Been working till late the past week so thought I'd do a big dump at the end of the week.
Portrait class from Tues was horrendus for me, think I was just having a bad night for drawing. I remember the pose being up and tiloted to the left. Spent ages on the basic construction which I thought was correct but when It came to adding the features my proportions seemed to be out of place. I remember the distance between the eyebrows to nose being slightly smaller than the distance between nose and chin which I drew but then it appeared to be wrong when adding the features?
Anyway I left early since I was getting nowhere and did some studies of the head lay-in from roughly the same angle and set up my simple asaro head in the same pose to study from to try and help me figure it out.
Apart from that been doinfg the same stuff as the past 2 weeks, head lay-ins from the Hogarth book aswell as eye studies from the same book and some of Jeff's.
Life drawing from Thursday night. Much prefer this class to my usual Monday one. The timed poses seemed to be more consistent whereas the Monday class the times can change from week to week sometimes e.g. 2 5mins and 2 10mins 1 week but the next could be 1 10min and 1 15min and 1 20min pose followed by the long pose as usual. Might re-work my scheduele and switch to the Thursday class.
Some notes from my life drawings is that I need to vary my line thickness since all my hardlines seem to be the same.
Some Reilly abstraction studies from Jeff's drawings and 1 which I did myself tracing over the ref. No idea what happened in the back pose drawing. The length of the figure is correct but my measurements are all over the place (yikes). Sruggled on my own tracing. I believe I got the measurement of the head wrong which is what messed up the rest of my proportions.
Lastly spent the whole day yesterday working on leg construction (didn't do anuy painting since the weather wasn't so good). Have some proprtional errors that I ned to work on, particualry the foreshortened sitting leg pose which I messed up completely.
Hey Peter, wanted to point some things out here, so I did a little draw over next to your asaro sketch to show a big thing youre missing, and you also missed in the portrait. so 2 things:
1. Remember the cheek bone comes out and doesnt go in on the face, you indicated this wrong on your asaro sketch and the portrait, so i tried to show you how it would be indicated.
2. Youre indicating lips flat on a lot of your subjects, id reccomend drawing those nice wrapping lines around the muzzle of the mouth, think of homer simpson.
Also watch that cranium area, you miss it occasionally, remember the full circle and length of the cranium is encompassed in that ;)
Nice youre laying the original over your drawing too, that'll help you see better!
(07-23-2018, 01:54 AM)Fedodika Wrote: Hey Peter, wanted to point some things out here, so I did a little draw over next to your asaro sketch to show a big thing youre missing, and you also missed in the portrait. so 2 things:
1. Remember the cheek bone comes out and doesnt go in on the face, you indicated this wrong on your asaro sketch and the portrait, so i tried to show you how it would be indicated.
2. Youre indicating lips flat on a lot of your subjects, id reccomend drawing those nice wrapping lines around the muzzle of the mouth, think of homer simpson.
Also watch that cranium area, you miss it occasionally, remember the full circle and length of the cranium is encompassed in that ;)
Nice youre laying the original over your drawing too, that'll help you see better!
Thanks for the draw over man. :)
Didn't notice I messed up on the cheek bone on the asaro and portrait :\
All of my features could do with alot of work. I've spent this month working on the eyes as I thought they were my weakest area out of the lot but I'll definitely move onto the lips next, it's been far too long since I last studied them.
Update since I last posted. Attended my usual life drawing class on Monday night but left early. Finally got sick and tired of the varying pose times from week to week and the fact that the guy who runs it always wants to a lying down pose as the longer drawing. This week the model was doing some weird poses for the 5 mins that made zero sense and the guy who runs it wanted to do a 30 min lying down pose (which was straight in front of me) and after the break another lying down pose for the longer drawing.
Gonna start attending the Thursday night vlass instead as it seems more structured and the longer poses actually vary from week to week. It means I will lose abit of time during the week to practice but in the long run I think it will be more beneficial.
Anyway enough of that. Tuesday night I decided to stay in and study rather than go to my portrait class, watched Proko's head drawing videos, made some notes and attempted some head lay-ins from ref.
Usual eye studies. I was only going to lay them in but got abit carried away and started rendering them.
Had to do extra hours today so only had time to start a head drawing from imagination. (Really need to work on drawing females since they still look manish). I'll try and finish it on the weekend.
i think itd do you some good to get a pen and just sketch a bunch of heads quickly, because you spend a good bit of time on the line weight and shading on each head, and you really need mileage.
Just sketch whatever you imagine, stylize it a bit, and i really think you'll benefit from it. Your heads are very robotic and emotionless, and their features are you know, handled with caution but not attractive. study some comic artists like J scott Campbell or someone and try to get some energy and life in your head drawings, loosen up basically, sketches like Wes Burt. draw lots, dont spend an hour on each ;)
(07-26-2018, 08:02 AM)Fedodika Wrote: i think itd do you some good to get a pen and just sketch a bunch of heads quickly, because you spend a good bit of time on the line weight and shading on each head, and you really need mileage.
Just sketch whatever you imagine, stylize it a bit, and i really think you'll benefit from it. Your heads are very robotic and emotionless, and their features are you know, handled with caution but not attractive. study some comic artists like J scott Campbell or someone and try to get some energy and life in your head drawings, loosen up basically, sketches like Wes Burt. draw lots, dont spend an hour on each ;)
Yh I was too focused on the construction and making sure everything was correct placement wise, in all of my work i'm too rigid and focused on the underlying construction that I forget to twist and bend the lines and insert that sexiness that's missing.
I like your idea of quick sketching heads hundreds of times so I'll start doing it next week. Have some free time during lunch on Monday's so I'll make it a habit to do it then and try and squeeze some more in during the week aswell when I have a spare 20-30 mins or so.
Been a rough couple of days so I don't have alot to show really. Had to work more hours in my day job Thurs-Fri and had a work do afterwards, I was hoping to squeeze in a couple hours of practice but didn't have the energy.
Over the next month I have to some extra hours, thankfully it's split up over the 4 weeks but there will be some days where I can't get as much practice done, it's annoying but thankfully it's not a regular occurrence.
Sat tried doing a plein air painting of my cat since he was lying outside, I was about 20 mins in before it started to absolutely pour down so I had to abandon it. I need to have a backup plan painting wise when the weather is not so good, it through me out of my schedule since I didn't know what to do instead.
Did some studying of the legs from Bridgeman but got confused when I tried adding the anatomy on top. I was cross referencing with the "Artistic Anatomy" book but things didn't seem to line up with Bridgeman's lines for the muscles.
Tried it a fair amount of times but it still wasn't making sense to me. I think Bridgeman is perhaps abit too advanced for me atm and that I might be better off studying from the likes of the "artistic anatomy" book or elliot goldfingers, try to understand it all first and then go back to Bridgeman.
Had to take care of some stuff today so I was only able to get a crit in. Struggled abit with the side ellipse and the oval of the head, did the best I could but not sure if I got it right or not.
Some studies from Jeff's drawings of the skeleton mannequin from Monday night. Tried working quikcer than usual but think I was too heavy handed as a result.
1.5 hour portrait from life. My 1st live streaming class of the Summer started Monday night (Head drawinmg with Erik) so I watched the demo Tuesday before my portrait class and made notes which I used to help me in my class. I switched it up abit so rather than drawing the loomis head and measure precisely like I usually do,m I tried Erik's method of enveloping the head and then dividing the head between the hair face etc.
I really like this method of working, I was hesitent at first since I wasn't measuring as precisely and eyeballing it but feel like it worked out in the end.
Tonight I copied Erik's 25 min demo, again tried to work quikcer and use the pencil like he does when laying in tone but my control is nowhere near as good as his so it's rather messy. I also didn;t get the length right. (ouch)
Erik's drawing
Had abit of time afterwards so drew some skulls from life.
My h/w for Eriks class. Again used the enveloping method which I think I will use from now on. Feel like I'm finally understanding tone and I'm quite pleased with the final result. Struggled with her hair and feel like the gap between her eye ond nasal bone is a tad too wide, could prob of shortened it.
Nice job on the final portrait I think its a clear improvement!
Her eye is still too big and more in shadow, and she has more hairline/forehead. That seems to be consistent mistake with all the head drawings here, even the skulls, they all need more forehead and. Its funny its like you placed the skulls you studied in these heads haha.
Also her jaw is longer... come to think of it all the jaws in this last post are too short, I think if you fixed those two things in future head drawings you'd see another very quick improvement ;)
Great work though Peter, youll be in good hands with Erik, he's pretty beast
I think it would help you to double check for angle error and some porportion error before working toward a final.Unless your intention what not to copy but to rotate the head.I am talking about the last drawing.
(08-02-2018, 09:43 AM)Fedodika Wrote: Nice job on the final portrait I think its a clear improvement!
Her eye is still too big and more in shadow, and she has more hairline/forehead. That seems to be consistent mistake with all the head drawings here, even the skulls, they all need more forehead and. Its funny its like you placed the skulls you studied in these heads haha.
Also her jaw is longer... come to think of it all the jaws in this last post are too short, I think if you fixed those two things in future head drawings you'd see another very quick improvement ;)
Great work though Peter, youll be in good hands with Erik, he's pretty beast
Thanks Fedodika! Feel like I suddenly levelled up in the past week. :)
Yh I realised after taking the photo and looking at it on my pc that the shadows could of been darker, weird since it looked darker in person.
Yikes didn't realise I've been making my foreheads and jaws shorter than they should thanks for pointing it out, I'll need to remember for next time.
Truthfully I did not overly think about the skull when doing the drawing, I was so caught up in evenloping the shape of the head that the skull sort of took a back seat. Either all those skull drawings I've done is finally sinking in that I can draw from it without realising....or I got lucky haha.
(08-02-2018, 01:16 PM)darktiste Wrote: I think it would help you to double check for angle error and some porportion error before working toward a final.Unless your intention what not to copy but to rotate the head.I am talking about the last drawing.
Thanks for the feedback. :)
Yh you're definitely right, been taking a look at the drawing and I've noticed the errors you and Fedodika both pointed out. I layed in the head quicker than I usually do (spent about 20-25 mins). I've been trying to not overly think about my decisions and make snap judgements if that makes sense? On the next drawing I'll spend abit longer and double check all my angles/proportions.
I've been waking up really tired all this week and I think it finally caught up to me, what should of been a 10 minute nap after lunch turned into 3 hours..........so yh didn't get as much done today as I would of liked but oh well.
Watched the demo for my 2nd Watts class (Head Fundamentals with Brian Knox) and did some studies of his drawings from the class. Started the homework tonight but didn't like how they were turning out so I thought I'd start fresh in the morning.
Forgot to post these the other night, life drawing from Thursday.
Thought this drawing turned out nice. Really need to study the hands/feet as they do not look good but apart from that I was pleased. I quite liked the head indication although I wish the lighting was better, I'm gonna bring it up again and see if we can get some proper lighting.
I know her torso is forshortened, but her gluteus is indicated so high up, the great trochanter would neeever be so far up itd practically be going into the obliques. Those brian knox studies aint bad :)
(08-05-2018, 08:20 AM)Fedodika Wrote: not bad on the face on the last one!
I know her torso is forshortened, but her gluteus is indicated so high up, the great trochanter would neeever be so far up itd practically be going into the obliques. Those brian knox studies aint bad :)
Thanks Fedodika. Yh forshortening is a bitch! I was so focsued on getting it right that I didn't pay much attention to the legs, thanks for pointing it out.
Homework for Brian's class from the other day. Struggled with the female front and side view. Even though Brian's drawing is really simple he still indicated an attractive female face which I just couldn't seem to achieve. I was also abit heavy handed with the drawings which I didn't realise until afterwards. Need to remember for next time!
Some Loomis mannequin studies which I then tried to apply using some reference.
Some studies of Brian's lip simplification from his instagram account (top 3 images) and then I had ago myself using some reference and had ago at shading. I was struggling with concentration on these drawings, just couldn't seem to focus 100%.
Study of Erik's demo from this weeks class. Didn't quite get the angle right on this one.
Homework for this week. Had a tough time with the proportions on this one, struggled with the placement of the 1/3's of the head. Spent around 40-45 mins on the lay in alone so didn't get as much time as I wanted on shading.
Usual life drawing.
Feel like my head indications suddenly got alot better, now I just need to study the figure more and get that up to par.
Watched Brian's demo tonight and studied it. Took longer than I thought so will do the homework tomorrow.
I have a sketchbook page of quick sketch heads from work that I keep forgetting to scan. Will make sure I do it tomorrow.
I think you suffer from what i would call straight facing face.You tend to try to make all the feature of the face.Face the viewer instead of actually follow the image i think it might be due if i am correct that you tend to spend to much time not looking back at the reference.It also tricky to draw head from a low angle because we tend to rely on memory because we are not accustom to view the face in that angle it just the brain trying to be lazy it not all your fault you just need to be aware of it and look back at the reference.Remember that angle you put in the early stage of a drawing are the fundation of the image if there wrong you will have a drawing that feel strange.Forget shading and focus on construction, measuring and proportion.Shading is atm in your leg i would recommend that you ignore it and concentrate on focusing on the aspect i talk about.
