Eyliana's sketches

[ShinOkami]

Hay, thanks for droping by my SB here btw :)

I really like how you're going with your studies, like Jan said, keep it up with perspective and basic forms- they are boring but very helpful later, trust me. xD

[Eyliana]

I believe, but ieh bah :P
Last week has been busy, so not so much perspective stuff.

Some rock studies for the material study group:




Children Portrait I have been working on during my lunchbreaks:


Portrait for a contest.


WIP painting progress of it:


And another painting I'm working on:

[nutriman]

Hey there Eyliana, great studies, especially facial anatomy! 
Note to myself: I need to put in more work like this..

I looked closely where I can share some tips so I hope you appreciate:
I think you can really take your colored portraits to the next level by trying this one the next ones:

Be bolder with your shadows (darker values, but avoid using black like you already do)
but also consider highlights. You'll be less dependent on outlining and get much more sense of form.
Take into account the different zones of the face, here's what I mean:


Of course this needs to be applied ever so slightly! It'll breathe more life into your paintings :)
Final one: don't leave the white of the eyes white, usually there's a shadow on the upper half from the lid and try to get that spherical shape of the eye.

Have fun! I really like to see what you make of these :)

[Eyliana]

Thanks! I know I have to apply more contrast and create darker areas in theory, but when painting I always seem to mess it up. Or it looks dark when painted and lots lighter when it's dry.

Maybe just trace some faces and practice the painting.. hmm. Will see how I can get this better :).

[Flo]

Hi Eyliana,

nice progress on the anatomy and I like how you stick to watercolor. A lot of people dive into digital for no good reason and miss out on some of the analog-painting-struggle. Water color especially is a really hard medium, since it doesn't allow for failure. I wish I could give you some hints on how paint better with water color, but I am a real novice at it myself. The only thing I would suggest is adding more color-variety into your first water-layer. In the bird-person (the one for the contest) the skin is really just brown. That sheet, nutriman posted is great. Look at https://ewaludwi.wordpress.com/ and do studies of her work to get a feeling of how to use color with people. It is what I did and it helped me a lot. After that look for other water color artists like Nathan fowkes and see what they are doing.

Those cloud studies are looking good, I did some of those, but I like yours more. Oh btw, I am not sure if you should study materials, before studying painting basic 3D forms like cubes, spheres, cones, etc. If you know how to do that, I guess materials are okay, but don't do one step before the other, it will only make you stumble (so, so wise ;) haha

keep it up

[Eyliana]

Thanks Flo! I'll probably redo the bird person, since the deadline got moved and I'm bothered by it. Problem I mostly have is that I start out with a good colour, but that I try to fix the shading too much and than the colours gets opaque and too brownish :/
So or get it right the first time or use lighter colour I think. I'll check out the link, thanks!

Some stuff I did last weekend:
Water studies for the material group:







Fighting with perspective and ellipses:




A self portrait. Not sure about it, not sure if it's me but anatomy is getting better!


And a colour chart of all the watercolours I currently have. Bigger version can be found on my DA page.

[Einver]

Way to rock the basics! It's not often we see much traditional painting in the community.

A little pointer: try to break your compositions up into graphic elements consisting of large, medium, and small shapes. I'm seeing a lot of shape repetition in your landscapes in the waves and such-- this breaks the "natural" feeling up more than I'm sure you'd like.

All-in-all, you're doing well though. Keep it up :D.

[BlackDelphin]

Your portraits are getting a lot better! Keep doing those construction studies and don't forget to do a few from memory too! Those will tell you how much of the information you actually remembered and understood, and what you just copied.

Your watercolors are also lovely and i hope to see more from them.
And also those clouds from the last post on page 1 are very interesting. Good variation in edges.

See you around!

[Eyliana]

@Einver; Thanks for the heads up, I'll keep it in mind. I see the problem especially with the waves, I'll pay attention to it :)

@ BlackDelphin; Thanks! At the  moment just following the 'How to Draw' book from Scott Robertson. In the future I want to apply it to real-life objects and imagination. Just so much to do, so little time. And the watercolors will stay definitely, I love doing them :D.

--------------------------------------
Train I draw yesterday, while watching tv :3


And the acrylic I have been working on in the painting classes:

[neopatogen]

I like your rocks studies very much! I'm learning 'How to Draw', too btw.

[Flo]

Hi Eyliana,

I did a quick overpaint of your acrylic portrait. I know it is a bit weird, because I don't know the subject you painted but I think some things could be bettered generally.

I darkened the bg to have a more interesting contrast, atm it is all a bit same grey. You seem to focus more on hue and saturation and less about value. In my experience, it is better to focus on value, than on the other two.

Keep it up :)

[Eyliana]

Thanks for the overpaint. You are totally right about the colour and value part. I have not have time to study those subject, so I just do what feels right to me and what looks comparable to the image :P.

The painting was actually a study from this portrait, although the colours here a bit lighter than the image I used from a book. So I ended up making the background a bit lighter instead of darker. But the lesson different values stays. And in the overall painting I could have thrown in a bit more yellow.


Orginal painting:


Mine:


Other than that I spend my weekend making this mixing chart. It sure is a good exercise, you learn a lot about colour, but it is a lot of work x_x.

[auroraborealis]

Impressive chart. :D And nice job drawing through the form of that train engine.

I replied to your comment in my sketchbook, but I wanted to repeat myself over here in case you didn't see it. A link for ya: http://drawabox.com/ (The lessons are pretty similar to what you'd learn in Dynamic Sketching 1 & 2 at CGMA, if you were interested in those classes, except it's free.)

[JyonnyNovice]

Hey Eyliana! Your latest portrait is looking really good! A lot of improvement since the earlier ones! Great train too! It's not an easy thing to draw in perspective with all the circular sections, great job ^^

Maybe doing some more frequent, quicker pencil portraits could speed up your progress (if you don't do that already). Getting the drawing part well practised and smooth will give you less things to think about when approaching a painting.

[Eyliana]

@Aurora; Thanks for the link! I'm going to give the Draw-a-box class a try.

@Jyonny; Thanks. I have to say, acrylics are easier than watercolours. It is more forgiving, so easier to fine tune the essentials. And you are right about the drawing part, I need to practice more portraits. :)

Last update has been a while, time to get some discipline back here and in my drawing. So the plan for each week is as follows:
3x 1h Master Studys, mostly portraits. Later I'll switch to more landscape/compositional pieces as well.
3x 1h Draw-a-box
2h Portrait practice
5h Anatomy practice
2h Material practice with watercolours
3h Painting class, mostly acrylics.
And the remaining time, which most likely is not much, is own projects. Studies are allowed to be combined with upcoming Crucibles!

Frist masterstudy, Crucible work and a self portrait. :)

[Eyliana]

A new master study. Not too happy about it, I think I'll try to spend a few hours this weekend just to study the face.

[Eyliana]

Some more things of toady/last days:

[Laco]

Nice acrylic painting! See you're learning perspective too. Gonna keep an eye here!

[Eyliana]

Thank you Laco! I should keep on it actually, have been slacking off a bit.

Some CC stuff and a daredevil study.

[alexdanila]

Great work on those basics, love the color practices and perspective. Keep it up and you'll level up really hard! Climb up that ladder!