just carry on from here then. i may go back and tidy up the mess that I've left behind when i get a chance but cba right now. apologies for the inconvenience :/

anyway...
heres the painting I've been working on at college. rembrandt study


sketchbook page

[DanBK]

Filling up my sketchbook, with a few random things but mainly portraits, birds and hands for this post










man, i should really do this more often.

[DanBK]

A couple of pages of self portraits



Pages of pose maniacs 60 second gesture drawing. I'll probably be doing more and more of these in the future, good fun and seem to be helpful already :)

[DanBK]

Some gestures, quick portrait studys, loomis and a few objects from life

[DanBK]

More studying
this time an astronaut, self portrait page and more quick portraits

[DanBK]

More portraits!

quick ones


Two reasonably quick oil paintings (one day each)



Longer one in the sketchbook, still in only the one day though. probably the quickest long one I've done (if that makes any sense) :P