Learning

[DarlingDove]

Hi there.
I feel intimidated after seeing everyone's wonderful sketchbooks, but it was recommended by others to post your sketchbooks so why not.
I just started art recently (3 years of drawing on and off) and self-taught. I'm trying to keep a consistent pace (not going too slow) and doing my best.

Right now I'm at the very, very beginning by mastering draftsmanship and perspective, and it's pretty... frustrating so far. I have piles and piles of computer paper being used and thrown out. I'm in the middle of Scott Robertson's perspective video, 'Basic Drawing'. And perspective is pretty confusing to me sometimes because so many vanishing point lines to follow (even though there's usually only 2-3 points, and I'm struggling to master the 1 point).
I'm also touching the waters of other fundamental concepts like figure drawing and painting but I only do it once every 2-3 days for a few hours, the rest is of course what I'm trying to get good at now.

Anyway that sums up about me.

Here are some of my drawings.

[CTrow]

Hey DarlingDove! welcome to the Daggers! Well done for starting up a sketchbook thread. your talking about having trouble with perspective. I would recommend posting your perspective work on this thread, so others can point out some troubles you seem to be having and help you out on your journey.

[Artloader]

Welcome DarlingDove :) You've got some nice sketches there - I especially like your painting of the eye. I'm relatively new here myself but I've found that not only is this a place where you will boost your learning, but being around so many other people who are on the same journey will also boost your inspiration and motivation. Keep posting and enjoy the ride :).

[DarlingDove]

Welcome DarlingDove :)  You've got some nice sketches there - I especially like your painting of the eye.  I'm relatively new here myself but I've found that not only is this a place where you will boost your learning, but being around so many other people who are on the same journey will also boost your inspiration and motivation.  Keep posting and enjoy the ride :).

Thank you! Yeah I'm loving this place so far too. It balances it out for me so its no too addicting or boring, it's the right fit!

Hey DarlingDove! welcome to the Daggers! Well done for starting up a sketchbook thread. your talking about having trouble with perspective. I would recommend posting your perspective work on this thread, so others can point out some troubles you seem to be having and help you out on your journey.

Hello! Yes, I will definitely post my perspective drawings; offline, whenever I draw I practice those lines, planes, and one points as much as I can. It's a bit boring but what I learned is that you gotta master one step to move on to the next.

I ordered a scanner a few days ago on amazon, hopefully it will come around the 14th or 16th.
I don't feel too comfortable posting iphone quality photos (since the drawings can look a bit distorted along with other problems). As I said, in the mean time I'll keep practicing and save up a few to show.

Again, really appreciate the warm welcomes, and good luck to you all too!

[Eyliana]

Welcome! And don't be intimidated, I started here half a year ago with kind of the same story and about the same skill level. In half a year I mostly focussed on portrait, perspective and accuracy and things are getting better now, although still not perfect.

And this is a safe nice environment to post stuff and get feedback on your drawings about things you didn't even know that it was an issue :). Good luck!

[DarlingDove]

Welcome! And don't be intimidated, I started here half a year ago with kind of the same story and about the same skill level. In half a year I mostly focussed on portrait, perspective and accuracy and things are getting better now, although still not perfect.

And this is a safe nice environment to post stuff and get feedback on your drawings about things you didn't even know that it was an issue :). Good luck!

Hello and thanks for the supportive comment! Also thank you for the advice. Sometimes I feel this 'uncertainty' on what to practice or how to balance the subjects out. But right now I'm definitely looking to improve my accuracy, line quality and perspective drawings.

Good news! My scanner just came in and now I can scan things, no more bad quality photos!


I took a bit of a break on the last two images by copying/playing around with simple styles.
I'm going back to the usual now and do some perspective exercises.

[Triggerpigking]

great start and welcome to the forums. It's a good idea to get started with perspective, even if your primary goal is'nt that sorta technical drawing, having a good understanding of it is integral.
i'd reccomend spending some time each day doing warmups like this brandondayton.com/2013/06/how-to-practice-phase-1-warm-up/ and making it a small part of your daily drawing, 10 mins or so of that a day for a while can help you out with learning linework and ellipses and the like a lot, I tend to jump between each one everyday.
Keep posting dude :)

[Spiffy]

Welcome to the forums. The color eye rendering is well done!

[DarlingDove]

great start and welcome to the forums. It's a good idea to get started with perspective, even if your primary goal is'nt that sorta technical drawing, having a good understanding of it is integral.
i'd reccomend spending some time each day doing warmups like this brandondayton.com/2013/06/how-to-practice-phase-1-warm-up/ and making it a small part of your daily drawing, 10 mins or so of that a day for a while can help you out with learning linework and ellipses and the like a lot, I tend to jump between each one everyday.
Keep posting dude :)

Thank you for the link, and yes I will do these warmups. I did more than 30 min of it in one sitting yesterday (I'm a bit slow) and I had quite the fun actually. I'll do these at least 10min once everyday, it'll be hard to do more than 30 min of this. Also this blog is great for other art advice too, thank you for it!

And yeah, my goal doesn't look very technical because well, animu. I do my best to focus on the technical stuff first though. Don't want to jump into illustrations yet. I want to do all sorts of things actually, like pastel style and painting (unfortunately I have to stick to digital for now because I have to save up some money). I also enjoy western artists too like Andrew Loomis, Bridgeman, and other famous guys.

Welcome to the forums. The color eye rendering is well done!

Thanks!

[DarlingDove]

not-so-good warmup
didn't really think

[CTrow]

Hey DarlingDove! Its good to see some of your perspective drawings and ellipse exercises. keep going! you are so nearly there with your one point perspective, one little, tiny thing that is bugging me is the way you have drawn some of the horizontal lines on some of the boxes and planes. I have done a little draw over just to show, it will probably explain it a bit better.

I dont know if it was because you were just drawing the lines freehand without a ruler, but they don't seem to be following the horizon line. But you are doing really well DarlingDove, keep on drawing!   and I hope the crit helped.

[DarlingDove]

Hey DarlingDove! Its good to see some of your perspective drawings and ellipse exercises. keep going! you are so nearly there with your one point perspective, one little, tiny thing that is bugging me is the way you have drawn some of the horizontal lines on some of the boxes and planes. I have done a little draw over just to show, it will probably explain it a bit better.

I dont know if it was because you were just drawing the lines freehand without a ruler, but they don't seem to be following the horizon line. But you are doing really well DarlingDove, keep on drawing!   and I hope the crit helped.

Thanks a ton for the red line/explanation! I was drawing lines on freehand, and had trouble seeing that/didn't notice the mistake.
Also I've been feeling a bit down yesterday (just general art depression) and I needed that warm encouragement, so thank you for that too!
I'll take a short break by taking a half day off, then I'll keep drawing.

[DarlingDove]

Practicing lines
done for ~40 min
I think I should take very short breaks in between instead of doing something for a long time
like a short 5 min break in between 20 min
Yeah, I'm a big pansy


Wanna know what others think of my lines. Usually I draw them diagonally from right to left down, and rotate the page.
I noticed I get 'nervous' when doing precise/planned lines (the dot to dot lines) and I tend to screw up more.

[DarlingDove]

a quick doodle I did for /ic/'s tower girls

[CTrow]

Hey DarlingDove! Its good to see some of your perspective drawings and ellipse exercises. keep going! you are so nearly there with your one point perspective, one little, tiny thing that is bugging me is the way you have drawn some of the horizontal lines on some of the boxes and planes. I have done a little draw over just to show, it will probably explain it a bit better.

I dont know if it was because you were just drawing the lines freehand without a ruler, but they don't seem to be following the horizon line. But you are doing really well DarlingDove, keep on drawing!   and I hope the crit helped.

Thanks a ton for the red line/explanation! I was drawing lines on freehand, and had trouble seeing that/didn't notice the mistake.
Also I've been feeling a bit down yesterday (just general art depression) and I needed that warm encouragement, so thank you for that too!
I'll take a short break by taking a half day off, then I'll keep drawing.

Yeh! no problem I hope it helped.   I thought you were drawing them freehand, but I just thought I should mention it. Well its good that you are getting back into drawing.   glad I could give you encouragement to draw.

[DarlingDove]

ugh my lines are so wobbly, I did my best to make it look accurate but I'm not sure.
I did a couple others too.

I finished (or skimmed the last half) of Scott Robertson's basic drawing video, going to look at other videos like his book, ctrl paint, and perspective made easy. Also draw a box.
It's sort of frustrating in a way how professionals make this so easy, but I guess they've been doing it for many years so I have nothing to complain about legitimately.

[Eyliana]

Hello and thanks for the supportive comment! Also thank you for the advice. Sometimes I feel this 'uncertainty' on what to practice or how to balance the subjects out. But right now I'm definitely looking to improve my accuracy, line quality and perspective drawings.

Good news! My scanner just came in and now I can scan things, no more bad quality photos!

I think that's a great way to start. There are a lot of things to juggle, especially if you start painting as well, I know the feeling. But starting with basic drawing skills is good (doing the same currently).

Maybe someone already recommended this, but draw-a-box is great! I find that especially the first lesson is a good addition to Scott Robertson. He moves quite fast into perspective and more difficult stuff, while having a good understanding of boxes in perspective is important to procceed and draw-a-box offers a few exercises that helped me a lot.

And keep up the doodles, it keeps things fun :)

[DarlingDove]

Hello and thanks for the supportive comment! Also thank you for the advice. Sometimes I feel this 'uncertainty' on what to practice or how to balance the subjects out. But right now I'm definitely looking to improve my accuracy, line quality and perspective drawings.

Good news! My scanner just came in and now I can scan things, no more bad quality photos!

I think that's a great way to start. There are a lot of things to juggle, especially if you start painting as well, I know the feeling. But starting with basic drawing skills is good (doing the same currently).

Maybe someone already recommended this, but draw-a-box is great! I find that especially the first lesson is a good addition to Scott Robertson. He moves quite fast into perspective and more difficult stuff, while having a good understanding of boxes in perspective is important to procceed and draw-a-box offers a few exercises that helped me a lot.

And keep up the doodles, it keeps things fun :)

Thank you! I feel comfortable too getting to know the first steps more and be familiar with it instead of jumping to the next areas, though I do it time to time to keep things interesting.

So far I'm doing those lines. First I plan them out and after watching Bobby Chiu's video, I decided to take most of my time planning the lines and it worked! Better quality lines. I'm also using a felt tip marker and going to ditch the pencil.. I'm holding the pen at a 90 degree angle. Right now I'm familiarizing with dotted lines then I'll go to those one points again.
I don't have any pictures (because I figured they were just lines and it was a bit pointless) but I'll definitely show my one points after a few days of practicing solely on lines.

[DarlingDove]

some Loomis' fun with a pencil sketches as well as drawabox.
struggling with drawing boxes freehand in all perspectives now, goal now is to do that rotated boxes full paged.
Going to set up a dead line that lasts one month so by 6/17 I will try to be able to draw the boxes rotated in all angles. I hope this small goal is reasonable and balanced because I know art takes years and years.
But I'm not doing that much this year other than getting started for college soon.

[DarlingDove]

Couldn't draw for 2 days because of college stuff. Trying to get used to the college schedule, I got so tired after class that I slept immediately. Hopefully I'll get used to it over next week.

I'm going back to drawing now and I've gotten the hang of lines but having so much trouble free handing perspective. Its so frustrating, can't I just just a ruler and make guidelines from there? I understand the rules but I just can't execute them. Ugh I don't know, the last time I skipped the hard way, I didn't get better. I wish I had money for art school ;_;