Zizka's Sketchbook (Nudity and Vulgarity, NSFW)

[Zizka]

Great feedback, as usual:

I wanted to ask why you pick the bright colours on dark bg to do these studies with?

I find it easier on the eyes. I find a bright background unpleasant to work on. But I'll change the color background if only to try something different.

Do you ever attempt to keep correcting a single drawing until it is more correct, or do you just start a new drawing every time?

I used to correct my drawings every time. I used to draw, more the layer over the reference to see what was wrong, move the drawing back then draw again and repeat the process until it look right as an overlay. April 26th is a good example of that.

That took a lot of time as I was correcting each drawing systematically. This meant I was doing very few drawings and spent a lot of time correcting instead.

So I switched to trying to do as many as possible of the same pose until I can draw it fairly perfectly. I started doing that on April 30th.

How long do you spend on these?

Four hours but that's for my whole practice. I figure this is probably slow but I'm trying to pick up the pace. For instance, I did 3 on April 29th, 10 on April 30th, 24 on May 1st and 17 on May 2nd. I am under the impression I should crunch those at a faster rate (2 minutes for each drawing). But I set aside four hours every day to practice.

What's your primary goal with these figure studies, is it to draw what you see accurately, or maybe to understand the human figure?

I'm hoping I'm practicing a lot of things at once:

1. Better line control.
2. Better hand-eye coordination.
3. Understand the human figure (proportions, shapes, anatomy), etc...
4. Better understand space.

but then, what do you do to solve these inaccuracies as they arise in the next drawing?

I usually think:
-"No that's wrong, try again" and keep going like this. I notice I usually mess up the size of the head of the legs.

begin to build up to more tonal drawings?

I added shapes to try to cram as much practice in to be honest and so I wouldn't be too bored doing the same thing over and over again.

Do you attempt to measure and check during each drawing or only check and measure more specifically once a drawing is done?

I used to check as I go along but I now check after the drawing is done. I also want to free myself from the fear of making mistakes or showing other people that I'm doing mistakes which is why I show everything.

Is there a specific process or guidance you are following here?

No guidance, well, not exactly. Mariyan and I have decided to part ways from the tutoring as I essentially need to practice the basics repeatedly on my own. I used to have the assignment of drawing 10 figures a day but since I'm on my own I've switched that around as explained above.

By all means though, since I aim to draw similar things to you I am very, very interested into any exercise suggestions you might have since I'm winging it right now. I could probably be more efficient at this.

If you were to suggest doing x, y and z every day, I most likely would do it.