Can we resume this conversation to don't be a headless chicken banging is head endlessly doing the same thing over and over?I don't know. But i do understand that we can get lost in the beauty and complexity of the human body so it not for me or for anyone to say which thing as importance but i can give my opinion which you may discard or not because the last thing i want is to castrate someone else artistically i actually want to see them spread there wing it hard for me to understand where you are going artistically speaking.
Anyways i think the point is atleast for me is that there is no exact recipe to achieving one goal.The artist can learn from is own self expression to deepen is message aswell as from other artist and hopefully by observation and reproduction he can now produce work that resonate with the people of is time if this as any value to the artist.But for some they are totally fine with doing art for there own benifit and enjoyment as some kind of perpetual challenge against there own perception to challenge there sense to perhaps deepen there appreciation of the subject they favor.
What is technical skill without storytelling?Which one come first and which one is more important i don't think this is where the debate is at because it a balance.But the question at the core of why we do art is do we do art for wereself or do we do art for more than us? But it doesn't exclude that what was once personal can become seek after just for there skill alone it up to the individual.
What i observed when it come to your creative side is that you seem to only favor it when there a challenge attach to it.Because most of what you produce that i would describe as outside your normal study are those piece from those challenge and you even choose those work as content for a portfolio. The portfolio can be two thing in my mind. It can be the work you want to be hire for or it can be what you want to show off as your best work or simply what you want to showcase regardless in your case what would you say is the use of your portfolio?
When i observe the portofolio to me it seem like you are more about showcasing thing as trophy.
Which to me just seem to indicate that you are look for justification to do more imaginative work and by that i mean that challenge is the way you step outside of your comfort zone in your case.I am not sure as to why and if i am right about this.Would you say you have problem with self expression and creativity? Perhaps just putting thing on paper is enough self expression and creativity for you and i am just to full of my own sense of creativity that you are as creative as anyone else. Because after all it just fucking subjective and personal.
Here and article i still want to share with you so that perhaps you can tell us which one you feel you are the closest to in term of the kind of type motivation that drive you https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/motiv...ement/5379
From what i read i would say 3. Competence Motivation:, toward the human body as a speciality.
(11-05-2021, 03:56 PM)darktiste Wrote: Can we resume this conversation to don't be a headless chicken banging is head endlessly doing the same thing over and over?
Haha am I the headless chicken in that analogy? I think if one were to try the same thing over and over again with no change, and no progress, then it's futile head banging, yes. But if one is making headway then it is the complete opposite. Have I made no progress? I feel like this is kinda working for me, but maybe I'm just that delusional.
How long is someone allowed to work on the fundamentals before it becomes useless in your opinion? I agree there is so much more to art than correct drawing. But is correct drawing worth spending a few years trying to acquire? in my opinion, yes. 1000% yes!
'darktiste Wrote:What is technical skill without storytelling?Which one come first and which one is more important i don't think this is where the debate is at because it a balance.
It's a good question. It depends on the artist. Some artists only have a subject matter at all as an excuse to create some attractive arrangement of colors and shapes. I don't see anything wrong with that. Some artists create compelling stories with relatively simple means, maybe even with crude cartoon drawings. Personally, I think the drawing skill is more important. The thing is, everyone's got ideas. Some are more compelling than others, but at the end of the day you have to be able to realize those ideas into a picture that is attractive. That tends to be why people hire artists in the first place, for their skill at depicting things. For me, most of the paintings I really love, they might have good story-telling, but it's actually their appearance that makes me interested in the first place. The composition, the color, the expression of form etc. if they weren't well painted I wouldn't really care.
And if you look at history, the artwork that seems to stand the test of time often has obscure subject matter that we no longer even care about. They stand strong on purely aesthetic merit. But story telling and execution absolutely go together and depend on each other to make a really great work of art.
darktiste Wrote:What i observed when it come to your creative side is that you seem to only favor it when there a challenge attach to it.Because most of what you produce that i would describe as outside your normal study are those piece from those challenge and you even choose those work as content for a portfolio. The portfolio can be two thing in my mind. It can be the work you want to be hire for or it can be what you want to show off as your best work or simply what you want to showcase regardless in your case what would you say is the use of your portfolio?
When i observe the portofolio to me it seem like you are more about showcasing thing as trophy.
Which to me just seem to indicate that you are look for justification to do more imaginative work and by that i mean that challenge is the way you step outside of your comfort zone in your case.
You may be pathologizing me a bit. I like a challenge, it's fun, it's an incentive to try something different. It's not like I'm obsessed with winning or something lol. To tell the truth I just haven't done that many finished digital pieces recently so that's just kind of what I have right now. Are they super creative and groundbreaking? eh, no. But I came up with some ideas and followed through on them, that's at least worth something.
I think a portfolio is just a collection of your work, whatever work is relevant. I have never thought of it as a trophy case, but actually that's not a terrible way to think of it. I'm not really sure if you are trying to say that's a bad thing or not. Like is it bad to show off your best work?
darktiste Wrote:From what i read i would say 3. Competence Motivation:, toward the human body as a speciality.
I think that actually describes me really well. But I also think that describes almost every person. Who doesn't want to be competent? I guess there are some people that are kind of just happy to be along for the ride, but. I think most people are motivated by desire to be good at something, among other things.
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Thank you for the openess and i still hope this was worth your time and that atleast you feel stronger in what you do more than ever or perhaps that it opened new avenue inside your mind.
That was an interesting discussion! In any case, I'm happy to see that you are still active here Joseph and that you are continuing to work and post your artworks! I'm looking forward to seeing where it will take you in the long run!
Solid figure drawings! Would love to hear your thoughts on perspective in regards to figure drawing (like Kim Jung Gi's way of constructing a figure in 3D space). I still struggle with placing the bottom plane of the feet on the ground plane and knowing if its truly correct. Anyways can't wait to see more from you!
(11-10-2021, 01:58 AM)Ben Nissen Wrote: Solid figure drawings! Would love to hear your thoughts on perspective in regards to figure drawing (like Kim Jung Gi's way of constructing a figure in 3D space). I still struggle with placing the bottom plane of the feet on the ground plane and knowing if its truly correct. Anyways can't wait to see more from you!
yeah, thanks! I like the idea a lot. Actually looking at moderndayjames' work that's something he does a lot, kind of putting the body inside a box in perspective and going from there. But it's hard to do, I think that they are more illustrating the idea of what they are doing, rather than strictly constructing something. So even if you try to place feet on a constructed ground plane, it doesn't automatically make them correct.
Idk, i'd like to experiment more with that. But I do know that it helps to construct feet like a wedge, like find the angle of the first two toes, angle of the side of the foot so that it gives some structure. Then it's easier to see that they don't sit on the ground plane, either the wedge feels like it's too looked down at, or too straight on. Usually the former.
This is a block in I did recently from a statue. I'm pretty happy with it, just because I feel like I got the proportions and shapes without kind of getting tangled up in errors. I figured out that you have to keep the big lines moveable until you really have it
I am not sure exactly what the intention here is.But you talk about something which seem to refer to accuracy so here some thing that might be useful to use to achieve that. Of course over time you get better at visualize but here it shown for explanation purpose.
First of you frame the subject lenght and weight inside a rectangle. You then find the mid point by drawing diagonal from the corner of that rectangle.You now have 4 rectangular quadran split with two triangle inside each of those it a good practice to think about them in term of A,B,C,D this make internal dialogue easier. For example here we could say that most of the figure sit inside the A,C quadran so from that information alone we know that we should start in the A,C quadran because most of the space were subject occupy is there.
Marking the center is useful in all case as it is the furthest point from the frame in all the drawing you will ever do which make drawing what inside the silhouette much easier and accurate.
Feet are the grounding point which can make or break the feeling of object being in a correct perspective so they are important to get right and they help establish where the vanish point are.
When trying to construct the outline for a complex study it doesn't kill to just lightly sketch the frame and other guideline and if you absolutely don't want to have to erase you can use this trick which is to construct a frame using masking tape which serve as the frame.
To help speed up the drawing starting by the head help due to it generally being closest to the top of the frame. The closer object are to the frame the easier they are to accurately put in place rapidly and with assurance which is key to build speed and this mean whatever is furthest from the frame and mid point is the hardest to put accurately in place so having this in mind you can prioritize from easy to difficult since you can build much quicker accurate result once you have something to work from and measure against.
When you are dealing with long curve try to breaking them down into small chunk you can also go back and turn those segment into curve later on.Breaking down complex curve into 3 to 5 segment seem like a good idea.
Remember to use visualize negative space there are great to establish proportion i personally like to visualize triangle and and make them intersect some of my guideline.
For increase accuracy it useful to remember that you can alway subdivide quadran it even smaller quadran using the technique in the second paragraph.
I don't know if that useful or not you can always private message me if you want this remove.
Ah, but my friend this makes it too easy, except how do we know how wide or how tall to make the frame? There is no rectangle enclosing the real object in nature to compare with.
(11-10-2021, 12:48 PM)JosephCow Wrote: Ah, but my friend this makes it too easy, except how do we know how wide or how tall to make the frame? There is no rectangle enclosing the real object in nature to compare with.
''There is no rectangle enclosing the real object in nature to compare with.''
That truth.But does it mean you can't make a frame no you can find the answers later in the post. Do you only draw live subject?That i can't tell.
That why i told you about the portable frame i am not exactly sure how the framing tool work specifically in drawing the human subject since i couldn't find any video where it us i just know how to use framing when drawing from a picture or a drawing.You can always bring a camera and take a picture that for sure unless you don't have one. The framing tool is good for plein air drawing since it seem to be what it most use for.It might not be that useful as a tool for your perticular practice.
A few page back i shown you that framing tool look like i am not really sure as to why you it seem you want to make thing more difficult for yourself then it might be necessary and that might be just a misconception i have but i suppose there a thinking behind it which might need to be express. I don't know you are more interest by a challenge or learning to draw in a competitive way using tool to get the edge over the competition. Do you think master didn't use any guide or grid or pre drawing? This couldn't be further from the truth i would argue.
What i might suggest instead of the framing tool is using what is refer as a The plumb line.It a piece of wire with a small fishing weight at the end which help create verticale and can also be use to check horizontal.
''If you only measure with the plumb line, your eye is learning anything.'' I can give you that.
The plumb line is a tool to check accuracy during drawing or to me more precise is a tool to get the highest degree of accuracy during client work because it the result that count not how you got it.You might always favor developping the eye over the tool which is probably why you refuse to use any tool in the first place.I understand that if you take pride in a skill that would mean your are doing this purely for yourself and it would hurt your perception of being good at estimation.
For your question on how do we measure the frame click the link below.
There no shame in using tool specially as working artist who have deadline and those who say otherwise are part of a strange school of thought no body will realize that you do all your visual measuring by eye so why prevent yourself from using it.Maybe it just a misconception that other don't use them because you don't see them work i am not exactly sure so i am certainly interest as to why ''it to easy is suppose to be bad''.Perhaps you want to be a kim jun gi kind of guy who perform before an audience and you want to waw them with how quick and accucrately you capture the subject you see in real life or from imagination i don't know and it only you who can reveal what you do the thing the way you do and think the way you do.
My idea behind sharing those technic is the fact you said something about capturing moving big line which sounded strange to me when you have way to accurately measure in the first place sure error in more likely to occur if you refuse the tool to correct yourself...
When will Measuring with the tool mistake can be made when breaking the rule on how to properly measure and hold the tool but i couldn't really tell what you meant by what you said ealier and this is why it was a something that made me write you further.It is of no use to be guessing yes at first you guess but than you use the tool and you are done or you can keep guessing until happy that up to you and it depend if deadline are present or not.
So i wanted to see what you know about visual measuring technic.To make sure you can reach whatever deadline you might have.Time isn't always a luxury we can afford sure guessing is the right approch in study and it key to being faster but being good at using tool doesn't necessarly mean you become a lesser artist. What matter the most way you reach the end or to reach the end? There is no rule only the result in art of course understanding the rule is necessary.But i think using tool is meant to bend the rule that my current position as far as it goes. Some people hate photobashing and speed paiting yet people making living doing that are they less sucessful or accomplish artist i don't think so they still understand the rule.Tool shouldn't become a burden to the artist. But i really kinda laugh at that thought when i think of that specially when i think about were math teacher who were like you won't always have a calculator in your pocket little did they know how much people now use phone with that option if you have a phone why take out a paper and start wasting time if you understand math?
If a compagny use a tool to speed up there workflow would you say no i don't think so? Anyways i talk but there alot of unasnwers question floating so it just to make you open up i suppose and break my misconception.
Interesting point on drawing the figure in perspective. I see what you mean with moderndayJames too, the wedge feet can help with the perspective, but I guess your right in that we just have to experiment with it. This is a topic I'm really interested in getting more understanding of, so let me know what ya learn in your efforts. Appreciate the detailed focus you have on constructing your forms/figures, keep 'em coming!
Also I checked out your paintings on Artstation, you can see how your structure of form carries over into your paintings, awesome stuff, you should post more paintings here too (if you want, of course)!
darktiste Wrote:You might always favor developping the eye over the tool which is probably why you refuse to use any tool in the first place.
That's not true at all. I'm really not sure what gave you that impression? Unless it was just from the last thing I said about your technique making it too easy, but that was just an expression.
I feel that you very strangely mischaracterize me as like an overly-competitive purist. Let me explain more.
The last drawing I posted used practically every tool possible, pencil measurement, angles, plumb line, mirror, etc. It is measured. But I will tell you one thing which I have learned from experience that no article or video ever taught me: you can measure and measure, every point, every angle, draw it with a grid, and still be wrong. Hell, you can even trace something and have it look wrong. Use a hundred tips and tricks if you like, it doesn't guarantee you accuracy, and it certainly doesn't guarantee beauty (they aren't necessarily the same). Why? I honestly don't know, but if you try it you will see. And that is one reason why you cannot just take a photo, print it out and slap a grid on there. That's not what drawing is about anyway.
Accuracy is necessary for drawing in the same way that it is necessary for music. If you sit down at the piano, turn on the metronome, and play the notes of a song completely perfectly in time, that isn't necessarily good playing even though it was accurate. Great music is expressive, it gives subtle emphasis, and speeds and slows. However, a mechanically accurate performance is sure as hell a lot closer to what is wanted than a sloppy one where you constantly play wrong notes.
And that is exactly how drawing is as well. This kind of drawing anyway.. You have to be able to play the right notes, and within those right notes can be found great expression, which is individual and varies from person to person. Two good artists can draw from the same subject and both come up with something completely different, and yet neither drawing is really inaccurate. Or if it is inaccurate, it is at least in service of some artistic purpose which merits deviating from the plain facts.
For example, look at this study by Charles Bargue. Is it not good? The drawing is excellent. The edges of things vary all around, and the brushstrokes of the hair emphasize it's flow and movement. The form is also very clear, true enough to nature without needing to represent every minute fact. It's very expressive, but also accurate to a high degree, everything the right shape and size. It also looks to be done effortlessly, because he learned how to draw very very well. And so we are back at square one with learning to draw good. And unfortunately, though tools are very helpful, I do not in fact "already have a way to draw accurately", if only I would allow myself to use it. I think the issue of drawing is just far more complex than you might realize; it isn't something to be solved instantly by a plumb line.
And actually I sort of think it does matter how you get to a result. We aren't factories trying to be as efficient as possible. To go with your smug math teacher analogy: There's a reason we learn to do multiplication and division by hand at first. And learn to solve equations without use of a calculator. Is it the fastest way to get the result? No, a computer could solve the equation in one second. But that's not the point. Our math teachers were wrong in the fact that we do usually have a calculator, but I think they were right in principle. What's the rush, anyway?
It kinda hard to tell what people are trying to achieve when there not much context given to there effort so the natural default advice i seem to give out to people is for any artist to practice accuracy first in my opinion because that how you break the rule as i said previously.
Not that it is the ultimate goal since to me the principle of design is what really differentiate copy machine from artist.
When i talk about using the tool i mean that we should be using the tool in a way that create opportunity to learn more and have more time for other thing specially when we are paid doing commision for example so you can finish what you are doing for them and go back to your own study.Some people use client work as opportunity to study and i am not sure i would call that fair to the client but really if the result is still meeting the client expectation that just a risk the artist take it can go both way.
An other reason i find using tool can be useful is that sometime you are just trying to learn as specific fundamental and it seem like you would get more mileage by focusing on that specfic fundamental.Of course putting all the fundamental together in longer study is also important.
Let say for example you want to draw a cube but the intention is to understand how cast shadow work.The goal isn't to be able to draw cube free hand so tool are just the springboard to get to what your trying to understand.Will you are able to focus your understand jump up but it not necessarly truth with the quality which can be in relation to understand more than one fundamental.
Of course later on you draw the cube freehand and apply what you learn but if it to understand and experiment i think tool allow the artist to get more opportunity to experiment would you agree?
(11-10-2021, 04:58 AM)JosephCow Wrote: Actually looking at moderndayjames' work that's something he does a lot, kind of putting the body inside a box in perspective and going from there. But it's hard to do, I think that they are more illustrating the idea of what they are doing, rather than strictly constructing something. So even if you try to place feet on a constructed ground plane, it doesn't automatically make them correct.
I want to thank you for writing this because a lot of people get hung-up on techniques like constructing in a box, as if it is the answer to all problems of correct drawing. (Not talking about you Ben, don't worry.) People made great art hundreds of years ago when they had 1/10th or less the knowledge and techniques that everyone freely has access to today, and yet people still get hung up on these things (which I understand somewhat, since the free access and sharing of information leads to a lot of white noise that makes it hard to focus).
Your drawings show a great level of care and quality and I look forward to seeing where you go.
(11-13-2021, 09:51 AM)Pubic Enemy Wrote: I want to thank you for writing this because a lot of people get hung-up on techniques like constructing in a box, as if it is the answer to all problems of correct drawing. (Not talking about you Ben, don't worry.) People made great art hundreds of years ago when they had 1/10th or less the knowledge and techniques that everyone freely has access to today, and yet people still get hung up on these things (which I understand somewhat, since the free access and sharing of information leads to a lot of white noise that makes it hard to focus).
Your drawings show a great level of care and quality and I look forward to seeing where you go.
Thanks!
Yeah I kind of agree. with the perspective thing it's still all good, but it's a suggestive technique, like you can help yourself imagine how something should look at a certain angle. Can't really say 'this is definitely right!'.
But yeah I feel like sometimes people end up searching for the right technique, or tutorial, or brush set or whatever that will finally make them be able to do the thing they want to do, and then they get frustrated when it still doesn't come. To go with a construction example, Loomis' books have always been pretty popular, but people misunderstand that just reading a book won't give you a skill. and drawing a circle with some lines on it doesn't necessarily = construction. Like the construction has to be happening in your head. It's a concept. I bring that up specifically because I have a bunch of old sketchbooks full of those, I just thought that's how you draw heads idk. Ya fake it till you make it though, i guess.
We have probably 100 times more art instruction floating around now, but 90% of it is not very good, and like you said, how do you even know what is good at this point
Did a little study of that bust ref that Ben had. (couple hours)
I really liked how the hair looked on this, it has a cool chunky look. so I spent most care in trying to give that a sculptural quality but still broad and simple, and i'm liking how it looks. My painting kinda looks like ted cruz though, so that I don't love.
(11-13-2021, 01:35 PM)JosephCow Wrote: Thanks!
Yeah I kind of agree. with the perspective thing it's still all good, but it's a suggestive technique, like you can help yourself imagine how something should look at a certain angle. Can't really say 'this is definitely right!'.
But yeah I feel like sometimes people end up searching for the right technique, or tutorial, or brush set or whatever that will finally make them be able to do the thing they want to do, and then they get frustrated when it still doesn't come. To go with a construction example, Loomis' books have always been pretty popular, but people misunderstand that just reading a book won't give you a skill. and drawing a circle with some lines on it doesn't necessarily = construction. Like the construction has to be happening in your head. It's a concept. I bring that up specifically because I have a bunch of old sketchbooks full of those, I just thought that's how you draw heads idk. Ya fake it till you make it though, i guess.
We have probably 100 times more art instruction floating around now, but 90% of it is not very good, and like you said, how do you even know what is good at this point
Agreed 100%
That study does look shockingly like Ted Cruz, just because of having less jawline definition. But it is nice and chunky, and the handling of the hard and soft areas in the hair and head is really nice.
I think you did a fantastic job with your latest sculpture/study, great use of light and solid values all around. It does look like Ted Cruz though, I can't unsee it now that you mentioned it :D
