Today I signed up for some mentoring from New Masters Academy because I feel very lost and like I don't know what to do or where to go. I feel like I need someone professional to tell me what to do, specifically and help me sort out some psychological issues I have creating art. I feel very lost and upset that my art isn't getting me anywhere but at the same time i can't blame anyone for not being excited about it because I'm not even excited about it!
I'm thinking some professional guidance will help a lot, so hopefully with some assignments and some through critiques or even just a mindset switch, that will help me get the ball rolling. I need to beat these weird feelings and insecurities I have with things, but I am very optimistic and I'll do what I need to do, I just want like a bullet point list of what to do; I'm tired of how vague and mysterious the acquiring of charm for ones art feels.
Of course I could just be overthinking everything and it's entirely because my drawings are flawed. But I don't know if fixing that arm that's too long or that ear that's too big will really sell anyone on my work, so it may need a big overhaul.
All that aside, I spent about one hr on this, and will come back to it tomorrow. I'm working on a commission for my one and only client and it's kinda complicated, so I'll have some updates whenever that's done.
"Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply."
“Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening than talking.”
You can substitute talking with over-thinking. Good luck on the mentorship. Be sure to listen, "pro" or not. Your 'problem' is not one of adequate direction.
Amit: We'll see what I need to work on, it'll be nice to have some specifics. I'm looking forward to doing a lot of listening and just simplifying everything. Thanks for the good luck man, I'll need every bit of it i can get
Here's a healthy butt and some more on that figure drawing. It's a mess, but the things I see in it are worth the struggle for improving.
So met with my mentor today and in a sense what I need to fix is indeed... "everything."
Because my problem is of course technical, as I'll explain in a second. But it is everything because it's not one single thing. An arm could be wrong in one picture but right in another; a composition could be unbalanced in one and great in another. So it'd be impossible to say it's just one thing. It's everything, but some more than others.
The problem is not of content or direction, as I'm reading Creative illustration by Loomis and he says that any subject matter can be shown with charm if it is arranged and lit well. It could be a vase of flowers, or some bottle caps, or a leaf, or a fish, anything tangible really. Even things that aren't tangible like abstract, if it's arranged well people will like it and buy it. And as feng zhu said, "You could find a 7 year old kid with the best ideas in the world but if he can't draw them well no one will care." And the opposite of that is true, just go to artstation's front page, or basically any large art website.
I always try to find paralells in things because I enjoy all fields in art... Like in music for example, sometimes the lyrics matter, but their delivery is more important. You could have the coolest lyrics ever and if microsoft Sam read them, it'd only be so engaging. Even poetry has arrangement and presentation.
Also, I'll be investing more in gesture and getting that to look right before sweating the fine details of anatomy. That, i pondered is also very true as a phenomena in most young professionals. Their anatomy isn't necessarily godly, but their gestures are solid and that holds the piece up for the most part. Also, measuring proportions is another challenge for me, as I can dissect a feccin painting glob for glob and dab for dab, but measuring the proportions of an eye to a nose is a nightmare. So that'll be interesting. Also got a lot more books to read so, I got a lot to do, which is awesome!
So, reading through Creative Illustration by Loomis at the behest of my mentor. It's quite a long book if you take notes and try to retain the information thoroughly. A lot of stuff he shows is stuff I've subconsciously noticed over the years, but am happy to see someone else noticed it and simplified it, so that's cool.
I think this book in particular is a must read for any artist who's getting beyond the phase of struggling with proportions and making smooth lines (not that I'm any good at those ;p.) I'm starting to wish I'd always been reading a different art book and paying attention to what it had to say, or maybe watching good tutorials instead of just drawing mindlessly and doing "studies" just to fit a quota or something.
Anyways, about 80 pages through it, and starting some Karl Gnass Gesture theory on NMA. I need to watch all this stuff, and really pay attention because they've already figured out the shit i need to know. Like blocking out simple still lives in 3 tones, I never did that stuff. And stuff that simple is essentially the entirety of what we do in art.
I more over complicated things by thinking that artists obsess over little details and ornaments when really they're more concerned of big shapes and detail is just an arbitrary after thought that is catered to the image.
I think I'll be well on my way when I have less to say here and just art to show, because that's what seems to happen when people figure it out. Jana Schirmer, said something like that, "I used to type lots of stuff here, but now..." something like that.
alright, so was in town for most the day, so had my reading/learning time cut down a few hrs
Didn't read any of creative illus today, the text in the tone and value part is very dry and hard to pay attention to but i'll try to force some down tomorrow
Doing another assignment from my mentor, that i'll be doing much more of. Basically watching Karl Gnass vids on NMA, pausing before he draws the reference and doing my own version, then watching him do his version, copying that, then doing what i remember from memory. Very very tedious, but very painful and eye opening of how sloppy my lines are.
I don't tend to connect anything, and just kind of indicate masses like they were... liquid or something, as if these lines of no volume or even discernible contour showed any sort of form. I mean, for a while they seemed to me at least, but it's clear that's a big part of why my lines were complete ass. Everything I made even this month is so painful to look at it must be a time of improvement hopefully.
Not sorry if it's hard to see these, the post is more about the practice than what I actually did, but it's basically as described above, then going in and observing the differences between mine and the copy. As you can maybe see there's lots of writing, so there's a lot different..
I'm so happy that more of your questions are finally being answered, it's a good feeling when you finally have a platform to stand on instead of falling trying to grasp onto something. I always saw Karl Gnass on my Youtube recommendations but I never watched any of his lessons. I need some new info on drawing the human figure anyways so I'll give the man a shot!
Voodooo: Thanks my friend, yea, I find that I learn the most when I do things that frustrate me the most. Like this stuff; particularly doing stuff from memory and comparing to a master is highly embarassing! Must be working... Thanks for stoppin by! Gnass is a great drafstman, but you can learn from anyone who's competent at this like Vilpuu or Steve Houston as they have a similar philosophy from what I've seen ;)
So i got some closeups of these gestures, remember I do my own first, then copy Karl Gnass gesture, then one from memory. Interestingly I pick up things quite quick like, how many pointless lines i put down, how unstructural things are compared to a highly competent figure drawer. Holding myself to a standard is going to make all the difference, especially when confronted over and over by it, so here's to more stuffz
Whew boy, that was brutal. Finally finished up the part one of Gnass figure stuff on NMA. I did about... 10 of these today with a graphite pencil, absolutely unforgiving and punishing. Lots of cognitive effort going into this, ya can't just zone out for every one so the brain is turned on most the day, phew i need a drink or something hehe
read about 40 more pages of Loomis Creative Illustration, learned a few interesting things about tone. There's basically four tonal patterns. It could be grey within black surrounded by white, white within black surrounded by gray, and combinations of overlapping grey and white against black. For the most part thats... every art image.
Here's a little weird experiment, not sure what to go about drawing so, I'll probably do Karl Gnass part 2 gestures tomorrow.
A few figures from imagination; i really like the top left one, I think i have to develop what gnass calls my "ideal figure" like, one that has consistent proportions that i can base and compare my proportion measurements off of. Probably also wouldn't hurt to do some more tame poses without foreshortening so i can get those proportions consistent and nailed down.
I do like whatever's going on in these though. It's good to start with just a thin line to indicate each limb like a stickman, then add the elipses to the bottom and top of the pelvis and ribcage. Also getting the major connection points looking three dimensional helps a lot. Everything that looks right helps alot, note to self.
Probably gonna do some simplifie skull drawings tomorrow at the behest of my mentor. I am to trace a photo of a skull in the most simplistic fashion with very few lines, then draw a skull next to it, then from memory. Should help a good bit since structure and proportion are my biggest issues with pretty much everything
The first is some applications from memory, I took the two drawings on the front of these pages, which i posted two days ago, studied them briefly and simplified them then repeated it from memory. The second are some new copies next to my own best guess at a gesture. Will be doing the same memory application tomorrow. I also did some master studies from Gnass briefly on gestures of michealangelo, Titian, etc. but i don't see the use of scanning those in because I don't have many notes on them, probably should!
Triggered; Bawls, Yep if you're gonna do gesture, do it more than anything. You'd be amazed how much you can BS about the anatomy if the gesture is good and the forms/perspective look solid you can get away with. Just make sure you're paying attention and trying to emulate someone who knows what the fuck they're doing.
I've noticed a visible boost in my gestures, like the forms are starting to come together in a more sophisticated way. I'm thinking through line placement/weight more, my hand a kind of more tame/cool approach. gonna finish up Gnass pt3 tomorrow, and then draw all these from memory, after studying them briefly again, maybe even improving on my copies. I feel good because my drawings that I do before the copy don't look insanely far off from what Gnass ends up doing. I guess 20 hrs of watching/analyzing someone draw will do that to ya ;)
Halfway through Gnass, gonna do about 25+ memory drawings tomorrow, should be fun, well probably more helpful than fun, but definitely painful! Good pain, love it, fun pain, GIT R DUN
MMMkay so, actually to my surprise got the memory thing done, and it was quite tough, but satisfying to complete :) Also China Markers are cool!
Did some tiny thumbnail studies of that guy Wlop on deviantart because I really dig the use of notan in his stuff; i recently learned that word from NMA. Also learned I really really enjoy images that employ that and I see why a lot of golden age illustrators/impressionists are so intelligent with their values and shapes. Even more so with Sargent.
So in here I did this 1 hr experiment where I took two DAZ3D models, posed them for a few minutes and then just tried to make a scene out of it, kinda like a speedpainting. I used every cheat I knew, like photos and stuff, and i'm not entirely satisfied with the result, but I did really enjoy the process. I've indeed learned a lot recently about composition, so it was fun getting to put some of that into action, so I may as well try a similar experiment more often, just to help me generate a workflow that's fast and has good quality.
I know Daz models have pretty shit anatomy, but that's not what I'm after. If i were to find a thumbnail or scene I liked, I'd start over from scratch and plan things out meticulously. Every piece I've ever done where I used DAZ as the literal based never gave me a good result and that comes from a lack of gesture and anatomical knowledge to pull that sort of thing off. Just because all the perspective/proportion is there doesn't mean it'll be appealing. Gotta know how to make elbows, hands, and joints look natural, as well as center lines of gesture, which is not built in to something like DAZ3D in particular.
