Ash - Art School Journey - Art Center / Art School - Forums

dangras-almeida · Jun '20

Hello there!

Thank you for the kind words, but I had nothing to do with it. You did the work! You did the practice! And the results are SUPER clear! The progress on the last gesture drawing to this one is super visible for me. All the gestures feel more loose and confident. Great job!

And I was amazed by your image reference drawing! All the shapes are really represented. I remembered it took me WEEKS to do something that good, and your first post on it already nails it. Congrats!

I don't think I see the problems you see on the buttocks (and since this image doesn't have breasts, no problem there as well 😅).

But again, one day at a time. Right now, the exercise is to train your eye to spot the angles, negative space, and shapes and transfer to something else. Having the reference really close to the actual drawing should help (I think) not rely on memory so much.

What I do sometimes (even for feature drawing) is: I keep the reference image super close to the actual drawing. Then I look right in the middle of the two pieces and use my peripheral vision to assess whether things are in the right place or not. This way I don't have to "remember" since with the peripheral vision I can almost "see the 2 things at the same time" without having to move the eyes so much. It's kinda weird explaining like this but hopefully, it makes some sense? 😅

Anyway, keep up the good work and keep the updates coming!

kodaigon.go · Jun '20

Hello @ashley.durnall1

I read your question about having trouble with misplacing the legs and arms in your gesture drawing and I used to face the same problem too!

Apart from practice, I think the problem is not knowing exactly where the shapes and sticks ( aka. landmarks of the body, it changes with the artist but it depends which one you decide to go with ), used in the gestures, are inferred from?
Below I attached, like a simple breakdown of the body from the book framed. You can use it as a guideline of where to look out for the landmarks etc. straight line for the shoulder you can infer from the person's collar bone etc.

For your gesture drawing, I don't think you need to place the landmarks exactly, but it will be good to keep a mental note about it!

I think being aware of this helped me out! I hope it will for you too!

ghostmonster · Jun '20

nice proportions built from scale

ashley.durnall1 · Jun '20

Hey all,
I'm going to make an effort to post more - I think having a goal of posting somewhere makes me want to do more to actually improve. Motivation is probably my worst obstacle.

This week's been weird - I took a break most of the week while I waited for my new tablet (XP-Pen 24 Artist Pro display tablet). I think the dual pairing of Asperger's and waiting for the delivery overwhelmed me..
Despite this, I have been doodling while I have a couple minutes at work (which isn't as bad as it seems), and have come up with a little character, which I don't have any images of yet. But for those with an internal imagination, its currently heavily inspired by Bellsprout (Pokemon) - I may have to alter it a bit more....

I have done some gesture drawings - I got down to 30 seconds!!! And they don't look terrible. I feel like this is a massive improvement and I aim to continue doing this - mainly as a warm up now I think.

The bottom right is from using my new tablet - being able to see where I'm drawing feels like it's helped. Though it's maybe not too visible in gesture drawings

Though i now wish i finished the page >.>

I've also done a couple more figure drawings:

Now I look at these on here, I feel like my lines are too thick - maybe. I don't know. I think improvement here is definitely just a case of practising and putting the time into this - anatomy included.
Due to the contrast of the reference in the bottom image I wanted to try and play with the shadows a little. It's also the first figure drawing with the display tablet, and I wanted to push myself a little. I definitely need to practise this - I haven't really experienced adding shadow/colour to my drawings - but that's something that will have to change.
The main thing I've noticed is that I'm going to struggle using my pen to measure - being so close to the drawing surface, i can't stick my arm out. But I used the ruler in PS once I'd identified my distances. That may be the tradeoff possibly.

I feel confident in my abilities so far, and think I might move onto one of the other videos in term 1. So there'll be a bit more variety in my next posts (hopefully).

I am very grateful to all the kind words and advice given here. I want to be able to spread my experiences and maybe help some other people out too - but I'm not feeling that confident yet.

ghostmonster · Jun '20

your figure and gesture drawings show a good grasp and confidence for what your seeing. keep it up

ashley.durnall1 · Jun '20

Thank you Ghostmonst3r I take full advantage of the rulers on Photoshop - without them I struggle a lot to get the measurements down.

I have a question though for anyone who can advise... How do you get past the 'wall'. I'm starting to find that going over things is starting to get less exciting and I feel like I'm reaching a point of stagnation with my learning. With gesture drawings I am trying to do them as warm ups, which keeps me doing it - but with figure drawing I'm struggling to identify how to improve. How do you identify where improvements are needed?
One place I know I need to improve is cleaner lines, but I'm not sure how to do this effectively..
I also know anatomy is a thing I should really focus on, but I am aware its covered in some of the other terms.
I am going to be moving onto perspective this week for a change up, but I want to keep practising figure drawing as well. I just don't want to start becoming bored and start sliding off the drawing wagon.

dangras-almeida · Jun '20

Hey @ashley.durnall1 ,

I would say 2 things here:
1) Don't repeat one thing too much to a point where it becomes too boring. When you feel you got the hang of something, move on to the next lesson. Or even if you didn't entirely, nothing keeps you from moving on to something and then coming back to it. It's important to manage that energy so you keep moving forward.

2) Feedback is one of the keys to learning and improving, in my opinion. Share your pieces here, at the discord channel, and ask people for feedback. It's through feedback we can start seeing things from a different perspective and we can improve. And off course keep on the daily practice.

Hope that helps 😊

ghostmonster · Jun '20

keep going with the lessons. one thing I have found is that marc has structured the classes so that many of the skills will compound on each other. by that i mean the perspective class has definitely helped me with my anatomy. you can always go back and revisit.

ashley.durnall1 · Jul '20

After my last image post, I tried a figure drawing with clothing... While it's not bad, i'm definitely not as well versed with clothes than nude figures.

I have also started the perspective video of term 1. I'll be honest, I didn't want to draw boxes in perspective due to potential boredom, but going straight into drawing rooms was super motivating. Marc is definitely very good at setting tasks that are fun.

This took me a lot longer than I really wanted, and technically it's not finished to the full extent of the reference I used (my own kitchen). But it was a lot more fun to do this. There's some areas where the picture looks flat - and i struggled to get the full extent of the third dimension - but i'm certain that indicating the light and shadow would help there.
I have a couple ideas for other perspective drawings, and i want to do some more curves.

Because this took me so long, i've not gone back to gesture and figure drawings - my fear is that i'll be back where I started (it does happen often). I'm going to try and re-motivate myself to draw in the mornings before work for recap.

As always, any critique and advise is much appreciated - I'm going to try and get more into this.

ghostmonster · Jul '20

I think your being a bit hard on yourself. I don't see any flat spots in this. there is no shading and all the perspective looks correct. Maybe the cupboards and sink could have had a bit more, but this looks good. if boxes sound boring, maybe try house hold objects, that will keep your brain in the mode of the exercise and be a bit more fun.

ashley.durnall1 · Jul '20

I do have a tendency to be overly hard on myself - it's something i've always done. With the kitchen, I purposefully stopped so I didn't burn out with it. In place of that I started another perspective drawing from imagination, which i'll be posting up at some point. I may go back to the kitchen and add in the extra bits.

Now you've mentioned it, doing random objects sounds interesting too - I might have a go at that.

I should also watch the rest of the video - I couldn't watch it all due to time constraints and I was engrossed in the two perspective drawings i've been doing.

I will try to be less hard on myself in future.

ashley.durnall1 · Jul '20

I had a pretty lax week with drawing and ended up not doing much else :c Work was particularly draining.

In light of that, I did manage to 'finish' my second perspective drawing - this time completely from imagination. There are some additional details I think I should go and add, for example the rest of the road detailing and the building in the background doesn't have any features.

I also want to redo the fencing by the small shop; I couldn't quite figure out the spacing. I didn't want to draw it on a separate layer and transform it to the shape... but i'm not quite sure how to get the spacing to look better - this version was a little more rushed.
I am a little scared i'm using too many guide lines (which is a silly fear, i know, especially while i'm still learning). Does anyone else get this?

I tried to add some shadows, but I definitely need to do some shadow studies of some sort. I could not wrap my head around it - I even tried to add some guides for it:

So as a result, I just decided to finish up there and not add more shadows... I've never done anything with values and colour, so I'm fine with it at this point. I'm not going to be a 'master' of everything straight away, and that's fine

I've still got much I want to learn.

I do think I have some issues with finishing up these things - scenery takes a lot of work, I respect background artists a whole lot more now.

One thing I realise i'm not doing is drawing 'for myself'. Every session I do is something related to the course, I only create personal things via doodles and scribbly sketches. The justification is that "I'll draw my ideas when I'm more confident".
I don't know that this is the best mindset to be in...
I have redrawn one of my only personal drawings (one that I did almost a year ago now), and it turned out pretty well.

I'm going to continue with the perspective drawings! I want to add more details and possibly fully finish what I've started. I'll be sure to keep this updated with my progress and thanks to everyone for the help and advice!!

MattD · Jul '20

Your perspective assignments look really good. I totally get the worry of using too many guidelines in a perspective drawing but when you're starting out or just struggling it's totally normal to have a ton of guidelines. If I still had some of my first attempts at the perspective I would share them because the paper was worn thin because I had drawn, erased, and redrawn so many guidelines. The shadows you have in the second image look good to me, you're definitely going in the right direction.

I did a quick drawing to demonstrate how to do the spacing on the fence. First (black lines) define where the whole fence is going to go. Second (red square) define how big the fence post and space next to it are going to be. Next (green) use the "X" to find the center and draw a line all the way through the shape. Then (purple) from the bottom corner of the red shape draw a line that goes through where the black and green lines intersect. When you get to the top draw a line down. Repeat that (blue) until you get to the point where your essentially just drawing the lines on top of each other(orange). Finally, define the size of the post and the gap between posts (olive) and draw a line all the way to the VP (also olive). when you draw a line down each time it intersects with another line you'll have both the gap and post in perspective.

Okay, that was a bit longer than I meant for it to be and sounds like a lot of steps to remember but after a while, it just becomes second nature. Perspective is a tricky subject and just about every artist I've talked to has struggled with it so don't be discouraged.

Looking forward to seeing more of your assignments in the future, and let me know if you've got any questions about the whole perspective thing.

ashley.durnall1 · Jul '20

So some life stuff happened and I couldn't work on learning
I need to strengthen my resolve to learn again - I think it's the slog of learning that gets me thinking 'oh I can do it later, i'll play video games now'.
I've not completely quit though, I have been doodling There's so much I want to draw and I do feel like a small fish in a giant ocean.
My experience will grow the more I draw! I am determined!

I took on board what @MattD showed me, which by the way has been super helpful - I think I understood all of it. I used it in the redraw of my street - most of it was tracing over my other drawing.

I copped out with the fence a bit and just drew the lines, but it's still using your method Matt!! I found it so much easier to make it look nice.
I tried to add a few details, but ultimately it's still sparse - I wanted to get a feel for the environment and practise the perspective.
The curve of the arch was super difficult - I opted for a flat bottom because I struggled to get a second curve to follow the first and keep the same distance as the pole. Though I also notice that I forgot it's 3rd dimension "-"
I used the path tool in PS to create the curve which I traced over. This made it a lot easier than just eyeballing it.
All in all - this has been successful. I don't think perspective in itself is difficult - it the details that aren't simple straight shapes that makes it difficult. Practise it be!

I did watch the video again and realised that Marc uses a lot of lines himself. Additionally, I was watching a backgrounds video from Drawfee on Youtube and a couple of them also used a load of lines to help. I think seeing professional artists do the same sort of thing reassured me a little. I know I'm very different to them in how I draw, but it's nice to see those with more experience still using these techniques

I'm hoping to at least try for consistency here, mainly for my sake. Its very useful being able to see your journey and realise that you've made progress. And the advice given and seeing other people's journeys makes it all the better. Thanks all

ashley.durnall1 · Jul '20

I've got a little more structure now! I'm doing perspective stuff on my iPad at work, and practising that there (which seems to take a long time when you have a dedicated time to stop drawing because of starting work).
At home on photoshop i've gone back to doing gesture and figure drawings, as a refresh before moving to term 2.

I've got to say, it hit me realising i'd lost some of my ability to do gesture. I'm not super happy with what i've done. But I know it's fully because I've not done any for a couple weeks (while focusing on perspective). Once I get back into it - I know that i'll figure it all out again (pun intended).

I think one of the issues I find is that the site I use to throw gestures at me has a lot of side on or foreshortened gestures and they're not too easy to represent in stick form and in 30 seconds. But they aren't turning out too badly, i'm just not sure how to test if it's going in.

Does anyone have any sort of 'self-tests' to check if things are going in?
I know that if I try to do gesture drawings on Procreate on iPad, the results are much worse because I don't have the rulers like I do on Photoshop - I cant 'see' where the lines are supposed to be, even when the image is next to where i'm drawing. Maybe this is a way of testing myself

Thanks for reading and any advice, or tips for self-testing are much appreciated.
I'm also enjoying going through other people's journeys and seeing that I'm not alone... Though i'm not very active outside of here D: I might try - but it is very intimidating as I don't feel like I can offer anyone advice at this point in my art journey.

chiara.arcidiaco · Jul '20

I feel like you when I don't practice gesture drawing for a long period hahah it's like having lost a skill
These are great stick figure, the pose is so readable. I could give you the advice to try to do maybe a minute or two to create like a "simple" figure drawing, with volumes instead of lines, it really helps understanding the basic shapes and maybe it's a bit more funny and challenging

I use the iPad for gesture drawing but usually I don't "self test" if it's good like with overlaying my drawing on the photo. Most of the times I check if my line quality is loose without hard edges and the pose is well executed, even if it's a bit exaggerated and the proportion are not perfect.

I'm not the queen of gesture drawing but I hope that could help And don't worry to comment or give advice, everybody always appreciate that Sometimes instead I feel sorry to comment to much (sorry for that hahah)

Looking forward to see your next posts on term 2!