Hey, so as I wrote in my introduction thread I've drawn all my life but never seriously studied art or gone to art school.
For anyone who cares this is my cara https://cara.app/zvarthav/all and this is what my art currently looks like:
Anyway, I thought I might start studying some art books or courses, and share my path to try to become better here, if I can manage it. I struggle with depression so it's hard to draw some days, but I've begun with Perspective Made Easy by Ernest R Norling and will try to solve the problems assigned in it. I hope that's okay and that my studies won't be considered low effort spam, I try my best, mostly, but I'm not as good as the majority of people here.
Critiques are welcome, if you see I've done something wrong feel free to tell me since I don't have a teacher to look over my work.
I will put up my studies in my next post.
This is gonna be some boring newbie drawings, sorry about that, I hope to get better with time.
The first assignments:
1 I drew them without using perspective lines as that wasn't specified. I'm guessing I draw these things this way because I imagine them in three dimensional space.
2 In the city it doesn't seem like you need to look up or down to see the horizon, I could be wrong though.
3 I located some vanishing points in a photo I took by tracing over it, I don't feel like uploading the photo here though.
4 My drawing (the rails of the track thing refers to an example earlier in the book).
2nd assignments (no drawings from me):
1 Since I do not have a blackboard, I put some tape on the wall instead.
2 When standing on a chair it no longer appears straight. I forgot to take a seated position when doing this and don't feel like taping the wall again, but I'm gonna assume it wouldn't be straight when seated either since the tape was at my eye level line when standing on the floor.
3 I went outside on my balcony and imagined where the eye level line was.
3rd assignments:
1 My drawing.
2 I used a photo as reference instead of finding such a highway outside. It ended up a bit skewed and I copied and pasted some things.
3 For this I felt like putting in simple colors.
4th assignments:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 Tried to show what I think is parallel by coloring the lines differently.
5 My drawing.
5th assignments:
1 My drawing.
2 My drawing, sorry it might have ended up a bit incorrect.
3 Alright, noticed.
4 I used a book instead of a brick. They do not seem to meet at a point.
6th assignments:
1 I used a cake box instead.
2 It does appear more diamond shaped and warped (it's supposed to look wrong).
3 I used a bit of tape instead, putting it over the roof of a building.
4 The roof of the building does become larger than the tape on the window the further I move away, I think.
5 I am not sure, but it seems that closer to the window his drawing would be smaller, farther from the window it would be bigger, and the vanishing points do seem to change. Correct me if I am wrong. I made these blue colored drawings to compare to the inked one from the book.
7th assignments:
1 My drawing.
2 My drawing (the diagram you're supposed to imitate is shown earlier in the book).
3 I choose the second position (top image is from the book).
8th assignments:
1 I used two empty boxes instead since I didn't want to risk the books being damaged by falling.
2 My drawing.
3 My drawing.
4 The three drawings compared.
5 I was sleepy when I did this and accidentally drew it too detailed, as a whole house when it was just supposed to be bricks, so I'm including that too.
What i have to say in specific to how you write and don't think it as me policing you because it with good intention would be that when you express yourself as if you are a burden to other well you feed that monster.
The thing is to beat that little snaky inner voice that as a big fat mouth. I think of that thing as an egg it very fragile. That voice that say it safer to do nothing to be no body to stay in your lane to shut up to take it. It a voice that want use to be safe but it a voice of self victimization it a voice that say you are already perfect as you are it not a voice that want to harm us ultimately but it not a voice that as the quality that help self actualization. I think of it also as a wounded inner child it doesn't want us to grow up. It does want us to become a beautiful butterfly it kind of jealous of what we will become. It should support us but it often broken because of leak of love that translate into a leak of self love. It want to be love more then it can love itself because it trying to find someone to put the piece back together. Sometime the person that get in the way of putting thing back together is misery love company.
This is not to say you have not been through your share of trauma but it important to acknowledge the trauma and do were best to greave properly and to accept what we feel is not in were control even if we think we deserve thing or that the world conspire against it not always ok to ask something people are not willing to give us. We often forget to do to other what we want them to do for us and when to many people like that walk around it hard to heal the world. It also hard to be positive because we shine so bright that we attract people that want to be piece back together which slowly vampirize were effort to heal were self first. There as to be a balance of giving and receiving.
But it start with receiving at least from the self first which can be hard if we don't know where to look for positive role model. By that i mean taking the positive attribute of someone not by drawing from there energy but cleaning were mess first.
1 + 2 + 3 I made the man stand in a different doorway than the garage opening, since I was supposed to draw a car there. I know the figures are badly drawn here, I didn't put any effort into them since the point was to practice perspective and not human drawing. I don't think you need to draw the whole car for this assignment, boxes would probably be enough, but I felt like doing the whole thing, also I think it's possible I messed up and made the car too short.
4 Once again, I know the figures look awful and I didn't put effort into them, for this I am more concerned about getting their positions right in perspective. I will try to learn how to draw better humans after studying perspective.
Here it is without the figures so one may see better if the perspective is correct. This was a bit hard for me to do at first, so I'm unsure if it's right.
That's as far as I've studied in the book for now.
What i have to say in specific to how you write and don't think it as me policing you because it with good intention would be that when you express yourself as if you are a burden to other well you feed that monster.
The thing is to beat that little snaky inner voice that as a big fat mouth. I think of that thing as an egg it very fragile. That voice that say it safer to do nothing to be no body to stay in your lane to shut up to take it. It a voice that want use to be safe but it a voice of self victimization it a voice that say you are already perfect as you are it not a voice that want to harm us ultimately but it not a voice as as the quality that help self actualization. I think of it also as a wounded inner child it doesn't want us to grow up. It does want us to become a beautiful butterfly it kind of jealous of what we will become. It should support us but it often broken because of leak of love that translate into a leak of self love. It want to be love more then it can love itself because it trying to find someone to put the piece back together. Sometime the person that get in the way of putting thing back together is misery love company.
This not to say you have not been through your share of trauma but it important to acknowledge the trauma and do were best to greave properly and to accept what we feel is not in were control even if we think we deserve thing or that the world conspire against it not always ok to ask something people are not willing to give us.We often forget to do to other what we want them to do for us and when to many people like that walk around it hard to heal the world. It also hard to be positive because we shine so bright that we attract people that what to be piece back together.There as to be a balance of giving and receiving.
But it start with receiving at least from the self first which can be hard if we don't know where to look for positive role model. By that i mean taking the positive attribut of someone not by drawing from there energy but cleaning were mess first.
Thanks for sharing your article, I really appreciate it.
"The thing is to beat that little snaky inner voice that as a big fat mouth. I think of that thing as an egg it very fragile. That voice that say it safer to do nothing to be no body to stay in your lane to shut up to take it."
True, I didn't feel like posting this thread to be honest because I'm not very sociable, I felt like doing nothing, but I did it anyway since I need to get better at art and starting a sketchbook might help.
Heeeey nice studies! From what I can tell all of these are spot on pretty much. Except I think there might be some mistake with the car and garage one. I think the people on the sidewalk are all taller than the guy standing in the doorway. If they were all the same height as him I think they would be a bit shorter. (green line is the height of the doorway man projected to different places).
With the cars , using same method in orange I think they do line up to be the same heights, mine shows car in the garage being a tiny bit taller but that's probably just my own error, it's close enough because I can follow your lines back so it seems like the technique worked there, and on the other drawing of people at different distances.
Keep it up, just doing a little bit at a time with consistency will surely propel you forward.
(07-17-2024, 10:40 AM)JosephCow Wrote: Heeeey nice studies! From what I can tell all of these are spot on pretty much. Except I think there might be some mistake with the car and garage one. I think the people on the sidewalk are all taller than the guy standing in the doorway. If they were all the same height as him I think they would be a bit shorter. (green line is the height of the doorway man projected to different places).
With the cars , using same method in orange I think they do line up to be the same heights, mine shows car in the garage being a tiny bit taller but that's probably just my own error, it's close enough because I can follow your lines back so it seems like the technique worked there, and on the other drawing of people at different distances.
Keep it up, just doing a little bit at a time with consistency will surely propel you forward.
Thank you very much for the reply and critique.
You're completely right about the figures, I messed up there, sorry this is a bit hard for me.
Oh yeah, I do think the cars I drew were the same height, apologies for being unclear, by too short I meant compared to real life cars, my drawn ones might have ended up too short, I don't really know, I haven't studied cars before, but I think I might have gotten that impression because I drew the man by the car too tall.
I redrew the perspective lines for the people and shortened them, except the man in the garage who I made taller, so it should be fixed now.
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 I guess I can extend it as far as both edges of the canvas, I put an X on the ones I thought seemed proportioned well enough.
5 My drawing.
6 I hope I understood this right, English is my second language so it can be difficult sometimes. The adjustment I did to find where to place it is drawing an X as depicted by the red lines below and then drawing a line through the middle.
If you got trouble with some exercise you can try to use a voice to speech translator this way you read the exercise and you adjust the setting to translate the exercise instruction for you into the language you speak. The exercise are not yet to complex i think for it to be an issue at the moment.
Once your done with the book If you got trouble with some exercise you can try to use a voice to speech translator this way you read the exercise and you adjust the setting to translate the exercise instruction for you into the language you speak. The exercise at not yet to complex i think for it to be an issue at the moment.
Once your done with the book you can always go to the next level and get the book from Scott Robertson.
I also don't speak good english so don't worry no body have to be perfect.
(07-18-2024, 08:05 PM)darktiste Wrote: Once your done with the book If you got trouble with some exercise you can try to use a voice to speech translator this way you read the exercise and you adjust the setting to translate the exercise instruction for you into the language you speak. The exercise at not yet to complex i think for it to be an issue at the moment.
Once your done with the book you can always go to the next level and get the book from Scott Robertson.
I also don't speak good english so don't worry no body have to be perfect.
Good idea to use a translator, thanks. Although it might just be I have a bit of trouble understanding at times because I'm not smart enough lol.
I was thinking of continuing with Framed Perspective 1 and 2 by Marcos Mateu-Mestre, but looking at it, Scott Robertson's book might be better first. I also heard Erik Olson has a good perspective video course. Don't know who explains it best.
I think it depend if you want more of a narrative story board driven perspective approach (Marcos Mateu-Mestre) or if you want a more technical industrial design type approach Scott Robertson.
Depend if you can get your hand on one or both you can decide to mix them also but that probably more time consuming.
Personally if you want to understand complex scene you probably need Scott Robertson
Perspective can suck the soul out of you so finding a way to make it fun is key i believe.
Depend if you want to follow instruction to the letter or if your more up for a challenged by creating your own environnement.Some book don't come with exercise so you can't always expect to be guided by the hand.
(07-19-2024, 01:34 AM)darktiste Wrote: I think it depend if you want more of a narrative story board driven perspective approach (Marcos Mateu-Mestre) or if you want a more technical industrial design type approach Scott Robertson.
Depend if you can get your hand on one or both you can decide to mix them also but that probably more time consuming.
Personally if you want to understand complex scene you probably need Scott Robertson
Perspective can suck the soul out of you so finding a way to make it fun is key i believe.
Depend if you want to follow instruction to the letter or if your more up for a challenged by creating your own environnement.Some book don't come with exercise so you can't always expect to be guided by the hand.
I would prefer there to be assignments, but I think I can do without. I will probably go with Scott Robertson, since his book seems more focused on solely perspective. You are right it can suck the soul out of oneself, I'm a bit afraid of burning out, but we'll see.
11th assignments.
1 Kind of an odd bookcase, I suppose it's one of those you keep under the bed.
3 The two drawings might not completely match, I don't think the book has shown how to exactly transpose perspective like this so I had to guess it.
4 My Drawing.
5 My Drawing.
6 The drawing obviously lacks a lot of detail that real trains have, but the point was more to practice perspective than train drawing so I didn't do a lot of research into trains.
13th assignments.
1 I didn't have a round ink bottle, so I used another bottle. I could have used an image as reference, but whatever.
2 My drawing.
3 I don't know American measurements, but Google says that is 10 x 15 centimeters. The methods I used for drawing the ellipses are covered in the book. I didn't own some of the things needed, like a pair of dividers, a board for pins and a French curve, so I had to borrow them from my father. Since I didn't do this digitally I took photos of the drawings this time.
4 I used greaseproof paper since I didn't have any other form of transparent paper. I traced the third one, second one was a bit off but mostly correct. First one was a bit too wide as can be seen in the photo. I guess I didn't keep the thread taut enough, but it felt hard without making the pins pop out.
5 I hope this is correct, it might not be.
14th assignments.
1 My drawing.
2 My drawing.
3 Once again lacking a lot of details that real tank cars have, as I didn't research them much.
I have been using Paint Tool Sai for my earlier perspective drawings, partly because it's what I'm used to and partly because it boots up faster than any other art program I have besides MSPaint. However JosephCow recommended the free program Krita to me because it has something called "perspective assistants", so I used Krita for my last eight drawings.
Although doing research, I saw that Sai does have something similar (maybe not as advanced as Krita's), I just hadn't thought of using it. Clip Studio Paint also has perspective rulers that lines can snap too. Photoshop's perspective tools doesn't seem as advanced from what little I know, but one might be able to change that with Lazy Nezumi.
For now I feel like using Krita, but I might switch to CSP in the future because it has a brush I like, that it seems can't be imported into Krita (though maybe Krita has a similar brush that I don't know of).
I learned how to use the perspective assistants by reading this guide: https://docs.krita.org/en/user_manual/pa...tants.html
I expect most who read these forums already know about these perspective tools, I'm just writing this for myself and an associate who might want to learn from my notes.
I looked up more info on Scott Robertson and Erik Olson and I think I have changed my mind and might go with Olson's course next instead, after I'm done with this book (6 more problems left), saving Robertson for later, because I found more than one person saying Robertson is harder to understand and Olson helps with that. Example of one guy's experience: https://minimumwagesketchbook.com/2020/0...-new-hope/
I just hope I don't burn out on perspective, Olson's course is kind of long.
You don't have to approach thing so linearly even if i advise for a more clean approch to structure for beginner i don't think you need as much structure you are progressing at a good rate in perspective which show you should probably also mix in value and light for added complexity but that surely will result in more challenge it depend how difficult you felt those exercise were. You can do some scott robertson but are you ready to hit a wall? Generally a slow and steady approach avoid gap in the theory. Drawing a lot is always advise but drawing does not necessary result in better drawing it the balancing of understand the rule you play by will doing what ever you have to do and the drawing give you the feedback if you have the eye to catch yourself slipping on some fundamental with a refresh eye in the aftermath.
Let me give a quick example if you were into abstract paint perspective would have little to no appeal.
The artists who deal with abstraction abandons perspective, scale and other mimetic techniques to focus on essential elements that trigger felt responses over-identification in art abandons perspective.
You have to realize like a bit like a character creation in a video game that it not a bad idea to give yourself a idea of how much point you want to invest in different fundamental and you also have to account that as you learn you might develop new taste as you understand the interaction on those ''fundamental'' let say you would invest heavy in learning value but would avoid dealing with perspective you would be limited in your understanding of how to cast a proper shadow just to name that principle.
It important i believe to have a bird eye view of what you want to achieve visually speaking and i think you did not do that yet at least not that i am aware of. If you don't have a general direction you will be a master of none as they say. Were strongest fundamental often make the signature of were art style.
great work and dedication! you're getting to more advanced techniques now so it's getting interesting! I didn't know about that circle method to divide the corn/column, that's really clever. I would have probably thought to divide the base ellipse of the object in perspective and extended the lines up but the circle seems much easier.
@darktiste
Are you saying I should focus on other fundamentals?
Maybe, but I kind of feel like doing perspective right now. Many people say it's boring but if I'm currently interested in it, it feels like a good idea to continue. What if I stop studying it and find it too boring when I try to pick it up again?
"If you don't have a general direction you will be a master of none as they say."
I do have sort of a direction, currently I'm thinking Perspective Made Easy > Erik Olson's Perspective > Scott Robertson > Mike Mattesi's Force > Marco Bucci's Drawing For Experienced Beginners (I was watching this but then he began talking about perspective so I switched to PME, also thought it might be good to read Force before finishing this because Bucci gives out gesture assignments) > Dynamic Sketching > Andrew Loomis... maybe others I see recommended for gesture and anatomy... then Med's Map for digital techniques... and so on to maybe further books or video courses if I don't tire of studying.
Although I might change my mind about that list. Someone I know also may or may not want me to do storyboards without pay in the future so I might switch to reading books on layouts if that becomes eventual.
@JosephCow
Thank you. Yeah there are some intriguing techniques in the book, I can see why it's commonly recommended for beginners.
Yes i am saying it good to have an approach where you balance the fundamental as not to let any fundamental lag behind but that that generally speaking what work for me.
I find that it important to isolate the fundamental from one an other from time to time to reduce the level of complexity when your brain is trying to translate the more conceptual aspect of drawing to the paper. Some fundamental are more technical but some feel more intuitive because we dealt with them alot or we just have a brain that play well with certain topic.
In practical term you alternate with short period of focus study and you switch the fundamental every few week or so. Once in a while you make a recap of the fundamental into a more complex long form study as to see where your fundamental are lagging behind.
For example let say you study anatomy but you want to be a portrait artist you would not worry about studying the foot it not helping you in the long term sure eventually you might get tired of portrait and want to study anatomy more broadly but first you start with the basic of what general direction as the most logical structure like the feature of the face, the proportion how to deal with drawing hair and so on.
As a let say portraitist you are not just dealing with anatomy so you study color, light you probably also do a little bit of perspective probably not as much as other art but you still need concept like symmetry.
The problem to logic is that it not something that necessarly easy to figure out. It like walking in a forest you can only see small piece of the road. But you can also enlist guide that have taken similar route to help you get there faster.
Sorry i am gonna cut this short for right now don't want to force you to read wall of text.
@darktiste
Well, I will think about switching, but I'm just not interested in the other fundamentals right now, and if my perspective studies are going along fine why bother changing to something else? If I do become too tired for perspective I can switch at such a time.
"For example let say you study anatomy but you want to be a portrait artist you would not worry about studying the foot it not helping you in the long term sure eventually you might get tired of portrait and want to study anatomy more broadly but first you start with the basic of what general direction as the most logical structure like the feature of the face, the proportion how to deal with drawing hair and so on."
I was planning on drawing some background landscapes and interiors, so perspective seems it would help in the long term. I believe that I can study the other fundamentals in the future.
"But you can also enlist guide that have taken similar route to help you get there faster."
I mean, the guy I linked before recommended Olson's course, as does this random guide: https://www.docdroid.net/xOR0PYp/27275-pdf
Sorry if I seem stubborn lol, I don't want to get in a heated argument. I watched those videos btw, the last one was kind of long.
