JyonnyNovice - from Novice to Master!

[JyonnyNovice]

Last day of this still life challenge, it's been a roller coaster. I'll do another set of these in a few weeks time, for now I am really bored of them! Kind of abandoned this last one cause I just didn't care anymore! (also had trouble showing the overlapping leaves and resorted to line weight which killed the careful build up of tone - just messed around and experimented with the background after that)



Plus some little doodles based on my daughter:

[StardustLarva]

Looking good Jon! Those still life pieces look pretty solid and 3D. I can understand getting bored with them though, haha. Excellent stuff.

[KurtJeremy]

Still lifes are going well indeed. may i ask what pencils did you used?

[JyonnyNovice]

Stardust Thanks, I need to work on stamina too - spending like 3 - 5 hours on a single piece is really tiring for me! I get so far into it and then just want to hurry up and finish... usually make bad decisions after that and screw up what was a solid start. It's all practice though, always moving forward ^^

Fox I used a whole bunch of different kinds of pencils to try different approaches, but mostly I used 3H for light undersketch, 2B for shading then 6B for darker places and very occasionally an 8B for really dark places (could mostly do it with just 2B and a 6B tho, pressing very lightly for the undersketch). For the last couple I also tryied painting graphite powder over my undersketch to darken the whole page, then it's easy to go a step lighter for highlights and bright places with the eraser, instead of having to darken everything else around it.


Master studies this week. Some composition studies of golden age illustrators:

[JyonnyNovice]

Tonight's master studies:

[JyonnyNovice]

Master colour studies and sunlight colour studies; I'm going through the James Gurney book a bit this week:

[JyonnyNovice]

Some direct sunlight colour studies; trying to train myself to judge and pick the right colour and how to simplify a complex scene. Thinking about the different colours and how they change in light / shadow is getting a bit complex for me, hurts my head a bit... which is a good sign!



Might as well post these as well; trying to learn some appealing proportions for female faces.

[IrishWhiskey]

Hi Jyonny!

That still life in post #381 looks great! you have a real eye for those from what i can see, keep at them cus i can see so much improvement already.

[JyonnyNovice]

IrishWhiskey Thanks a lot! I put a lot of sweat into those, so glad it's paying off. I'll do some more for sure, will do another week long still life challenge in a few weeks - those kind of burned me out a bit! Thanks for stopping by ^^


A couple of things from today:

[Rshin]

I'm really loving your recent studies Jon! Keep it up :D I'll do my best too!!

[JyonnyNovice]

Thanks Shin! I'm cheering for you too ^^


Going to leave this one as it is, need to develop more stamina to finish things like this:

[JyonnyNovice]

Working on heads this week; went through some head construction stuff again and working on facial anatomy. The drawings start off crappy and start to get a bit better. Hopefully more better incoming soon:



And some study notes and stuff:

[JyonnyNovice]

Discovered the joy of drawing on big sheets of paper (A3 size), not sure if it looks better but it feels so much smoother to draw. Some more heads:







Kinda happy with my construction, need a bit of work on proportions still but what's killing my drawings now is adding the features and details, I seem to shave bits off and cut into my careful construction without realising and stuff ends up wrong. Plus the eyes... struggling to get a nice rounded eyeball / eyelid. Will keep trying! Going to spend another week and a half on this stuff.

[JyonnyNovice]

Practising some inking on top of my heads for a bit of a change:

[JyonnyNovice]

eye and nose issues but finally a head drawing that doesn't skew off to the right:



and some brush pen gestures:

[JyonnyNovice]

made it into a face anatomy / expression reference poster to put on the wall (the red writing next to the muscle names say what emotional response they are involved in; eg zygomatic major - smiling muscle etc):

[JyonnyNovice]

Thanks for all the likes guys!


Found a good demo of using the skull, head planes and reilly rhythms together in a head construction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ5ZaK1XExE



Gonna practice this a lot, there is more structure with this method to build a head and check / adapt it along the way. Loomis / Hampton seems to rely too much on being able to pre-visualise the outcome.

[JyonnyNovice]

I've been drawing a lot everyday but not posting too much, trying to focus and develop a good work ethic / good productivity since my drawing time has been reduced a bit. Doing anything other than drawing when I'm at my desk seems to derail me and I am fighting with myself to stay on track the whole time.

Decided to sign up for the Watts Atelier head drawing course. Had been thinking about it for ages, the price tag put me off but I was studying the same stuff they teach and felt like I needed some direction on it all (skull / planes / rhythms etc). Has been just a few days but really worthwhile already, I'm glad I did it. Some skulls from the first part of the course; mix of ref / memory:

[art44]

Awesome Stuff ! keep it up !

[Rshin]

those skull studies look great jon!! i love seeing your studies. keep it up :D