Hi fellow artists. This week was filled with head studies, and I really enjoyed it. I also practiced my gesture drawing and perspective skills, but the main focus of this week was the human head. Here's my work:
Imma do things a bit differently in this post - instead of organizing my work by each day, I will categorize it based on what I am trying to practice. I will still organize my work chronologically as well as include the date. Let me know if you guys prefer this format or not.
Gesture Drawings (60 & 120 seconds):
FORCE Studies (unlimited time):
1/24/23
1/28/23
1/29/23 (I drew from observation first, then traced)
Perspective practice (drew animals with volumes; tracing came after copying):
1/27/23
1/28/23
1/29/23
Head studies (from Andrew Loomis book):
Portraits:
1/25/23
Observation: drew eyebrows above the eyebrow line
1/26/23
Observations: overall, it looks pretty good to me - maybe the nose is a bit too wide
1/27/23
Observations: The mouth looks off - the front teeth seem to protrude and the lips look unnaturally sharp
1/29/23
Observations: Can't find anything that stands out, though it should be mentioned that this piece took me about an hour and a half
Key Takeaways:
- Gesture drawing is definitely not my strong suit. I need to conduct more FORCE studies, not necessarily more gesture drawings (i.e., quality over quantity).
- The eyebrows should extend around the front plane of the face and end where the side planes begin per Loomis. In some of my head studies, especially before Plate 8, I drew the eyebrows wrapping around BOTH the front and side planes which is not necessarily wrong, but it just doesn't follow Loomis's method.
- Most if not all of my portraits took me more than an hour to complete. I believe that this is way too long considering I'm just sketching, not even shading or adding color. I think the problem lies in that I am too much of a perfectionist (i.e., I try to get every line to be perfect). Going forward, I will work towards rectifying this behavior by setting time limits on my portraits (max of an hour).
- Drawing portraits w/ the photo reference right next to me is really helpful. Now, I don't know if I should be drawing the lines from my reference to my drawing before I get started or after I finish. Thus far, I have been doing it AFTER I finish my piece so I can check my drawing for accuracy rather than relying on those lines (as that seems too much of a handicap). What do you guys think?
Next Week's Commitments:
- Finish Plate 9 and get started on Plates 10-16 (this was the plan for the past week but the head studies in Loomis's book are not that easy, so I rather not rush through them).
- Conduct FORCE studies each day and focus on 120-sec gesture drawings only. Once I am comfortable with the 120-sec time frame, then go back to 60-sec poses. I think this is the best way to improve my gesture drawings, but if y'all can think of a better way, please let me know.
- Continue my perspective studies by drawing volumes, but reference machinery instead of animals. Aim for 3 pieces.
- Draw portraits each day in under an hour (from real life and fiction).
