Peter's Sketchbook

[Peter]

Here is the finished design for the poster in Photoshop, still need to add the lantern and the silhouettes inside but I'll do that in Illustrator. All i need to do now is export it to Illustrator to be inked and then coloured. Having even more issues with my tablet ....sigh, been in touch with the manufacturer and trying their suggestions but now the tablet won't work all together.

Maybe this is the right time take the plunge and get myself an Intuos Pro, had this tablet for around 3 years now and wasn't particularly expensive so maybe I could do with an upgrade.

Not sure when I'll be able to finish this now, will have to wait and see if I can get my current tablet fixed or if I buy a new one, hopefully it will be soon.

As always and feedback would be much appreciated. :)

[Peter]

Since I still can't use my tablet I thought I'd do some other stuff until I sort it out so here's a self portrait from today. 

I wanted to complete this portrait as if I was in a life drawing class so I set myself a time limit of 4 hours and drew directly using the paint rather than spending hours on a pencil under drawing since I would not have that kind of time if I were in a class.

I used the Zorn palette for this one on a 9x12 masonite board. I'm still struggling with getting my values right when painting, I find that I will paint the same area a good few times before I get the value right (or as right as I can). Definitely need to work on my colours haha and start utilizing the asaro head more, just means I need to practice more.! :)

[Peter]

Not alot today, struggling to get back into study mode, think my brain is still set to christmas mode haha. I'm going back onto my study schedule for abit until I get a new tablet and then I can finish my poster. Some perspective stuff from today. Need to plan a schedule which includes portrait, figure and perspective practice.

Need to sort out my lighting set up for when I take these photos, I have 2 lamps shining on my drawings/paintings when I do them but it doesn't seem to be enough, maybe I should look into one of those umbrellas photographers use.

[Peter]

Some skull studies from today. It's been quite awhile since I've drew the skull and the asaro head so my plan was to spend today and tomorrow refreshing my memory on them. I'm in the process of trying to be able to mount my skull to a tripod so that I can draw it from any angle with ease.

[Fedodika]

well dude those skulls look pretty cool, so i feel confused looking at those and the self portrait. It seems you can observe the skulls pretty well but maybe that knowledge doesnt carry over to the painting. Maybe do several sketches before your next self portrait and try to find the skulls underneath, see how different the proportions can look from sketch to sketch and pick one that really is worth painting.

[Peter]

well dude those skulls look pretty cool, so i feel confused looking at those and the self portrait. It seems you can observe the skulls pretty well but maybe that knowledge doesnt carry over to the painting. Maybe do several sketches before your next self portrait and try to find the skulls underneath, see how different the proportions can look from sketch to sketch and pick one that really is worth painting.

Hi Fedodika thanks for the feed back. Yh your totally right, I didn't spend too much time actually drawing it out in paint, probably spent around 10 minutes maybe and then moved onto painting it because I was timing myself. I completely forgot to put some of that skull and asaro head knowledge to use.

I'll keep what you said in mind on my next portrait painting. :)

[Peter]

Some stuff from the last few days. Finished drawing the asaro head some more from life and then had a go at testing my knowledge by re drawing the head from memory from the same angles. I feel like I got the general picture in the sense that it looks like an asaro head but got abit shakey when it came to the nose and cheek planes so I'll have to remember to focus on them next time I study from them.

My life drawing class started again which I was excited for. I was fairly pleased with my 3 min drawings (mainly the bottom left one) but not so much with the 10 min poses. I feel like I lost the gesture/energy because I thought I had more time than I actually had. Wasn't pleased with my final long(ish) pose. I seem to struggle with drawing women's faces.

Following on from my life drawing I went back to portrait practice, focusing on 15 sec and 5 min poses (I'l post the ref I used tomorrow). From these I've noticed that I need to work on my accuracy with the pencil and timing (need to get quicker). I've started work on a long portrait drawing but I've been quite ill the last 2 days so I'm gonna finish it tomorrow.

Btw I've ordered a new tablet which should arrive by the end of the week so I can finally finish the poster that I was working on.
 
I've been getting annoyed lately because I feel like I'm not improving at all, maybe it's because I'm constantly looking at my work so I can't see the improvement, I'm just worried that I'm not improving at all. But I guess all I can do is persevere. 

[Peter]

Here's the reference I used yesterday for the 5 min portraits. I'm feeling much better today so I was able to complete the portrait drawing that I started yesterday. Decided to start again on it because I wasn't happy with what I had done yesterday.

In total I spent 2.5 hours on it. It turned out much better than I thought tbh which was a pleasant surprise. :) I'm still seeing some issues with general accuracy and value control (not pleased with how the wrinkles on the forehead turned out), and I really need to learn of a good way to draw hair haha. I really need to make the time to start incorporating these longer studies/finished pieces into my routine. 

[Fedodika]

id reccomend just laying your sketch on top of the reference in photoshop and seeing all the differences from like how sunk in your indication of the eye on his far right side is. Try just measuring for line drawings for a while it should help much more than trying to shade and render everything

[Peter]

id reccomend just laying your sketch on top of the reference in photoshop and seeing all the differences from like how sunk in your indication of the eye on his far right side is. Try just measuring for line drawings for a while it should help much more than trying to shade and render everything

That'a a good idea actually, I'll try it with my last drawing and see where I went wrong so I can focus on that next time. I was thinking of just practicing head lay-ins since I can get quite a few of them done in the time it would take to render 1 drawing. Thanks again. :)

[Peter]

Here's what I've been working on the last few days. Started working through Proko's figure drawing course again to help me improve my figure drawing so did some bean practice from some of his model packs aswell as 2 minute gesture drawings. I also re watched Jeff Watts lay in videos and tried applying the principles so far from the both of them in my life drawing class which I think helped alot. 

I've noticed I having some issues with the gesture sometimes for the body and quite alot for the legs, can't seem to figure it out.

My new tablet arrived yesterday so I mostly messed around with it yesterday, setting it up and playing with the features.
I could finally correct my asaro head drawings from memory that I did. I'm getting the general likeness but i'm messing up when it comes to the shapes of the planes in a few areas such as the nose and eyes but atleast I know where I need to focus my attention next time.

Spent today working on inking my poster design (finally), it's definitely gonna take me a few days to complete since I've never done it before  and will continue working on it tomorrow. 

[IrishWhiskey]

I'm really enjoying your recent posts! you have such talent and everything your doing is like a reminder of what i have to do.

Keep it up! I love it

[Peter]

I'm really enjoying your recent posts! you have such talent and everything your doing is like a reminder of what i have to do.

Keep it up! I love it

Hey IrishWhiskey how are you? Thanks alot man, that means alot to me! :)

[Peter]

Progress on the poster design. Once I finish this poster I should definitely practice some inking haha.

[Fedodika]

do you have a reference for this? her eyes seem to be lopsided and the way her nostrils flare up seems odd

[Peter]

do you have a reference for this? her eyes seem to be lopsided and the way her nostrils flare up seems odd

Yh I was using reference that I shot of myself  in a similar pose. I had alot of issues drawing the nose, re drew it a bunch of times but still can't seem to fix it. Didn't notice the eye, thanks for pointing it out.

[Peter]

Apologies for not posting in awhile, got really stressed out last week (think I've been pushing all my worries to the back of my mind) and decided to take the rest of the week off and try and relax, but I'm back now. :)

First thing are some drawings from my portrait class from last week and last night, first page was from last week and I don't know why I struggled so much with it seeing as it was a straight on view, think I was just stressed. I keep on getting caught up in the little details and not focusing on the drawing as a whole.

Drew some heads from imagination which didn't go too well, I keep making the features look cartoonish, especially the eyes and definitely drawing the mouth too big so I need to be aware of those mistakes next time.

Starting this week I've been working through the Proko figure drawing series, attempted the robo bean but struggles with it so I thought maybe focusing on the regular bean might help me.

















I've still been working on my poster design but I've hot a brick wall and was hoping someone here knew how to sort it out? I tried changing the line colour but as you can see in the picture it doesn't seem to do it well. I had my drawing on about 3 layers, I combined them to 1 layer and grouped all the paths together (using Illustrator btw) and when I changed the colour it became all butchered and distorted. I have no prior experience with Illustrator so I don't know how to fix it.     

[Peter]

Some stuff mainly from Thursday/Friday. I was hoping to get alot done over the weekend but I've been busy taking care of other things so didn't have a whole lot of time.

Still working through the Proko figure drawing course and plan to start working through his anatomy course again this week. The 2 minute gesture drawings are from photos (which I've been doing as warm ups) and the other poses are from my weekly life drawing class.

I've ordered a book on screen printing so I'm hoping that will help me understand the process and what the hell is wrong with my current poster haha.

Just a quick note starting tomorrow I will be doing extra hours at work (for the foreseeable future) so I'm switching my life drawing class to a Monday and continuing my portrait class on a Tuesday so I probably won't be able to post till Wednesday since I get back late on those 2 days. 

[darktiste]

Think about the squeezing and the bending of the body one side squeeze and one side bend.The more the pose is unbalanced the more extreme is the squeeze or the bend
I see you doing the robo bean so i guess you aware of that.
That just my 2 cent for to day.

[Peter]

Think about the squeezing and the bending of the body one side squeeze and one side bend.The more the pose is unbalanced the more extreme is the squeeze or the bend
I see you doing the robo bean so i guess you aware of that.
That just my 2 cent for to day.

Hey Darktiste thanks for the comment, yh I'm aware of it but it's another to actually implement it haha. I just need to practice it more since I feel like they are still quite stiff.