Last week was The Classical Atelier Drawing which ran from Monday to Friday. Thought it might of been drawing a cast from life but it was doing a Bargue drawing from start to finish.
They talked about what I wold be doing which was the bargue drawing and discussed why they do it etc they work sight sized for this so again they detailed why they use that approach and then showed me how they do these drawings.
They start on basic printer paper which is taped down to a board next to the first "basic" plate which they then divide horizontally and vertically which are the x/y axis (which is replicated on the printer paper). To actually do the drawing they pick a point they are trying to plot and on the plate they find the width and the height on the x/y axis using a stick of sorts (barberque skewer/knitting kneadle) and youyr finger nail to measure the distance which you then transfer to the printer paper and plot with an x so it's basically a bigger version of connect the dots (hopefully that makes some sense).
Once you have the plate copied you would check it for mistakes such as flipping the board upside down, doing an "animation test", looking at negative shapes etc basically just self correcting judging by your eye.
Once your drawing was an exact copy of the plate you'd then switch out the "basic" plate for the "finished" plate and redo the first step (due to time constraints I focused on the face) and check for any mistakes using the methods just listed. You would also map out the shadow shapes (ignoring halftone) and fill in using a middle value.
Next you would transfer the drawing to nicer paper (in this case stonehenge paper), fill in the shadow shapes with a middle value again and start on the rendering.
All of this was done using 3 pencils:
.2H
.HB
.2B
2B was used for the majority of the drawing and for rendering your shadows (using a HB for cleaning up) and a HB was used for rendering your halaftones/lights (using a 2H for cleaning up). Pencils are sharpened to a needle point and you would hold the pencil at the very bottom and use your wrist for the majority of your strokes.
Can go into more detail if needed but tried to keep it as short as possible (for me atleast).
Overall I would say it was worth it. It was nice being able to spend wholedays working on art and just being in a school enviroment. The instructors were really friendly, they would explain things I had trouble with and were more than happy for me to bug them with questions about art in general or just have a talk about art, even said to message them if I had any questions in the future.
For the courses themselves I'd say the 2 day colour mixing wasn't really worth it. They do a 7 day old master painting course and what I did seemed to be day 1 of that course so I'd say just do that course instead as they go over painting techniques and materials etc. I'd say the Classical drawing was worth it as it showed me the proper way of working through the bargue plates although they did say that students normally spend about 6-8 months working on 3 bargue drawings which seems like overkill to me.
Very cool, your bargue drawing looks really good! I don't suppose you can say much about it from only a few weeks, but do you think this kind of training is something that would really work for you if you pursued it further?
(08-23-2019, 10:36 AM)JosephCow Wrote: Very cool, your bargue drawing looks really good! I don't suppose you can say much about it from only a few weeks, but do you think this kind of training is something that would really work for you if you pursued it further?
Thanks Joe! Hmmm hard to say really. On one hand they had some really great paintings from past students on show (I'll see if I took any pics) and the instructors were really hands on and seemed to know what they were doing, plus they have good connections to the art world but on the other they seem to spend weeks just working on one drawing or painting. For example for the full week I was there they started a figure drawing on Monday and by the time I left on Friday they were still blocking the basic construction in.
for me personally that just seems like too much time, again with the bargue plates they said students spend between 6-8 months working on 3 drawings. I think it works if your aim is to be a fine artist and you can afford to spend weeks or months on 1 painting but since my aim is illustration you wouldn't really have that time. Think it mainly comes down to your end goal.
I definitely want to continue taking workshops with them (particulary painting courses) but packing up and studying there full time(out of the question anyway since I can't afford to haha), I'm not really sure.
Maybe ask me again once I've takne more workshops from them, hopefully I can have a definitive answer by then.
Still focusing on figure drawing and anatomy so I started the fundamental quicksketch course from Watts with Brian Knox, here are some studies from the first lesson from his drawings.
Tried applying his approach to some figure invention but still have a hard time with depicting the pose I have in my head and getting it down on paper, I was thinking of trying a different approach.
Some arm anatomy. Tried working through Bridgeman's book and I feel like I understand the first few steps he talks about but I foind trying to render one of his drawings really hard. I was constantly fighting with what exactly he was trying to depict as I didn't know what muscle it was so maybe I need to learn all the muscles first and then come back to him? I'm thinking of waitng maybe until Watts Online bring out the Brdigeman anatomy course later this year.
for the bridgeman arm you rendered you need to cross check that with references or photos of arms in that pose. eriks anatomy intensives has that pose in the references i believe. Its interesting seeing your attempt at that i can see how youre thinking without a reference. it ends up blobby and not showing the plane changes and attractive contours in the forearm. Your proportions are also wrong as you got the length of the bicep in the very last post but in both that and your bridgeman thing, your forearms are waaay too short
youre doing the tubey legs but like in the second post on the figure lowest on the page the gesture youre going for makes the proportions look whacky, way too long of legs. jeff does a thing in quick sketch where he hits a small circle on the side bone of the knee cap. A quick and nice indication of the patella could do you a lot of good on these sketches
(08-27-2019, 05:34 AM)Fedodika Wrote: for the bridgeman arm you rendered you need to cross check that with references or photos of arms in that pose. eriks anatomy intensives has that pose in the references i believe. Its interesting seeing your attempt at that i can see how youre thinking without a reference. it ends up blobby and not showing the plane changes and attractive contours in the forearm. Your proportions are also wrong as you got the length of the bicep in the very last post but in both that and your bridgeman thing, your forearms are waaay too short
youre doing the tubey legs but like in the second post on the figure lowest on the page the gesture youre going for makes the proportions look whacky, way too long of legs. jeff does a thing in quick sketch where he hits a small circle on the side bone of the knee cap. A quick and nice indication of the patella could do you a lot of good on these sketches
Thanks for the feedback :) See that's where I got confused on studying Bridgeman. I watched the Proko video detailing how to study his notes so I thought you were meant to just take his drawing, flesh it out with anatomy knowledge (but keeping the bigger forms in mind like he does) and then try and render it without using photo ref. That's why I'm just thinking of holding back on Bridgeman until my anatomy knowledge improves.
I'll have to check Jeff's notes again, it's been awhile since I've studied his QS, main reason I wanted to go through Brian's foundation course was to work on simplification and then layer those drawings with Jeff's knowledge if that makes sense?
Portrait from last night. Felt rather rusty with it as it's been a few weeks since I last drew a portrait due to being in Edinburgh. Thought I'd try and slow down and think more about the line I'm about to place and focus on accuracy as I do feel like I rush abit when drawing from life just to get something down. Also tried to focus more on breaking down my lines into CSI. Still having issues with the basic construction of the head and the eyes.
Warm up for tonight I tried drawing the upper arm muscles from memory to see what I retained from the other day and self corrected on top. Definitely hacing some width issues as I'm drawing the muscles way to wide and as you can see I got some of my origins and insertions wrong.
Memory
Corrections
Worked my way down to the forearm muscles, again used Erik's notes to draw from but also referred to Proko's anatomy course and the Goldfinger anatomy book to help with the origin of some of the muscles as it wasn't 100% clear in Erik's notes (atleast for me anyway).
Took a painting workshop with a guy who studied at one of the ateliers in Italy (think it was the Florence one, he said it was the American school). It was an Alla Prima workshop but over the weekend.
I was an idiot and on the first day I took my photos from far away rather than up close (which I corrected on Sunday).
Steps
Finish
It was good to get some practice in with painting since I mostly work on my drawing skills. Not sure if I'd go back or not just because we were going through each step so quickly I didn't really have time to reflect on each stage and there wasn't loads of one-one just because some people required more assistence than others due to the different skill levels. I might change my mind though since it was fairly local to m.
Have some life drawing from last week which I'll post in the next day or 2, just abit busy atm.
Some figure work from my life class last week. Definitely felt rusty since it's been awhile since I've done any figure work. Really struggled with the quick sketch, I keep going thorugh periods of doing atleast 3 hours QS a week which I maintain for a month or so and then fall out of it. Maybe I just need to push myself more and force myself to keep a slot each week for it.
3/10 min Quick Sketch
40 min pose
Portrait from class last night. Don't think I quite got her likeness and had a hard time with her right eye, it definitely feels off. Gonna do a trace over of the basic construction and see if I can correct it.
1h30m Portrait
Currently working more hours at work and will be going away a week friday for a week so I won;t be able to get as much work done as usual so posts will probably be abit sporadic.
Quick Update. Been busy the past few days packing and getting things sorted for my holiday on friday so haven't really had the time to do much art. Apologies for the photo quality, don't know why they are so dark, only thing I've done is use a different lens so I'm gonna assume that's the issue.
Life Class
Work from my figure class last week.
3/10 minute gestures
40 minute figure drawing
Portrait Class
1h30min
Portrait from tonight. Think I was abit heavy handed with my lay-in, I was trying to get the nice variation in line weight that Brian achieves. Feell ike I sorta of got her likeness but my design sense is horrible.
This will probably be my last update for the next 2 weeks. I'm going away on holiday on friday for 8 days. Been toying with the idea of taking a sketchbook but I don't see when I'd have the time to get anything done since my schedule is so packed. Once I'm back i'm going to dive back into my usual routine. Want to continue with anatomy, dive into some painting and get back into master studies to work on my shape design as I feel that is the biggest thing holding me back right now.
Back from my holidays now which was a welcomed break. Got back last weekend and have been slowly getting back into my routine this week and get back into it fully this week.
Portrait Class
First portrait class after my break went better than I thought, definitely felt rusty. Rather than following the same procedure as Brian and focus on construction I tried Erik's approach of blocking in the big shape first and then blocking iin the features, trying my best not to construct and simply draw the abstract shape I see before me. Not sure if it was the holiday or simply taking a break from drawing but it felt like I came back into class with a new pair of eyes.
Sketchbooking
Tbh I wasn't really in the mood to dive back inot hard studying, decided to have abit of fun and do some inventive work and simply have some fun. I ordered one of Proko's skulls which came before I left so I put that to use to help me with these invented heads, mainly for the proportions of the 1/3's. Looked up some images of orcs and goblins to give me some inspiration to help inform the drawings.
For this orc drawing I started with the big basic block in and didn't measure as much as I normally do, instead I judged distances by eye and whether or not it looked correct. I think I need to measure less really with all my drawings and go more by what my eye judges as being "correct".
Live streaming classes at Watts had their sign ups the other day. Still seems to be the same 3 core lessons so I've signed on for "20 min fig lay-ins" and "head drawing fundamentals". I'm going to see what classes will be available next term when they are available and if they are the same 3 classes again I'm thinking of trying another site and do soemthing different, might give CGMA ago as there are some classes thewir that I'm interested.
Starting now I want to branch out into painting more, mainly gouache as it seems to be a good bridge between drawing and oil painting, still continue with anatomy and work on master studies some more and put the fundamentals on the back burners for abit. It feels like to me atleast that I've just been studying the beginner phases of head and figure drawing and neglecting other equally important areas. I can't help but think that my way of studying/practicing is completely wrong.
lately ive been doing some charles dana gibson studies, doing them from 15 seconds to 1 minute. Idk if youve tried that, but jeff reccomends it in his head drawing course, maybe give it a shot.
Your shapes are still bulky and the magic of the reilly rythms is coming through in a few select areas but the others feel like GAH, i wish i could just grab your head and shake this stuff into you arggh im pissed off i cant type
(10-01-2019, 09:09 AM)Fedodika Wrote: lately ive been doing some charles dana gibson studies, doing them from 15 seconds to 1 minute. Idk if youve tried that, but jeff reccomends it in his head drawing course, maybe give it a shot.
Your shapes are still bulky and the magic of the reilly rythms is coming through in a few select areas but the others feel like GAH, i wish i could just grab your head and shake this stuff into you arggh im pissed off i cant type
love you peter!
Not a bad idea. I remember doing it once or twice before but never continued with it, might make a good warm up routine as it will certainly help with mileage.
Believe me if you could cram it all into my head like that I'd pay for your flight! I beleive now my best route for improving and taking my skills to the next level would be to just do master study after master study until my shape design improves by alot (and I mean alot!).
I'm also thinknig of going back to skull studies to help with proportional errors (mostly width) and helping with the reilly rythms, again not sure if that's the best option or if there is a better way?
Sorry Fedodika got another butt ugly protrait for you. I must of been wearing beer goggles for this once becuase......yh. Completely screwed the width proportions. It was looking right until half way but then it got to the point where it would of been easier and quikcer to start a new drawing rather than trying to fix this one. That's why I'm thinking of working on skull studies to help me memorise the proportions since clearly I don't know them.
Life class
Work from the last 2 weeks. Usual 3/10 min gestures and a 40-50 min long drawing.
Composition
Mostly been working through the composition and staging master class at Watts. I'm getting fed up of just workin gon the same stuff every week and I want to spend some time tackling different areas of art that I need to learn, composiiton being one of them.
Some 3 point compositions to start and then venturing into some alphanumerical (I think that's right?) designs. Gonna get a new pencil as the one I'm currently using doesn't let me go really dark.
Sketchbooking
Been finding it tough this week to focus and get my head down into learning so I've been breaking up my studying with some more imaginative work. Gonna have to work on getting my focus back somehow....
Master Study
Started a master study this week of a Gil Elvgren piece.
I think for the next month or two atleast I want to spend my time working on master studies (both longer pieces like this one and shorter pieces focusing on certain areas like eyes, arms etc for mileage) to improve my shape design, composition, and try and fit in goauche painting aswell.
i did my take on the "butt ugly" portrait, just added my preference in eye shapes and changed some of the shadow mapping. I think the biggest issue is her skull shape, its jutting out the frontalis and her cranium is smushed like its in straight view when its more 3/4. It makes her hairline look super thin and creepy like IT the Clown from the movie. Also the shadow shapes you chose might have been accurate on the photo, but i think it isnt a good one, its rigid and pointy. I think a simpler smaller shape works better, and on her lips, always delete as many indications of age on a female.
Look how very very little the tone eric uses around the mouth and cheek area. every line ages a woman 10 years. Ive met girls who are 30 and say, "i hope i die before i get too old"
also widened out her hair shape to make it fuller and sexier. you have to start embellishing your work and stylizing to make it look more appealing. when you draw the forehead, fuck this balloon shape youre doing, where you have this like Airheads logo kinda thing going. Straight lines, angular, only use round lines for gesture or where necessary like a gastrocnemius indication. Have the circles be implied like in the reilly abstraction between the edges of the brow pivoting between the keystone. I cant tell you how mucha money shot that eyebrow thing is, get it the fuck down
None of these, indications of the cheek shadows near the crease of the nose, unless the woman is quite old. even then, dial it the fuck back.
The elvgrin piece is interesting, her (right) arm looks funky, like its too high up and the mass of the deltoid is too small. Her face is looking cute, her head is a bit big, but you are in the ballpark with her face and shape design. Elvgrin is a great influence, yours already has great lips, great eyebrows/eyelashes (nice exaggeration) nose etc. Study him lots, lots of elvgrin pinup heads till you can draw them from memory and apply those shapes to the "butt ugly" people you draw from reference ;)
(10-07-2019, 05:18 AM)Fedodika Wrote: i did my take on the "butt ugly" portrait, just added my preference in eye shapes and changed some of the shadow mapping. I think the biggest issue is her skull shape, its jutting out the frontalis and her cranium is smushed like its in straight view when its more 3/4. It makes her hairline look super thin and creepy like IT the Clown from the movie. Also the shadow shapes you chose might have been accurate on the photo, but i think it isnt a good one, its rigid and pointy. I think a simpler smaller shape works better, and on her lips, always delete as many indications of age on a female.
Look how very very little the tone eric uses around the mouth and cheek area. every line ages a woman 10 years. Ive met girls who are 30 and say, "i hope i die before i get too old"
also widened out her hair shape to make it fuller and sexier. you have to start embellishing your work and stylizing to make it look more appealing. when you draw the forehead, fuck this balloon shape youre doing, where you have this like Airheads logo kinda thing going. Straight lines, angular, only use round lines for gesture or where necessary like a gastrocnemius indication. Have the circles be implied like in the reilly abstraction between the edges of the brow pivoting between the keystone. I cant tell you how mucha money shot that eyebrow thing is, get it the fuck down
None of these, indications of the cheek shadows near the crease of the nose, unless the woman is quite old. even then, dial it the fuck back.
The elvgrin piece is interesting, her (right) arm looks funky, like its too high up and the mass of the deltoid is too small. Her face is looking cute, her head is a bit big, but you are in the ballpark with her face and shape design. Elvgrin is a great influence, yours already has great lips, great eyebrows/eyelashes (nice exaggeration) nose etc. Study him lots, lots of elvgrin pinup heads till you can draw them from memory and apply those shapes to the "butt ugly" people you draw from reference ;)
Thanks for the paint over man. :)
These butt ugly drawings are actually from life (yikes). All of my worst drawings seem to be from life and I honestly don't know why. I think it doesn't help that I'm going to these classes straight from work and don't have the time to warm up. I can get about 30 mins in of drawing during my lunch but that's about it.
As I said in my last update and just to reiterate what you said but I'm gonna spend alot of my time now working soley on master studies, both longer efforts like the full elvgren pin up and shorter ones which I've mainly been doing on work, working on sections of a master study such as the features until I can start ingraining their shape design into my head and start utilising in my own work.
I was unexpectedly swamped last week in work which cut into the amount of free time that I normally have to work on my art. Hopefully things will be back to normal this week.
Only a quick update as I haven't gotten around to taking pictures of my work.
Still working through the composition and staging workbooks from Watts. Robert Watts makes it look so easy with his drawings that it's almost criminal. It's really kicking my ass but that just means it's one of my (many) weak areas.
Started working on some Elvgren studies in work, started with the eyes and will work my way through the features and then either start again or pick a new artist to study.
Should have time tomorrow to take the pics and post.
Master Study
As I said in one of my last posts I wanted to work on improving my painting skills which is what I've been focusing on today. Completed this head study, again from one of elvgrens pin ups on Saturday. I was planning on paiting it on the same day but it took me much longer to complete than I thought. I must confess that I had to tweak my drawing in photoshop, the shape design was correct but my proportions (mainly the height of the head and height of the eyes) where off.
Used the Watts full pallette for this one and completed it in gouache on illustration board as I want to work on my tiling. Messed up on the cheek closest to her earing aswell as her hair and looking at it now I have her mouth in the wrong posiiton. How did I miss that?. I plan on doing one of these a week until I have a full page done and then either do more studies from Elvgren or focus on another artist.
well good try id say, theres a lot of small things that arent helping the elvgrin girl
For one the originals eyebrows are both thicker and a different shape, her outermose brow in yours has a horizontal slant and in the reference its a hard diagonal. For your cheeck, its bumpy and large near the jaw area, which looks masculine, and hers has that devilishly subtle curve that makes it look feminine.
The way you drew her jaw is jutting out and elvgrins is again that devilishly soft jawline which is super important for young pretty women. You should refine her eyes more, the lashes have no volume, and i can see how you think thats the right shape but you need to fool with the edges on the lashes a bit to make them look less thin.
Also her nose should be smaller, your nose could overlap her eye, which in the original, the nose could not overlap the eye.. but yea, try to touch that up in photoshop just to see if you can do it with every tool at your disposal that lets you be flexible just to see yourself make a pretty face; even if it takes hours or days, those subtle things will go a long way to helping your future efforts not suffer these little "butt ugly" booboos
(10-15-2019, 10:56 PM)Fedodika Wrote: well good try id say, theres a lot of small things that arent helping the elvgrin girl
For one the originals eyebrows are both thicker and a different shape, her outermose brow in yours has a horizontal slant and in the reference its a hard diagonal. For your cheeck, its bumpy and large near the jaw area, which looks masculine, and hers has that devilishly subtle curve that makes it look feminine.
The way you drew her jaw is jutting out and elvgrins is again that devilishly soft jawline which is super important for young pretty women. You should refine her eyes more, the lashes have no volume, and i can see how you think thats the right shape but you need to fool with the edges on the lashes a bit to make them look less thin.
Also her nose should be smaller, your nose could overlap her eye, which in the original, the nose could not overlap the eye.. but yea, try to touch that up in photoshop just to see if you can do it with every tool at your disposal that lets you be flexible just to see yourself make a pretty face; even if it takes hours or days, those subtle things will go a long way to helping your future efforts not suffer these little "butt ugly" booboos
Thanks for the detailed response, didn't realise that I made so many little mistakes! God I don't understand why drawing attractive females is so hard for me. Care to hit me over the head with a stick until it clicks?
I like your suggestion btw, I'll give it ago in photoshop tomorrow.
I've been bogged down with work again so I haven't really had the time to post. Think my day job is finally starting to take a toll on me, I never used to mind what I do but now I'm starting to dread going into work and coming home stressed constantly. I hope it passes as it's starting to affect me working on my art, perhaps I'm just having a bad couple of weeks?
Portrait class
Work from the past 2 weeks from the model. I'm trying to incorporate what I'm learning from the Elvgren studies but I think it's gonna take awhile before it sinks in. I started to render the second drawing but rushed it and it looks terrible. I'm just going to stick to working on my lay ins and making them look as nice as possible.
Both are 1hour 30mins each.
Life Class
Wednesday classes have started again. Same pose for 3 weeks in 3 hour sessions. I was hoping to get a finished drawing done in the first session but the lay in was taking me much longer than I thought. I like how the face came out in the end but the body not so much but I need to work on my anatomy if I want to see any improvement in that regard.
Spent about 2hours 30mins on the lay in and the same on the rendering.
Sketchbook
Been working in my sketchbook more for a change.
An orc from imagination (trying to draw from my imagination more as it's something I need to work on)
Took Fedodika's advice in regards to head quick sketch. These are from Charles Dana Gibson with each head being 1 minute.
Master studies of Elvgren's features
Arm anatomy
Watts Live Streaming
Watts classes started again. I'm signed up to two (20 min fig lay in and head drawing) but I've only done the homework for the figure lay in class so far.
First week was focusing on the big lay-in with an emphasis on using c s i.
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![[Image: erik_head_2_2.jpg]](http://www.erikgist.com/images/erik_head_2_2.jpg)
